The Fashion Industry As a Slippery Discursive Site: Tracing the Lines of Flight Between Problem and Intervention
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THE FASHION INDUSTRY AS A SLIPPERY DISCURSIVE SITE: TRACING THE LINES OF FLIGHT BETWEEN PROBLEM AND INTERVENTION Nadia K. Dawisha A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Communication in the College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2016 Approved by: Patricia Parker Sarah Dempsey Steve May Michael Palm Neringa Klumbyte © 2016 Nadia K. Dawisha ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Nadia K. Dawisha: The Fashion Industry as a Slippery Discursive Site: Tracing the Lines of Flight Between Problem and Intervention (Under the direction of Dr. Patricia Parker) At the intersection of the glamorous façade of designer runway shows, such as those in Paris, Milan and New York, and the cheap prices at the local Walmart and Target, is the complicated, somewhat insidious “business” of the fashion industry. It is complicated because it both exploits and empowers, sometimes through the very same practices; it is insidious because its most exploitative practices are often hidden, reproduced, and sustained through a consumer culture in which we are all in some ways complicit. Since fashion’s inception, people and institutions have employed a myriad of discursive strategies to ignore and even justify their complicity in exploitative labor, environmental degradation, and neo-colonial practices. This dissertation identifies and analyzes five predicaments of fashion while locating the multiple interventions that engage various discursive spaces in the fashion industry. Ultimately, the analysis of discursive strategies by creatives, workers, organizers, and bloggers reveals the existence of agile interventions that are as nuanced as the problem, and that can engage with disciplinary power in all these complicated places. By shining a light on these agile interventions that are employed by various actors in the industry, my hope is that this project will help to clarify these murky spaces and pave a way forward for change within the fashion industry and beyond. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to first thank my advisor, Dr. Patricia Parker, whose infinite patience, wisdom, and support kept me grounded, focused and determined during my entire PhD process. Without her, I would never have started this project, nor would I have finished it. She has an intellect that is extraordinarily flexible, and a humanity that is both humble and kind. Her academic work, advocacy service, and leadership roles are awe-inspiring and have modeled for me the kind of scholar I can only hope to emulate. I would like to thank Dr. Sarah Dempsey for helping direct the research on worker speaker tours in my first semester that laid the groundwork for this project; Dr. Michael Palm for his intuitive understanding of my interests in fashion and immaterial labor and encouraging me to pursue them in his course; Dr. Steve May for his courses on Foucault and CSR that helped to ground the theoretical underpinnings of this project; and Dr. Neringa Klumbyte, my external examiner, who gave generously of her time to read and make valuable comments on this project. I would also like to thank Vilma Berg and Kimberly Yingling for their tremendous support they have given me during this entire PhD process – which has at times been daunting and exhausting. Knowing that they were there to advocate for me in the department when I had a problem or question helped to keep my confidence intact. I would like to thank my beloved parents, whose loving support and intellectual guidance I will forever be indebted to; my brother Emile, whose humor helped infuse this process with some much-needed perspective; and my cousin Whitney, whose own iv circuitous path to a successful post-law school career inspired me to be creative and flexible in my own journey. There are so many friends whose infinite support and patience proves the legitimacy of the mantra “it takes a village.” Dr. Anne Whisnant, thank you for your incredible guidance in helping me forge my own, unique path in pursuing (and completing) my degree. Kathleen Morton, thank you for all of the time you spent helping me carve out my own little space in the blogosphere, which ultimately became an important part of this project. To my dear friends in my program whose pep talks, advice and laughter I will forever be grateful for: Janel Beckham, Cameron Ayres, Shannon Lerner, Wayne Rysavy, and Srinath Jayaram, you are amazing people and even better friends. To others who have supported me throughout this process: Deborah Bird, Carmela Mager, Andrew Nowosad, Martha Delafield and Suzanne Wolfe, thank you for keeping me healthy and grounded. I would like to thank four academics (two of whom were also interviewed for this project) who demonstrated to me that my work could have relevancy beyond the ivory tower: Dr. Jessica Metcalfe, Dr. Adrienne Keene, Dr. Mimi Nguyen, and Dr. Minh-Ha T. Pham. Thank you for your brilliant academic (but accessible!) blogging that helped pave the path for mine. Finally, to all of the amazing people who generously gave me their time and trust by allowing me to interview them, I owe you my deepest gratitude. Your work to transform the fashion industry is truly inspiring and this project would not have happened without your valuable insights that helped to shape both the intellectual underpinnings of this dissertation and my advocacy work as a community organizer. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One. Introduction………………………………………………………………...1 I. A Problem of Intervention………………………………………………...1 II. Theoretical Framework……………………………………………………3 III. Fashion as a Slippery Discursive Site……………………………………10 IV. Contemporary Predicaments of Fashion…………………………………13 V. Literature Review………………………………………………………...26 VI. Research Questions………………………………………………………40 VII. Methodology……………………………………………………………..41 VIII. Overview of Chapters……………………………………………………46 Chapter Two. The History of Fashion: Birth, Marketing and Globalization…................48 I. Introduction …………………………………………………………………...48 II. The Creation of Fashion:...……………………..…………………………….51 III. The Rise of Haute Couture.………………………………………….............59 IV. Artisan trade guilds and textile factories ...………………………………….69 V. The Marketing of Fashion……………………………………………………78 VI. Ready to Wear……………………………………………………………….83 VII. Fashion Knock-Offs……….………………………………………………..85 VIII. Advertising…………………………………………………………………93 IX. The Production of Fashion...…………………………………………………98 vi Chapter Three. Fashion as a Site for Constituting and Re-Articulating the Digital Media Complex……...……………………………………………………...102 I. Introduction…………………………………………………………………..102 II. Advertising: From Magazines to Television………………………………...103 III. Product Placement and Television………………………………………….112 IV. The case of Gossip Girl…………………………… …………………………..115 V. The Blogosphere.……………………………………………………………119 VI. Fashion Blogging…………………………………………………………...124 Chapter Four. Labor in the Fashion Industry…………………………………………...138 I. Introduction: Framing the Problem…………………………..........................138 II. Industry Always Rebels: On the Persistent Rise of Sweatshops…………....142 III. Advocacy Strategies against Sweatshops.………………………………….151 A. United Students Against Sweatshops……………………………………. 153 B. Alta Gracia.......................................................................................... 161 C. Bangladesh Factory Accord……………………………………………… 167 D. Worker’s Sweatshops Tours……………………………………………… 173 E. Fair Trade………………………………………………………………….. 179 F. “Made in the U.S”………………………………………………………… 187 G. Blogger Interventions…………………………………………………….. 193 H. Fashion Revolution Week….….…………………………………………. 205 IV. Conclusion……………………………………………………….................215 Chapter Five. ‘Eco-Fashion’: Fashion’s Environmental Footprint…………………….218 I. Introduction……………………………..........................................................218 vii II. Eco-Fashion’s Dilemma.…………………………………………….............221 III. Fashion Sustainability History……………………………………………...232 IV. Debate over Fiber…………………………………………………………..246 V. Labeling/Certification……………………………………………………….253 VI. Greenwashing………………………………………………………………259 VII. Shop for a Cause……………………………………………………..........270 VIII. Can Corporate Interventions produce change………………...…………..281 IX. Conclusion…………………………………………………………….........298 Chapter Six. “It’s just a headdress”: Fashion and Appropriation……………………....300 I. Introduction………….……………………………………………………….300 II. History of Cultural Appropriation…………………………………...............302 III. The Issue of Intellectual Property…………………………………..............308 IV. Cultural Appropriation: Capitalizing on Otherness for Profit……………...313 V. Native Fashion Appropriation…………………………………………….....319 Chapter Seven. Conclusion……………………………………………………………..346 Works Cited.…………………………………………………………………………....358 viii Chapter One Introduction I. A Problem of Intervention I haven’t been in a Gap since I was sixteen. As a teenager growing up during the height of the anti-sweatshop movement in the late nineties, I became incensed reading stories about young people my age who were laboring in factories far away to make my clothes. As a sophomore in high school, I founded a chapter of Free the Children, a youth-centered organization started by a thirteen-year old Canadian, who wanted to fight child labor globally while encouraging civic engagement among young people. I became invested in changing my local and global community—organizing both hunger drives for at-risk children in Washington D.C. and petition