Fitting in – slavish, sensible or sensational?

Seasonal change cues fashion media editors to present the public with “must-have” and “no-no” listings, which, no matter how individualistic or judicious we might think we are, subtly compel us to reconsider the stock in our private wardrobes.

In these times of economic strain and budget adjustments, does “fitting in” with rapidly changing fashion cycles not pose challenges to designers and consumers alike? Are we prisoners of fashion dictates, or could we consider co-creating new looks with minimal expense? How can local fashion designers sustain themselves by working around and within global and local market forces?

Through aggressive marketing, our individual identity can become effaced by homogenised clothing, a veneer that suggests we are part of a recognisable whole. Trend forecasters, retailers and brand conglomerates launching new styles, fabrics, cuts and colours stoke the coals of peer pressure that conditions us to be seen in the latest ranges. As social beings, we are construed as a collective commodity travelling in a continuum of design renovation that is dictated by a few but embraced by the masses, often with little thought to suitability or personal imagination.

Being seen in the right brand wearing the "in" label of a particular designer neutralises our individuality and leads to a contradiction of the purpose of fashion: individual style portraying human uniqueness; instead, we become fashion clones.

By conforming to seasonal trends, are we not impeding the innovation and growth of young fashion designers emerging in the market? There are a few designers who have created distinctive aesthetics and have steadily built a brand following. These looks are not confined to the examples seen on catwalks at Fashion Weeks events; idiosyncratic, semi-mass-produced, wearable garments are also available.

The old saying, "catch them when they are young" can be applied to fashion education. For example, when experts visit fashion colleges and advise students on the latest European trends - as if these are the unassailably essential forms of good design and as such, critical to design success - are we not diluting their imaginative resources?

Both student and established designers are required to be in touch with global fashion directions, but is it a prerequisite to emulate these trends without any re-interpretation? The colours for 2009 are, according to the style forecasters, moving away from metallic finishes to a more earthy, subdued colour palette; ripped denim might resurge, and for younger women, appropriation of men's jeans (known as "The Boyfriend Jeans") will be in vogue and Deep-V-T-shirts and jerseys could be the 2009 new style for men.

We need to respect the genius of our learner designers, and support them in steering away from reliance on European trends. This information is available for reference, so rather than delivering lectures on trend templates, their curricula should cover instruction in sourcing, assimilating, and interpreting the data, with a view to redefining trends in the local context and according to their own design sensibilities.

Upcoming generations of South African designers can consult a wealth of historical fashion approaches to inspire new nuances for their ranges, not only through their designs but by the way they market and retail their creations. It is my sense that the edicts filtering down to young designers and into the consumer psyche of what can or cannot be worn should be challenged. It is time for fashion revolution and evolution.

The late 1950s and early 60s are a good example of this: young, energetic, visionary designers kicked against prevailing market prescriptions, sweeping aside hidebound retailing and manufacturing methods. Interestingly, even though the establishment was outraged at the audacity of these young artists, the two systems found equilibrium and co-operated in the realisation that the market was big enough to accommodate the diversity.

This period saw the rebirth of the boutique as a way of retailing fast, limited-edition, highly individualistic fashion. Led by Mary Quant, this fashion revolution saw new designers enter and disappear from the fashion scene as rapidly as new styles appeared in the boutiques. The survivors were those who developed solid business strategies and used experts to market their labels and outlets. Quant saw that the only way to thrive and move up the fashion value-chain was to develop a system of manufacturing that could produce limited ranges of quality garments in a timely and cost-efficient manner, and in so doing, she established business partnerships with CMTs and textile manufacturers who were willing and able to meet her needs.

In 1971, it was estimated that in the United Kingdom alone, there were 15 000 boutiques doing an annual business remit of £300-million. There was fierce competition between the boutiques, but this fostered an ethos of mutual respect and operational etiquette flourished in this sector. Each boutique offered a retail outlet for designers, and these outlets evolved into distinguished, quaint retail oases, establishing a reputation for a particular fashion flavour for a discerning market segment.

The boutiques offered an ideal opportunity for the supplier designers to interact with customers, get critical feedback and rapidly adapt, innovate and supply updated designs. They did not wait for received wisdom from textile manufacturers or trend forecasters. Instead, they created their own trends, and styles, allowing both young and old the space to explore and mix a variety of affordable, high-quality styled clothing to create their own personal fashion statements.

The key to fashion revolution is the alignment between CMTs, textile suppliers, independent designers and the financial sector supporting boutiques that present viable business plans.

South Africa’s fashion sector should spearhead this alignment process, by understanding global trends - much as a musician masters fundamental techniques and genres - and then improvising on these to recalibrate the degree and trajectory of fashion development along new lines of excellence.

Written by Renato Palmi

Fashioning fads, functions and fearlessness

In the course of human development, fashion trends have mutated in line with changing social and economic contexts. Every decade, approaches to dressing have adapted to reflect prevailing political, psychological and environmental conditions, movements and interests. Bemusing styles propagated the process of fashion development, fostering innovation and signalling the disappearance of some design features – only for some to re-emerge centuries later.

As with any aesthetic epoch in history, our current responses to avant-garde styles appearing on the streets, or to fashion-art launched on international catwalks, range from shocked resistance to delighted amazement.

However, it is not phenomenal in itself for individual or groups of designers to storm through the boundaries of accepted norms, so establishing iconic identities and labels. Nor is our post-modern enlightenment always entirely new - antecedents for apparel rebellion can be traced back far earlier than we might realise.

According to fashion folklore, a trend of wearing less and less was orchestrated in 18th Century France by Mesdames Racamier and Tallient. One day in 1796, two young women took to the Paris streets in attire that was arresting, so to speak - one in a length of sheer gauze swathed across her body, the other appearing topless. Transparent clothing, worn without underwear and adorned with jewellery across the thighs and breasts, did not last long, though, as the moral authorities of the time apprehended any women who dared to wear such revealing garb.

The nobility of bygone eras also played a part in fashion evolution – such as Lord Raglan’s famous sleeve, and the cardigan being named after Lord Cardigan. The Duke of Windsor (King Edward VIII after his abdication) brought his distinctive necktie-knot into common usage, and was known for popularising turn-ups on trousers. The creasing down the front and back of trousers is credited to royalty. King Edward VII is said to have ignited the practice of unbuttoning the lower portion of a waistcoat, and the emergence of long coats is attributed to King Louis XIII wishing to mask his bandy legs.

The naming of fabrics has always been an important element in textile manufacturers’ marketing strategy, seeking to capture the sensory appeal created by the textile's colour and texture, and to resonate with contemporary lifestyles. Designers working with the new fabrics had to be inspired by such names. In the 18th Century, some odd examples emerged in this context: "Sick Spaniard”, “Unhappy Friend”, “Poisoned Ape”, “Sewerage”, Small-Pox” and “Carmelite's Paunch”. In 1961, a fabric dye called "Congealed Blood" became one of the colours most favoured by UK fashion designers.

Fashion concepts have often been constructed around weaponry and even used to hide weapons. A South African firm manufactured a brassiere designed to hold a small pistol. In 1959, a British tailor made suits with a "cosh-pocket” for local teenagers to carry a baton on their person. Teenagers in Glasgow during the 1920s and 30s embedded razor blades in the edges of their peaked caps. Men's double-breasted coats, with the left flap buttoned over the right, derive from 18th Century and earlier European styling to accommodate swords, and the buttoning of tunics was implemented to prevent the hilt of the sword from catching on the coat when drawn.

Wearing pants below the hips, exposing the top of the buttocks or underwear, is not unique to contemporary urban style. In 1964, the unzipped-trouser look was introduced in women’s clothing: shorts were unzipped in the front to reveal bikini underwear as an erotic teaser. The word “bikini” comes from the Bikini Atoll, the site of a nuclear weapon test – clearly analogous with shock value; it was reasoned that the excitement of the bikini, co-conceived by French engineer Luis Reard and fashion designer Jacques Heim in 1946, would be likened to a nuclear blast. Even the style of the modern bikini is not a modern concept: archaeologists have discovered murals in Sicily depicting women in the years 286-305 wearing items of skimpy clothing that we would currently identify as bikinis.

Scented socks and shirts were another novel idea, first launched in the 1950s. A Scotsman invented the masculine-scented shirt in 1953 as a sensory design feature to attract women. The early 1960s brought scented ties onto the market, offering a selection of pleasant aromas such as Mint, Orange, Strawberry and Leather. However, scented apparel could not compete with the innovative boom in male toiletries, and so faded from focus.

Fashion design has also been influenced by interest groups seeking to control the presentation of a “respectable” female image, believing that they had moral authority over codes of dress. Historical artefacts show that women wore bikini-type outfits while exercising, so today’s sportswear and beach-gear is really a reversion to 19th and early 20th and earlier Century costumes.

At least these design forms did not physically harm women or cruelly impede their natural physical motion, as did the corset or the “Bum Roll” (a strange fashion apparatus tied round the hips with a tape to create the illusion of ample buttocks). In the 1940s, the pneumatic brassiere was developed to enhance a small bust.

Pockets did not feature much on woman's clothing until the early 20th Century, but today, military camouflage and “cargo” pants with utility pockets are ubiquitous in women’s streetwear. In the 1930s, a short-lived fashion accessory for women was the knickers-pocket, used to hold a handkerchief.

During the 1950s, a group of French tailors produced a range of suits without pockets, offering instead a shoulder-bag as a menswear accessory; this idea was largely dismissed as impractical. But in the US, the magazine Esquire promoted an American version of the French male shoulder-bag called the "Side-Kick", describing it as a “saddlebag without the horse”. The promotion of the "Side-Kick" did not take off, as men did not want to be seen carrying any bag other than a briefcase.

In this Information Age, though, men and women use a "Side-Kick" of sorts: the backpack is an accessory adopted from the military as a form of everyday wear, and used by students and business executives alike to carry lap-top computers and other items needed to operate a mobile office.

With technology being a major factor influencing the contemporary design of pockets on apparel, fabrics and garments are designed to carry cell-phones, iPods, flash-disks and other wireless communications gadgets such as Global Positioning Systems and radio frequency tags.

Clearly, the future of garment design is in “smart clothing” - blending technology with fashion. But in principle, are we back to the future?

Renato Palmi

New plans for South Africa's clothing industry

The South African clothing industry wage strike may be over however the battle relating to compliance and non-compliance will once again become a contentious issue within the apparel sector. According to news reports the apparel industry wish to make non-compliance a criminal offence. The focus seems to be in non-metropolitan areas. What about non-compliant companies within metro areas? The pressure to pursue companies that are non-compliant cannot be solely dependent on inspectors from the Bargaining Council or the union. The retails that use such companies as suppliers can play a vital role by stopping such procurement. Maybe there needs to be legislation in place to also "penalise" retailers for using non-compliant companies? The undertaking from provincial and local government not to use non-compliant companies must be monitored closely. I think it would be beneficial if a list of non-compliant companies could be made public.

CAPE TOWN — Employers and workers in the clothing industry have combined forces to lobby the government to recriminalise noncompliance with labour legislation.

This is because of the widespread flouting of the law in non-metropolitan areas, where employers pay less than the minimum wage and do not contribute to health scheme funds and provident funds.

The overstretched labour inspectorate has been unable to deal with the issue , which is so acute that compliant companies were being unfairly undercut, chief national negotiator for employer organisations Johann Baard said yesterday.

“Noncompliance in non-metro areas is a massive 80% of all the factories based there, which represent about a third of the total industry in the country. We think recriminalisation of labour legislation (particularly of noncompliance) which existed prior to 1994 will go a long way to address the problem.”

Recriminalisation would mean an offending company could be found guilty by a magisterial court and be penalised.

Baard said the wage differential for a qualified machinist between compliant and noncompliant companies was as high as R250 a week. These noncompliant companies were supplying the top five retailers and undercutting those who were playing by the rules, he said.

Baard said if the trend for companies to relocate to non-metro areas continued at the present rate, about two thirds of the industry would be based outside metropolitan areas in five years’ time. He stressed that the aim was not to eliminate the negotiated wage differential between metro and non-metro areas but to achieve compliance.

The agreement to lobby the government was reached at yesterday’s meeting of the clothing industry’s national bargaining council, where a wage deal was also signed between employers and the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu), ending a two-week strike by 55000 workers.

To strengthen the role of the trade union in non-metro areas and assist it in combating noncompliance, the wage agreement includes a closed-shop provision for Sactwu in these areas. Sactwu was also empowered to institute noncompliance proceedings against noncompliant companies and to embark on protected industrial action against them. Furthermore, outsourcing to noncompliant companies would not be allowed in the industry and the parties undertook to enter into agreements with all provincial and local governments to limit their procurement to compliant companies.

Another critical issue for the industry covered by the wage agreement was the high level of absenteeism, especially in the Western Cape, which Baard attributed largely to substance abuse. The parties agreed on a strategy to address this, setting an interim target absenteeism rate of 5% by next September. They agreed that disciplinary action should not be used and that a study would be undertaken to measure the level of absenteeism.

At the meeting, Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel called on business and labour to enter into a longer-term social partnership for growth and decent work to lift the industry out of a slump which has seen the loss of more than 7000 jobs — nearly 11% — in bargaining council employment over the past 12 months.

Business Day: 16/10/09

Patel challenges clothing industry

15 October 2009 - 14:56

Author: Sapa

With the clothing strike settled, the industry had to face up to the bigger challenge of ensuring its own survival, Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel said. He was speaking in Cape Town after employers and union representatives signed an agreement formally ending the nationwide strike by some 55,000 clothing workers. "The realities are that we cannot compete on absolute wage costs with China," he said.

"The reality is, we cannot go back to very high tariff protection of the type seen before the mid-1990s. The reality is we cannot have industrial subsidies for the industry based on the model where you are on permanent life support from government." He said government had introduced a number of measures to support the sector, including some R500 million in either soft loans or grants to modernise the industry.

"I now wish to ask, what in turn will business and labour bring to a new growth strategy for the sector? What government does, alone, cannot transform the industry. It requires you." Patel said the industry held its future in its own hands.

Earlier, representatives of the SA Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) and clothing employer organisations signed the strike-breaking agreement. Sactwu general secretary Andre Kriel said it provided for immediate increases of seven to 11.8 percent, depending on job category and geographic location. The increases were worth an annual R128 million, he said. The agreement also sets an absenteeism target of five percent, and says special committees will be set up at each workplace to monitor this.

It says the clothing industry bargaining council will set up a dedicated productivity unit to promote productivity issued in the industry, and will look into the feasibility of a training institute to improve workers' skills. Kriel said the union and employers had come out of the negotiations and strike with a deep respect for each other, and he hoped they could all now turn their attention to issues such as trade and industrial policy.

Negotiator for the employers Johann Baard said that despite the bruising negotiations, employers were committed to re-establishing constructive relations with the union. "We simply have to work together for the industry to survive and grow," he said. The truth was that South African clothing manufacturers were "out-subsidised" by the Chinese. The industry would have to think very hard about creative solutions to bring about a level playing field.