Boats & Masts

Unfortunately I have been out of the studio and in bed sick for what feels like forever so I am miles behind with my current project! So now is the time to crack on with it.

I have decided to design prints based on architecture and structure, looking at various harbours and small fishing villages. I went on a trip to Elgin to take photos and draw and have become a bit obsessed with drawing masts and houses!






I think the next step is to continue source drawing and developing, I don't think I am going to have time to print anything on fabric unfortunately.

Ethical Labour and Design

Ethical Labour & Design
Sarah Stewart
Level Three Textiles
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art

The clothing industry employs a sixth of the population worldwide. I have chosen to look specifically at ethical labour and design in a textile context by looking at where our clothing is made and working conditions for garment workers. After watching China Blue and reading books like ‘Eco Chic’ I have learned that people are working in dangerous environments, are underpaid and working extreme hours to keep up with the current ‘fast fashion’ trend in Western countries. Fashion used to work in two seasons, now some retailers have up to fifteen. This means that we demand more clothing. I have looked at how major retailers demand extremely low prices from factories, which is the main cause for such poor working conditions.

“For each 100 garments we put together we get $0.05” – garment worker in Nicaragua (Lee, 2007)

During the industrial revolution child labour and bad working conditions became common in the UK. This has now moved overseas. Three quarters of Western clothing is made abroad as it is cheaper to produce and our consumer culture can be maintained at the cost of poor lifestyles for individuals in other countries. For example, Burberry recently shut two factories in Wales and Yorkshire and moved them to China to lower costs (they could get 600,000 polo shirts made for £4 a piece in China instead of £11 in the UK). China is extremely competitive in the textile industry as it has such a fast production rate due to people working up to 150 hours of overtime per month. Unfortunately nine out of ten companies in China do not follow labour laws and it is up to retailers to look at how their workers are treated. Some companies commit to a ‘code of conduct’ but they are often broken.

‘China Blue’ (2005) is a documentary film about the life of Jasmine Lee, a worker in Lifeng factory in China, which produces denim clothing. The main priority of the factory is to meet deadlines set by the companies they work for as if they do not they will lose orders and customer interest. Shifts are from 8am-7pm with overtime most nights. The workers are underpaid and taught to lie to inspectors about their working conditions. Retailers pressurise the factory owner to give them lower prices on the clothing, and to meet these demands the workers have to work (often unpaid) overtime.

In the mid nineties audits were introduced to monitor conditions in some of the factories. These involve reviewing documents, site inspection and interviews with staff. However interviews with workers in different factories show that companies were given up to twenty days notice and had their factories cleaned and paper work faked for the inspectors coming (Alam, 2006).

The Spectrum Disaster in Bangladesh in 2005 is the perfect example of audits not working. It was a nine storied factory without planning permission with terrible working conditions and people working for less than minimum wage. It collapsed shortly after being audited, killing 64 workers and injuring 80. In February 2010 a similar event occurred again in Bangladesh, showing that conditions have not improved.

An article by War on Want (Fashion Victims 2006) looks at factories in Bangladesh producing clothing for three budget retailers– Tesco, Asda and Primark. These companies agreed to this code:

“Workers shall not on a regular basis be required to work in excess of 48 hours per week and shall be provided with at least one day off for every 7 day period on average. Overtime shall be voluntary, shall not exceed 12 hours per week, shall not be demanded on a regular basis and shall always be compensated at a premium rate” (Alam, 2006)



The report shows how the rules they have promised to follow are constantly violated and highlights how voluntary codes of conduct do not work. Most workers across the six factories investigated work 12-16 hours per day, seven days a week. There is a preference to female workers (3/4 of the workers in the factories were female) as they are easier to exploit, they are afraid to speak out about problems in the work place.

The follow up report (Fashion Victims 2008) shows that conditions have only worsened. ‘Fast Fashion’ is ever increasing and so is the pressure on factories.

Workers still do not earn a living wage (defined as ‘a wage sufficient for a worker and family to subsist comfortably’) and working conditions are still terrible. In 2007 a new government took over and banned Trade Unions, allowing the police and factory management to work together to stop labour protests. There are no regulations for the Bangladeshi garment industry and subsequently most workers do not have contracts, allowing companies to refuse sick pay, maternity leave and redundancy pay.

When it comes to ethical design, textile design is a very important aspect. The globalised economy means that the clothing industry has mostly moved overseas. We are demanding so much with such tight deadlines that companies use suppliers and produces in a long ‘supply chain’ to get the lowest prices possible for the production of their products and a high percentage of it is made in sweatshops with poor working conditions. As a textile designer it is important to think about finding ways to source ethical materials and labour.

It is up to retailers and designers to source their products ethically. ‘Eco-chic’ is becoming a big thing and there are a lot of websites and shops which try to source all of their products ethically. As a textile designer this topic is particularly interesting to me and it is important to consider design ethics within personal working practices.

Consumers also need to feel reassured that their purchases have been fairly sourced. In shops at present there is very little information about this despite social audits being carried out in factories overseas. Looking at the supply chain for many retailers it is difficult for consumers to find out where their product has originated. It has been shown that 85% of people do not want clothing from sweatshops and 90% do not want clothing made using child labour (Lee, 2007). Therefore it should be made easier for consumers to find information about where their product was sourced and who made it so that they can make a conscious decision about what they are buying.

It is interesting to look at what is happening right now on this topic. There are many groups trying to help the situation; War on Want, The Maquila Solidarity Network, Multi Stakeholder Initiatives (MSI) for example. The UK government is currently promoting MSI’s as the solution to the problem. Committing to one for a company means to agree to follow a code of conduct concerning ethical labour. Since reputation is so important to retailers to keep sales up and customers happy, it looks good for them to be involved with MSI’s. Otherwise they have to defend where they source their materials and labour. There have been many companies highlighted for poor working conditions in recent years and this can affect their reputation. For example there have been ‘Panorama’ episodes about Nike, Gap and Primark showing unethical labour practices.

The next step for designers and retailers in my opinion is to do research into the problem, provide more information for consumers through labelling and marketing of an ethical brand and to continue campaigning for ethical working practices.

Lee, M. 2007. Eco Chic: The Savvy Shoppers Guide to Ethical Fashion. Gaia Books Ltd, London

Alam, K. 2006. Fashion Victims, War on Want. Available at http://www.waronwant.org/campaigns/love-fashion-hate-sweatshops/fashion-victims/inform/13593-fashion-victims

Alam, K. 2008. Fashion Victims 2, War on Want. Available at http://www.waronwant.org/campaigns/love-fashion-hate-sweatshops/fashion-victims/inform/16360-fashion-victims-ii

China Blue. 2005 [documentary film] Micha Peled. China: Teddy Bear Films,

International Labour Organisation. 2010. Facts on Child Labour 2010. Available at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_126685.pdf

http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/

http://fashioninganethicalindustry.org

"How could there ever really be a place for ethics in an industry dominated by aesthetics?"

This is my mind map for my topic so far.

Our first meeting in the Queen Mother Building went fairly well. We all chose our topics and straight after Ashleigh Slater and I went for a coffee and mind mapped our ideas.



It is a bit of a horrible mind map, but I will make another when I have researched the topic a bit more.

Arbroath

Just a quick post to show some of the photos I took today in Arbroath for drawing week.

Assignment 5 - Part 2

One of my studio briefs this year was titled ‘culture’. I chose to look at culture in terms of architecture in Dundee. Looking back at the project I am definitely not satisfied with the research that went into it and if I had the chance to do it again I would definitely make changes to how I tackled the research part of the project, especially after experimenting with different research methods in Design Studies. In the future I will try to incorporate these methods into my studio practice as I feel they would give me a better understanding of the topic I am studying and therefore give me a better outcome.

The research work I did for this brief consisted of taking photographs of different parts of the city, drawing buildings and skylines and looking at various artists that used cityscapes in their work. This was clearly not enough to understand the city landscape in terms of how the culture has changed, I only got an idea of what was happening at that moment. If I was to start the project again there are several things I would do.

Firstly I would use interviewing to ask members of the public what they thought of how Dundee has changed and how it is changing at the moment.

The wind turbines are quite a prominent and new feature of Dundee’s skyline. I think they would be a good starting point for getting different people’s views about the changing skyline; whether they like how they look or not and if they think they are a good addition to the city. Just typing ‘Dundee wind turbines’ into Google has given me access to opinions about plans for two more wind turbines for the city. This is a very current issue as being ‘environmentally-friendly’ is a large part of our culture and it would be interesting to compare the views of different generations about these changes.

Primary research to investigate this further could be interviewing Dundee residents and using surveys to find out general opinion about various features of the Dundee skyline. I feel that interviewing older people to find out how the city’s architecture has changed over a period of time could give me some interesting information. I could also ask for opinions about the plans for the future of Dundee (the Victoria & Albert museum and the two wind turbines for example).

I could use the secondary research skills developed in semester one to look in the library for any research already undertaken about the city’s architecture as well as the plans for the future. It would be interesting to see the building plans for prominent parts of Dundee skyline from the past and compare them to how they look in reality.

There are massive plans to completely change Dundee waterfront by 2030. There is a video available on the internet showing how Dundee City Council plan to completely change the look of the city over the next twenty years to connect the town centre to the waterfront. Showing the public this video and asking for their opinions could give me a good idea of how people feel about the changing face of Dundee.

I could also use a picture time line to show how the city has changed by looking in the library for pictures of Dundee from across the Tay at different times in the past, my own photographs from right now and then continue it on using the building plans for the work that is to be undertaken over the next twenty years. It would be interesting to compare the older photographs to what was happening in society at the time and see if there are any cultural links between the buildings and what was going on.

After looking back at the ‘culture’ project I feel quite annoyed at myself for not seeing the potential in the topic I had chosen.

For level three I feel I am better equipped to handle research and I think I have a bit more confidence to ask questions to people I do not know well and get information first hand instead of relying on other people’s research.

I think the assignments we have been given and the books we have been assigned to read have changed the way I think about design in general. When I thought about what design was I would think about researching a topic, pulling out interesting information and making something out of this within my discipline. I definitely now see design in a wider sense due to the wide variety of lectures on the course as well as the assignments.

For example our third assignment this semester was about observing a public space, paying attention to what was happening around me, how the space was designed to function and how people were acting. This has definitely made me pay more attention to my surroundings, questioning them and considering what my discipline can do to improve situations and spaces.

The way I think about what I do has also changed after seeing how designers do not necessarily stick to their specific discipline from lectures. I feel like there are many more options for me than being a fashion or interior textile designer. I have never thought of myself specifically as a textile designer. Since starting this course I have thought of myself as an art student, with textile pieces as the outcome from a body of drawing and visual research.

When I started the culture project I do not think I appreciated how important the research part of the design process was. I went straight for drawing and development into samples far too quickly and would really have benefited from using the research techniques I have now learned to get a better understanding of my topic. In level three I intend to do much more extensive research when starting a new project using these skills and hopefully by developing more ways to get information.

Assignment 5 - Part One.

Over semester two I have been taught to observe closely and to gather information through first hand research. Our first four assignments asked us to look at people, objects and environments and ask why they are as they are as well as how design could improve situations. In semester one I studied sustainable textiles and the current culture of consumerism including the ‘fast fashion’ trend by reading journals and parts of books written about the subject. To research this further I could use some of the primary skills acquired in semester two.

The research I looked at showed that ‘fast fashion’ has become a big problem – people buy lots of cheap items, dispose of them and buy new items at a fast rate. This has lead to a huge increase in textile waste in the past five to ten years, which is bad for our environment. It looked at the nature of shoppers and the lack of information available about the problem. The stigma has been removed from buying clothes from ‘value’ stores and new styles come into the shops every two weeks for people who want new clothes often, so there is a large amount of clothing being thrown away even when it is in good condition.

The next step for me after studying other people’s research about sustainable textiles is to get my own primary research by speaking to members of the public. I could ask about our current consumer culture and look at how we could become more environmentally friendly with our attitudes to shopping and textile waste in the future. I would also like to look at what contributes to the way that we consume in terms of advertising and the media.

To carry out the research I think each of the assignments undertaken in semester two could be useful.

The first and third assignments were about observation of a space. The first one made me look closely at another design students personal possessions and gather information about them based on these items. The other one made me spend time looking at what was going on in a public space in more detail than I normally would and question why certain things were happening. From this I got a lot of notes about how comfortable people were, how people were acting and how effective the layout of the shop was. I think these assignments were meant to make me open my eyes to detail and think like a designer instead of as a consumer. This approach to information gathering would be useful for looking at shopping habits. I could ask clothing shops if I could observe shoppers behaviour and take notes to understand the way in which people shop at the moment. This could help when thinking about how we can change our shopping habits and when thinking of how to sell more sustainable products.

Another of our assignments was about how images can have more than one meaning. It made me think about advertising and how it manipulates people to understand a certain message from a picture. We were told to experiment with a series of random images by firstly getting stories from several people through linking the images then adding text and more images to try and make other people get that story when they looked at them. This could be useful for me in a few ways. By examining fashion magazines, television and internet adverts I could get a better understanding of how these things affect the public’s taste and the way that we buy things by portraying a specific message. This assignment showed me how much power the media gains through using pictures, they could have a big role to play in raising awareness about the sustainability issue.

Our last assignment, interviewing with questions based around one main question, allowed me to experience interviewing someone and showed me the difficulties in being selective and steering a conversation to get the right information to answer specific questions. The topic I chose to interview about was ‘how do people accumulate stuff?’ In this I asked about shopping habits so this information could already be useful. Interviewing members of the public could be the most important part of this research. I would firstly ask about peoples shopping habits at the moment: how often people buy new clothes, if they keep the items for long and how they dispose of their unwanted clothing. Using this method I could also find out more about how much the media effects what people buy and look for links between the magazines people read and how much they know about sustainable textiles.

It would also be useful to find out about different members of the publics current awareness about textile sustainability. I could do this by interviewing a wide variety of people from different age groups. This could help to see what could to be done to raise awareness in some age groups. From the research I studied in semester one it was shown that the problem mainly lies with young consumers who want new outfits regularly.

I think questions about materialism and sentimentality could help to show how people look at their possessions and how meaningful different objects, or items of clothing, are to them to show how disposable people think their clothing is.

I also found in my research in semester one that convenience is key for recycling, I could therefore try to find out what would make people want to recycle their clothing and textiles and how to make this more convenient.

Using the skills learned in semester two to further this research I think I could get quite a lot of information. I feel it would also benefit this research to create a survey to get information on a wider scale. From my previous research I saw that environmental problems have increased in recent years and so has general interest in recycling so it would be helpful to get a survey to see how much the public knows about sustainable textiles compared to other methods of recycling.

Using the skills acquired in the research parts of the semester two assignments as well as by creating a survey I feel I could build up a large amount of first hand research information.