"CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN"

When Mark Twain stated that "clothes make the man," he meant to criticize a society he considered superficial, vapid and shallow. Yet almost a hundred years after his death, his statement holds even more weight and rings even more true now that fashion is a multimillion-dollar industry. 

Fashion is currently responsible for millions whose livelihood is directly dependent on it, a major player in both the economy and society and an key influence on the environment. From production, to transportation, to landfills, sky-high rates of carbon emission and inefficient consumption of energy, the textile industry has both a massive negative impact on our environment and huge potential to decrease its carbon footprint in it. 

In this paper I will dig into the role of the fashion/textile industry regarding climate change and the energy budget, the how's and whys of its energy use and most of all, the amazing innovations taking place in high fashion that still aren't accessible to the mass markets and their impact on the environment.

For hundreds of years people have put some message in the type of clothing they wore. Long ago people started wanting to stand out from the "crowd " and be different from other people by means of changing their clothing. Some examples of these "standing out " became very popular and were followed by more people. This was the moment when fashion appeared. Nowadays, fashion is sometimes defined as a "constantly changing trend, favored for frivolous rather than practical, logical, or intellectual reasons ".

 Nevertheless, it is necessary to say that at the present moment fashion has a deeper influence on the life of people and possess more than just frivolous reasons for its existance. Clothing has become an integral part of self-realization of every person. It is no longer just an "external shield " and a frivolous attitude towards it may cause loosing a very important physical, psychological and social aspect of a person's life. The harmony attained by the combination of the inner world of a person and his "exterior " makes it very hard to say not even being a professional in this sphere that fashion is just about looks.

Clothing is basically a covering designed to be worn on a person's body. This covering is a need, a necessity that is dictated by the norms of social conduct. This "necessity " brings a lot of variety into the lives of people and makes their image more complete. It is not about people serving fashion; it is about fashion being a slave of people.

Fashion and Identity.

The type of clothing completely depends on the person who is wearing it; therefore it becomes a reflection of his perception of himself, which leads us to the term "personal identity." Lately a lot is being heard about personal identity and its meaning in the life of every single person on the planet. The choice of clothing and accessories (clothing that is worn or carried, but not part of a person's main clothing) is as important as identification through the color of hair, height, skin and gender.

Clothing nowadays is a media of information about the person wearing it. It is a cipher; a code that needs a decryption in order to understand what kind of person is underneath it. The present time offers a great variety of these "ciphers " and therefore gives people a large number of opportunities to reveal their identity. As every cloth carries a strong message about its owner, every owner "nests " a certain value in it depending on his temperament, mindset or today's mood. Therefore, the clothing of a person is a mean of communication with the outside world. It is the way of telling people about the "state " and the "status " of it owner.

Communication Through Fashion.

Communication by its definition is supposed to be bilateral. So if a person carries a strong personal message to the people outside what is the response from their side? The response is the reaction on the clothes the person it wearing. It can be acceptance or complete outcast and a misunderstanding. 

This especially touches extraordinarity in clothing (a very expressive personal identity) or an obvious lack of taste and vulgarity. Malcolm Barnard in his book "Fashion as communication " makes a great work by outlining cultural roles, rules, rituals, and responsibilities that are maintained and constructed by fashion. Fashion is compared to art. It is like an architecture that gives his creation any shape he desires and at the same time is the reflection of the architecture's belonging to a certain social level, a certain psychological condition and so on. 

One of the questions concerning the communication through fashion is whether the message possessed by fashion is the reflection of the internal or external identity. There are arguments that support each of the sides; therefore it goes without saying that fashion is a "polyhedral being " that intersects numerous internal and external aspects of any personality.

Brand Communication Through Fashion

Brands have always been closely related to cultural values. Branding has become a critical issue for firms competing within heterogeneous industries. Over the last decades, the brand evolved from a simple product attribute to the role of value creator for the entire firm. 

Today brand management represents a very sophisticated business process whose aim is to assembly and maintains over the time the unique mix of physical attributes and intangible values that distinguish one brand identity from others. Brand is well defined as a name, terms or logo or design or a combination among them aiming at identifying a product or a service from one vendor or manufacturer and differentiate it from competitors. 

Branding for many years has been seen as logos and advertisements. But is it nowadays evident that a brand is much more than a name or a logo. A brand is no longer just image projection. It's also truly about the company as a whole. Organizations develop brands as a way to attract and keep customers by promoting value, image, prestige, or lifestyle. 

Branding is a technique to build a sustainable, differential advantage by playing on the nature of human beings. Branding is becoming more a function of the relationship and the experience the consumer has with the brand. Above all in industries producing symbol intensive goods there is a stronger connection of brands with people's personalities and beliefs.

Communication throught work actions

The $450 billion global fashion industry is one of the most important economies in the world. It produces clothes for people all over the world and employs over 25 million workers in more than 100 countries. Top three of the most successful fashion brands in 2017 were: Zara, Nike and H&M. But they do not only share popularity, also the 'Made in' label. China, Bangladesh, Indonesia etc. are the norm. Most of the clothes are produced in developing countries, but mainly delivered and sold in industrial countries. To stay competitive and being able to provide low prices, companies not only decrease production salaries, but also working conditions. Furthermore it will be discussed who is responsible for these issues and what can be done about it?.

Women are often asked if they date someone, are married or planning to .
have children. .
A single woman is able to stay longer and often forced to sign an agreement not to get pregnant as long as she works for the factory. If she does, she will experience verbal and physical abuse and sexual harassment, longer working hours and more difficult tasks. She will be punished by standing instead of sitting or working in a hotter area. Because of the absence of social security women are not allowed to take maternity leave or pay if they return to work after birth. The factories do not give regular employment contracts, to avoid social responsibilities. The trend goes to hiring temporary workers, because it is the simplest way to avoid paying for health insurance. The temporary contract will be renewed continuously.

All in all, employees have barely rights and facing a lack of protecting laws. Many of these problems would be covered by government in industrial countries. But governments of developing countries are weak and depending on economic constraints. Labour laws do almost not exist, corruption is the norm and trade unions are banned. Workers who are .

joining them or other groups will be fired. The idea is even supported by the government, because they want to prevent unions from raising labour cost, to stay globally competitive. But there are some groups who represent lobbies for the factories of developing countries. They work for better conditions and laws. However, because it is a global issue and developing countries compete among each other, it is important that they all come together to find a joint solution for .
this problem. 

They need to be more integrated into the supply side transactions of the industry, to perform better audits. It is necessary to control the factories at a regular base. Some of them are warned about audits in advance. 

Communication trought Consumerism

Consumerism can be defined by the highly demand that is emerging because of more than necessarily consumption. This concept was based on the times after World War II and it was all planned by the government and corporations to develop the economy (Leonard, 2007). To encourage people to consume more, it was said that; if we consume, our ego satisfaction will increase and it will cause us to be happier. Even some of the statesmen argued that the major bourn of people is to create more consumer goods at that time. After that, consumerism began to penetrate in our lives but is it really a bad thing? In my opinion; yes, it is really a bad thing. Although there are also some positive effects of consumerism, the negative effects of consumerism are more dominant such as the impacts on health, natural resources and economy.

Firstly, consumerism has negative sides and minor positive sides in sense of human health. The negative effect of consumerism is that it is influencing the human health badly by causing toxic (Leonard, 2007). We use energy for production by mixing toxic chemicals in with the natural resources to make toxic contaminated products and sadly none of them are being tested for synergistic health impacts. Since we are putting toxics into our industrial production systems, we are still going to get toxics in the stuff which we use. Because of many factory workers are reproductive aged women, babies are getting toxics from their mothers by breastfeeding.

That is why nowadays we do not actually pay for the stuff that we purchase, because mostly the amount of the price does not cover the stuff's expenses, instead the people who work in the factories pay for it with the loss of their clean air and with increasingly asthma and cancer rates. On the other hand, the positive effect of consumerism is the development of the pharmaceutical sector during the past ten years under favor of consumerism.

Because of the highly consumerism and the excessive demand of drugs, the funds of the pharmaceutical industry has rose and so they could invest in research and development more (Harrison, 2013). 

Secondly, consumerism causes mostly negative impacts on natural resources. The negative impact of consumerism is that, people are wasting the natural resources rapidly. We keep to ourselves only one percent of the stuff we buy, the other ninety-nine percent of stuff gets trash every single year (Leonard, 2007). We throw away stuff very quickly as garbage and it causes the air to get polluted and the nature to be effected negatively by the climate change. 

"The world now experiences a high level of consumption for citizens based on advanced technology and infrastructure, so that wealth is at an all-time high but the gains which have accrued from this are threatened by environmental degradation, global warming and climate change. " (Cahill, 2001, p.1). This shows that; we face an excessive amount of consumption now, on highest degree technology and infrastructure and because of this, prosperity becomes the most important but it is at risk due to climate change. On the other hand, because of natural sources are wasted, renewable energy is becoming a common solution. Although in first world countries consumerism is more intense, they use more renewable or environment friendly products or sources but if there was not a concept named "consumerism ", we would not need renewable resources anyway. For example, electric vehicles are more popular in developed countries and because of they are not generating gas, it becomes a beneficial thing for the environment but it is still not enough to prevent the harms of consumerism.

Lastly, consumerism is a negative thing in terms of economy but there are a little bit positive effects of it also. The negative effect of it can be that it is convincing people to throw away stuff that is still useful and purchase a new one by making the stuff look fancier (Leonard, 2007).

Sustainable Development

Sustainable development requires extensive foresight along with specific and expansive planning. In order to achieve the status of "sustainable" a government or governments must have, or come to have, the means with which to start anew and recreate the lifestyle of the citizens within. Sustainable development requires a thorough evaluation of all economically related areas including agriculture, forestry, marine resources, energy, industry, and transportation as well as others related to the natural environment and of course the built environment. From there a framework must be laid out in order to develop fruitfully while at the same time paying close attention to the bigger picture involving future generations.

The idea behind sustainability is that problems can be temporarily solved for the current population, but thought must be given to the future if life is to procede comfortably for those to come. While resources are abundant they can not be taken for granted; as countries begin and others continue to develop, technology becomes more advanced, the population expands and all appears to be running smoothly. But these things, as good as they may seem and usually are, devour our resources and without adequate supervision and increased efficiency, sustainability is impossible.

Resources must be maintained and rationed in order for sustainable development, but it also must be recognized that no matter how much is done, there is not an unlimited supply of anything in this world and plans for sustainability must involve such things as well. Alternatives to our natural resources are being explored and although many adequate alternatives have been developed and explored they have yet to be adequately implemented into the system. Alternatives such as wind farms, hydro-electricity, solar power, geo-thermal and bio-mass for the generation of electricity have begun to take some of the burden off of power plants in some local areas.

The Cape Cod Center for Sustainability recently put together what is known as the Sustainability Indicators Council, which is comprised of 26 leaders representing all of the regions and sectors of Cape Cod. Together with about 75 others, they developed the Cape Cod Sustainability Report in order to closely monitor the key issues that directly affect the sustainability of Cape Cod. The purpose of the report is to monitor trends in order to reinforce positive trends while providing an alert for negative trends that could threaten sustainability. Another goal of the report is to get the community interested in sustaining Cape Cod, because without widespread support and participation the effort is useless. 

For the 1998-1999 sustainability report the committee decided upon 12 indicators that were deemed to be "valid". In order for the indicator to be valid it had to fit a predetermined set of criteria. The indicators chosen to be monitored were .
             

 • Civic Vitality.

• Health and Human Services.

• Health and Human Services (Substance Abuse).

• Education and Training.

• Air and Water Quality (Drinking Water Quality).

• Resource Use (Acres of Land Developed and Acres of Land Protected as Open Space).

• Resource Use (Waste Generated, Recycled, Composted, Landfilled and Incinerated).

• Transportation and Mobility (Traffic Congestion as Measured by Bridge Crossings).

• Diverse Sustainable Economy (Housing Affordability Gap).

• Diverse Sustainable Economy (Income-Self Sufficiency Standard).

• Diverse Sustainable Economy (Employment and Payroll by Industry).

• Diverse Sustainable Economy (Fashion).

                               

Fashion For a better world

COTTON MADE IN AFRICA WITH RECORD SUCCESSES

12 April 2018

Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) was founded in 2005 by Dr. Michael Otto as a social business to protect the environmental and to support smallholder farmers and their families in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2017, a record sum of some 90 million textiles bore the CmiA quality label. More than one million African cotton farmers benefit from every single textile by cooperating with the sustainability initiative.
For the first time, Cotton made in Africa cooperates with more than one million cotton farmers, 17 percent of whom are women. Dr. Michael Otto, founder of CmiA, says delighted: “Africa is close to my heart - both personally and as a businessman, I feel very connected to our neighbouring continent. When I founded the Cotton made in Africa initiative back in 2005, I was very aware about the fact that our future also depends on overcoming the big challenges in Africa. Here, CmiA offers solutions and a chance to positively touch the lives of millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa.” 
On average, a CmiA smallholder farmer has a crop area of just under 1.5 hectares. In addition to farmers, more than 11,000 factory workers in the African cotton processing industry are part of the initiative. Around 496,000 metric tons of ginned cotton from Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda have been produced according to the CmiA sustainability criteria in 2017 . The label for sustainable cotton stands for environmental protection and training in sustainable and modern cotton cultivation. The training enables smallholder farmers to improve their working and living conditions through their own efforts. In addition, CmiA certifies the work in the so-termed ginneries, the first step in the further processing of cotton. 
In total, CmiA achieved a record amount of around 90 million textiles which bore the CmiA label in 2017. This is a 79 percent increase compared to the previous year. “We achieved a record of about 90 million CmiA labelled textiles. Sustainability is not a niche product anymore”, stresses Tina Stridde, Managing Director of the Aid by Trade Foundation. “Every textile that bears the CmiA label is a step in the right direction. Because every CmiA labelled product protects the environment and supports millions of people in Africa in creating a new perspective for themselves in their home country”, Stridde continues. For each textile wearing the CmiA certificate, a license fee flows back into the project areas. Instead of transferring donations, the initiative has thus chosen a market approach. A total of 36 companies and brands currently order CmiA cotton - among them the Otto Group with Bonprix and OTTO, the Rewe Group, Tchibo, Aldi Süd, Jack & Jones and Asos. Smaller fair fashion brands such as Hiitu and Cooekid from Uganda also use CmiA certified cotton to set an example in the industry.