Latest news with #OrFoundation
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘We Have to Stop Romanticizing' Systemic Challenges Secondhand Markets Face
In the wake of fires in Ghana's Kantamanto Market and Los Angeles that devastated local communities and resulted in the deaths of at least two people, Liz Ricketts made a plea to the audience at the Sourcing Journal Sustainability Summit—'We have to stop romanticizing.' Ricketts, co-founder and executive director at The Or Foundation, called the Kantamanto fire 'a supply chain disaster' with more than 60 percent of the secondhand clothing market having been destroyed, directly impacting 10,000 vendors working the trade. More from Sourcing Journal New Report Makes Case for Expanding Textile Recycling in Pakistan Eileen Fisher Renews Secondhand Clothes with Indigo Steering Circularity Amid Not-So-Sustainable Policy Shifts The nonprofit Or Foundation has already distributed more than $1.5 million in direct relief to individuals impacted in Kantamanto. The firm works heavily with the community surrounding the market and carries a mission to identify and establish alternatives to the pitfalls plaguing fashion's current business model including overproduction and greenwashing. But even with the assistance the foundation provides, the fashion industry needs to pay more attention to the health of these markets, she said. 'It's unfortunate that we still don't view secondhand markets and the secondhand economy as part of the supply chain, because it is essential to the transition to circularity,' said Ricketts in a panel discussion moderated by Jasmin Malik Chua, sourcing and labor editor at Sourcing Journal. The panel itself was focused on the topic of overproduction, which IE New York College (IENYC) program director Michelle Gabriel noted had a 'fraught' relationship with overconsumption. Since growth ultimately determines the success of American businesses, the industry is now too dependent on consumption-driven factors like trends, she argued. 'We have entire extremely profitable portions of the sector, businesses like Ross or T.J. Maxx that monetize that overproduction. So we're reinforcing these feedback loops that are predicated on these growth models,' Gabriel said. 'Consumers are purchasing overwhelmingly to craft identity, to belong, to satiate desire. Companies are obviously incentivized to produce and drive consumption because they need to be profitable.' Gabriel said there was a glaring case for a new approach to the speed of fashion production. She channeled Harvard Business School professor and economist Michael Porter, who created the 'five forces' framework for businesses analyzing competition, saying that if there isn't one entity that wins the low-cost game, ultra-fast-fashion brands are effectively incentivized to overproduce goods to compete to make sales. 'We're all living in that reality. If we are pursuing the same business models, we cannot compete with that race to the bottom,' Gabriel said. That race to the bottom is undermining our ability to exist.' The current market conditions necessitate a return to degrowth, or ideating that concept within the retail business model, according to Gabriel. Ricketts pointed to a fatal human flaw in the 'volumes over value' business model, noting that its current problems aren't just impacting places like Kantamanto. Bluntly, she pointed the finger at one problem: the overproduction business model is successful if everyone along the value chain is not paid enough. 'We are exploiting people all along the value chain to make this possible, garment workers, people who are making the clothes, as well as the communities that I work with in Kantamanto,' said Ricketts. She argued that the low pay means there is no longer enough embedded value in product, an example which has led to the collapse of Kantamanto over the past 10 years. 'A 'volumes over value' business model means that a shirt that is purchased here no longer has enough value for someone to think it's worth it to put a button back on it. So how does that garment have enough value to fund the collection, repair, sorting, export, resorting, preparation for reuse, resale? It does not,' Ricketts said. As a result, more workers are feeling the adverse conditions, further calling into question the sustainability of overproduction in fashion. In Kantamanto, there is no longer enough funding to subsidize the rehabilitation of the lower quality items, which is resulting in many of the sellers, namely single mothers going into debt to importers, banks and family members. To close the panel, Ricketts expressed her disillusionment with the general attitude outsiders may have to supply chain disasters such as those in Kantamanto and Los Angeles, even if much of the sentiment may be coming from an empathetic place. She noted how people often refer to people as resilient in the Global South, 'as if it is a character trait.' 'I am retiring the word resilience. I am sick of hearing that word,' said Ricketts. 'we're judging how well someone struggled in a way that made us not have to be uncomfortable…We have to stop excusing things that are systemically challenging, and yes, we can focus on resilient structures, which is what we're doing. But let's stop judging how someone who is in a difficult position survives a crisis like this.'
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
In the Fashion Industry, Gender-Based Violence Can Be Part of the Job
Getty Images This story discusses sexual assault and gender-based violence. 'Just because I carry it well doesn't mean it's not heavy.' This saying is emblazoned on tie-dye T-shirts worn by dozens of young women working in Accra, Ghana. They are the Kayayei, a term used for female head porters who carry large, often dangerously heavy, loads of clothing on their heads through the narrow pathways of resell markets. Many of these women come from around the country to work in the city's thriving secondhand centers. 'No matter how heavy it is, they carry it,' says Hajara Musah Chambas, who goes by Nabia, of the Or Foundation. If these women were to split bundles to try to lighten the load, she explains, they would lose money. 'She's not going to be able to pay her rent.' Over time, the weight of the clothing can cause permanent damage to the spine and complications can lead to death. The phrase on their shirts is both a literal reference to the work of a head porter and a metaphor: The load many of these women carry, especially the younger ones, is more than just their livelihoods. Because of their vulnerable housing situation, where they live in homes with no locks or bathrooms, they are often subject to violence from landlords and other men. 'The kind of trauma these women are carrying in addition to the weight is [wild]," says Nabia. "Sometimes you talk to them, and they're just like, 'Hmm' — they don't have anything to say to you. They can't even express how they feel because no one even takes a second to understand.' This is just one of the many examples of gender-based violence that permeates the fashion industry. For consumers, the industry promises to help you feel your best; for workers, it's a better life and a way to provide; and for models, it's upward mobility and adjacency to a glamorous world. But as with many vows, the promises fashion makes to millions of people around the world are fraught. And for the young women who prop up every segment of the fashion industry, those promises are often completely broken. From the production of clothing to the marketing of products to their polluting end, young women in the most vulnerable positions are not protected by the industry that is making billions off their work. Cameron Russell, model and author of How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone, likens this problem to consent. In each position — whether models, Kayayei, or garment workers — can you truly consent to something when you are told one thing but experience something else, something completely exploitative? 'I started modeling when I was 16 and was always surprised by the strange duality of the success I experienced," Russell tells Teen Vogue. "While on the one hand I was getting bigger, more lucrative jobs, the expectation as I rose in the ranks was to go with the flow. Play the part. Conform. Please. Be grateful and nothing else.' Russell continues, 'Experiencing this 'success' myself was so jarring at first that it led to my curiosity about why the fashion industry — which, by appearances, seems to celebrate femininity, women, and even expansive expressions of gender — felt that it also relied heavily on a very silent, gendered workforce.' On the clothing production side, 80% of 60 million garment workers worldwide are women, and in some of the largest producing countries, like Bangladesh, that number can be higher. These workers — who produce the clothes for your favorite fashion brands — make well below a living wage and are often subjected to subpar working conditions. These workers are also the system's base, but they are not represented in management, where men hold the majority of positions in most factories. This unequal dynamic has led to a culture of gender-based violence that is often used in retaliatory ways. In a 2018 study of Cambodian garment workers, 87% of workers said they experienced verbal harassment or unwanted touching based on their gender. In Indonesia, the same year, 71% said they experienced gender-based violence at work. And it isn't just the positions often hidden by the industry that are subject to this system. We often think of big names like Gigi Hadid when we picture fashion models, but in reality many models are still teenagers who have moved away from their families and gone into debt in pursuit of a big break. This leads to scenarios where models don't have protection or the power to push back on objectification. In a 2020 study published by the Model Alliance, half of the models surveyed about their experience at New York Fashion Week said they were subject to 'invasive photography and on some occasions, changing-room photos were circulated via social media without their consent.' 'I think it's very convenient that the industry says, 'Look, all these women chose this job,'' Russell says. 'Well, in Bangladesh, 90% of export earnings come from ready-made garments — there aren't many alternatives. And in the United States, we're all inside pretty broken systems, so no matter what, we will have to try to change things from inside.' That is exactly the kind of coalition building among people throughout the fashion industry that, with amplification, can create shifts. Models like Russell and Sara Ziff have raised awareness of the issues on their side, creating legislation such as the Fashion Workers Act, which protects models from exploitative practices and recently became law in New York State. Now organizers are working together to push for transparency throughout the industry so that, at every step, there is a path to fight back, specifically by holding brands accountable for the gender disparity that happens at every level of the business. In a report published by Asia Floor Wage Alliance and Global Labor Justice, organizations that represent the interests of workers, they highlighted the importance of brands that will support them in fighting back. In 2022, for example, the Dindigul Agreement was created and signed by H&M to address issues in the factories where it produces garments. Similarly, organizations like Billoomi Fashion, a private-label clothing manufacturer, have committed to ethical production and fair treatment of their workers up front — an important step to shift norms in the industry. '[The more] we realize how core fashion is to sustaining ourselves and others, the more of it we reclaim from the industry,' Russell says, '[including] the strength of workers' movements and their attention to gender — and the way we see women leading and caring for one another in almost all the successful efforts to build a healthy fashion ecosystem.' Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue Read more stories in Teen Vogue's The Last Stop package: The Teen Vogue Sustainable Fashion and Beauty Glossary Too Much Shopping Could Be Hurting Your Mental Health What Really Happens to Your Used Clothing In the Fashion Industry, Gender-Based Violence Can Be Part of the Job
