Fashion as Work: The Implications of Imperialism

Fashion is often considered a passive, leisurely activity; yet, when understanding the capitalist and colonialist implications that allow fashion to exist, it allows for a complete understanding of the structures in place. Consumers are often unaware of the labor-intensive practice and violence that surrounds such materials as basic as cotton and indigo. There is a disconnect between the materials and their colonialist and capitalist implications that allows the consumer to believe fashion is a leisurely activity, rather than built off of the backs of enslaved and exploited people. In addition, the roots of colonialism and capitalism within fashion continue benefitting imperialist countries such as the US and England. Specifically looking at the production of indigo and cotton, one can better comprehend how imperialistic practices in place have dominated the industry and have not only contributed to societal inequalities and ecological costs but have altered the discourse of fashion to exclude such laborious and exploitative practices.

To begin, cotton is undeniably one of the most used materials in the fashion industry and arguably the most violent. Yet, Sven Beckert writes in Empire of Cotton, “Cotton is as familiar as it is unknown” (Beckert xii). These dichotomies that exist within cotton is due to its colonialist past and the war capitalism that surrounds the good. Beginning with the slave trade, cotton became profitable and created clear societal distinctions. The Western powers that profited off of cotton and slavery were able to through means of imperialist actions and imposing such structures by exerting their economic power against countries in mostly Africa. Beckert argues that “enterprising entrepreneurs and powerful statesmen in Europe recast the world’s most significant manufacturing industry by combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers” (Beckert xi). Beckert offers that in Europe, specifically England in the 1860s, was able to dominate the growth and manufacture of cotton globally.

Beckert coins the term ‘war capitalism’ as the exploitation of labor and skills through assertion and sovereignty over people and land. England was able to exert such violence due to their economic standpoint and power, ultimately consuming and exploiting land as well. Yet, while this idea of war capitalism is pertinent to the times of slavery and work on land rather than in a factory, it still haunts our modern understanding of how industrial capitalism is pertinent to the fashion industry. The economic benefits of raw materials like cotton are in the hands of those who have the power to perpetrate violence and control who is doing the labor and the laborers’ improperly low wages, which still resonates true in the space of the factory today. While cotton is the base of most fast fashion products and most likely makes up a great percentage of the average consumer’s closet, there is a distance between the material and the good. Without reflecting on the war capitalism that allows the consumer to purchase the good, there is an ignorance that continues to supply the system.

In a similar fashion, indigo, like cotton, is a raw material that is often not understood by its labor intensiveness, nor its societal and ecological inequality that derives from its roots in colonialism and capitalism. In Redeeming Indigo, Michael Taussig argues that there is a distance that exists between the good and the practice. It should be understood that indigo is as much of a commodity as it is a demanding process. Taussig writes that color can’t be easily separated from spices and substance (Taussig 4). Thus, it should be realized that the consumers’ desires for a certain fabric or color are embedded in a larger system, one that perpetrates wage inequality and violence. Taussig continue by writing that, “To produce an 8-ounce cake of dried indigo required some 2000 square feet of Bengali land” (Taussig 5). The amount of land that is exploited in order to achieve such minimal product is exhausting resources from countries that have suffered at the hands of colonialism. He continues describing the process, writing, “Sheaves of indigo plants 6 feet long were crushed and placed overnight in vats of clear river water where they were steeped for 10-12 hours, depending on the temperature of the warm night air” (Taussig 5).

Taussig makes clear that not only is the production of indigo rooted in the imperialistic approach to consuming land, but it requires intense labor that is highly skilled. While indigo is highly valued, its workers are taken advantage by those who profit from exploiting land and labor practices.

In both cotton and indigo production, the surveyors or those in power overseeing the process are actually the unskilled and do not have the knowledge to produce such essential goods. Thus, they choose to demean those with these skills by way of class distinctions in order to assert dominance. Jean Comaroff offers in “The Empire’s Old Clothes: Fashioning the Colonial Subject” a study of how the English interacted with the Southern Tswana in terms of dress. The nakedness of the people caused major anxiety that the English managed by creating distinction and asserting control by clothing. He writes,

Clothes bore with them the threads of a macroeconomy; they were a ready-made means of engaging indigenous peoples in the colonial market in goods and labour. Such processes reveal, then, how the mantle of wider politico—economic forces came to rest on individual persons, redefining them as bearers of a store-bought identity

(Comaroff 36).

Comaroff suggests that the movement to clothe South Africans was never just about the dressed or the undressed but more about instituting a new world view and order. Dress is a tool that allows colonialism and capitalism to not only persist but to prosper and ultimately continue benefitting those who established such structures. While Comaroff is referencing European colonialism in the early 19th century, these systems still function today and not only exploit land and underpaid laborers but aid in segregating those who produce by labor from those who consume as leisure.

Through understanding the labor practices and colonialist evils that surround the production of cotton and indigo, arguably the most common materials in fashion, then the consumer can attribute fashion to be a more laborious practice. While consuming may feel like play and leisure, this mindset allows the unjust structures to continue without any reparations. While a single consumer cannot change the hundreds of years of colonialism and capitalism, Taussig offers,

We need also to bear in mind that to transgress is not only to lift a taboo temporarily but to feel its weight, charged with the conflictual and exciting currents societies muster when taboos are put to the test. Then the whole world looks different, as does the language attempting to describe this state. Hence more sharp cries and songs (Taussig 13).

To attempt to feel the weight of the cotton that makes up one’s t-shirt or the indigo dye in one’s dress is a step in which the dialogue surrounding fashion will correctly reflect the labor required. The acknowledgment of laborers is important, but as a society, there needs to be reflection on how such structural systems like capitalism and colonialism have garnered materials such as cotton and indigo to be so accessible to Europe and the United States. Dismantling these structures is complicated but by educating consumers that our products still come from slavery and violence, land exploitation and racially targeted laborers, the discourse surrounding fashion can offer a broader, more complete sense of what actually allows us to consume.

Fashion is labor; while it may feel distant and removed, it is the responsibility of the consumer to question how their dress is made, where its materials originate and how they are produced. By referencing the violence and slavery past of cotton and indigo, one can see how this violence and bodily coercion of highly skilled laborers still exists in today’s world and how the discourse of fashion as leisure seems to negate their skill and value.

Sources:

Beckert, Sven. “Introduction” Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 2014, pp xi-xxii.

Comaroff, Jean, “The Empire’s Old Clothes: Fashioning the Colonial Subject” Cross-cultural

Consumption: Global Markets, Local Realities, David Howes, ed. New York:

Routledge, 1996

Taussig, Michael. “Redeeming Indigo.” Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 25, no. 3, May 2008, pp.

1–15.