Thursday 31 May 2018

https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliviapinnock/2018/05/29/the-problem-with-the-term-ethical-fashion

People agree that they disagree!

This is a good simple conclusion about the "ethical fashion" idea, long-delayed, and now probably shared by Ethical Fashion Forum themselves after some market research, and reported by Olivia Pinnock in "The Problem with Ethical Fashion" yesterday. "Ethical" is a category of adjectives; it doesn't work as an adjective by itself.

Ethics Jungle


Maybe "Ethics and Fashion Forum" would make sense if the name isn't given-up completely. "Ethics Jungle" has just come to mind. I like that one.

More likely, another Orwellian term will take-over at the offices of London College of Fashion where EFF have the odd meeting: "Common Objective" seems to be the new brand, which is already tarnished by the "Common Purpose" groups that fund each other behind doors closed to the public, rather like Ethical Fashion Forum. Secondly, traders do not have a common ethic or object. I don't have the same objective as Islamic State or many less extreme groups, but they each ethics and objectives.. How about "Common Disagreements"? Or "Common Arguments"? Maybe that should be the name.

The Olivia Pinnock article is polite, and suggests that "Ethical Fashion" really was a movement that might continue, but I suppose it's easier to be polite about suppliers putting-on a show than to be rude about the customers and consumers who buy the stuff. The public in the UK buy tabloids. The public don't know that UK industry was closed by government-fixed exchange rates from the 1980s and with a bit of good government could recover. We each know bits, within comfortable long-held views of the world, but preaching to the un-converted over a pair of pants is a not going to win a big market share and the boss at the high-street chain still wants to sell all the other pants. No-wonder people sit in offices at Monsoon or Howies  think: "What can we call good that makes a profit and the boss allows?"

Bosses vary.


All bosses have to treat ethical claims a sales issue. Some bosses are also evangelists for economic theories that say their other stuff is good anyway: the raw simple theory of comparative advantage (ignoring social insurance), the theory of the trickle-down effect (ignoring evidence), and the raw theory of the nation state that Chinese human rights are best for Chinese people because they have the word Chinese in the title. Those sorts of theories are similar to the views of UK government ministers or economists at places like London University.


What can we call good that makes a big profit and doesn't stop people buying the other stuff?

H&M, Monsoon, Primark, M&S, Boohoo and the rest are unlikely to say these things.
  • Badly-run countries are badly-run
  • or anything to do with our buying habits and tariffs
  • Their products are unfair competition with products from better-run countries
  • Their populations - in Bangladesh for example -are rocketing faster than jobs to employ them
  • Wages in Bangladesh are falling and not rising
The things that big firms call good come-down to whether you can put a pair of shoes in the compost bin, or whether a raffia bag from an special fair trade employment scheme in some country without a welfare state (but don't mention that they need a welfare state). Words like "Natural" are an obvious choice or "the ambiguously named Conscious Collection" as Pinnock puts it.. I saw "Conscious Awareness" used of a stall at London Fashion Week.

Most of us can sympathize with employees of big companies where we ourselves shop. I write this in Primark basics trakkies; I have to sympathize.

There is another layer of complication.

There is a government machine with its favorite causes, from Kids Company to Pants to Poverty to Elvis and Kress wallets, each muddying a muddy picture. Elvis and Kress send old fire hose to Italy to be made into over-thick over-priced novelty wallets for sale in gift boxes in the UK. Other old fire hoses are exported to India where there is more cheap labour for patching them up. There used to be a few good cheap wallet manufacturers making sometimes vegan products, until lack of interest allowed them to close while groups like Ethical Fashion Forum got the PR. Doing a gig for "Making it Ethically in China", in Manchester, if I remember right, on the weekend that the Manchester firm JJ Blackledge closed and sold the machines because of lack of interest in the blooming-obvious: the product made cheaply in a democratic welfare state. So: good luck to Elvis and Kress for an expensive giftware item with a donation to the fire service charity built-in to the price, but that's all they are.  Government PR from the likes of Social Enterprise UK bigs them up and gets in the way of day to day ethical decisions about cheaper products.

I have written enough and should stop before repeating myself. A lot of previous stuff about Ethical Fashion Forum, mainly evidence assembled in a way which is rude to them, is on Veganline.com/info/ethical-fashion-forum or a successor page. I hope the evidence speaks for itself, but if you want to know why someone is a bit bitter, I did try to sell UK-made products as ethical before they came-along, and I did try to use the business support services and government services that were cut because, as I said, the likes of Kids Company, Pants to Poverty, and Ethical Fashion Forum get the government PR.

Wednesday 21 February 2018

Top 20 largest recruiters of international students 2015-16

International Student Course Dis Satisfaction at London College of Fashion


Over on this other post I argue that the worse the course at a big city centre college like London College of Fashion, the more money the college makes. Never mind that University of the Arts (including London College of Fashion) is the least popular of any degree awarding university. Expand the image below if you want a closer look: it is the worst colleges sorted by student satisfaction, worst at the top. University of the Arts is fourth worst for Fashion and Textiles courses and fifth worst for design and crafts.


University of the Arts (including London College of Fashion) is fourth worst for student satisfaction with courses about Fashion and Textiles
University of the Arts including London College of Fashion is fifth worst for student feedback about courses in Design and Crafts

Never mind that there is no useful Knowledge Transfer Partnership. Never mind that there are no basic business courses for Londoners including London College of Fashion graduates. Never mind that the college has no luck recruiting from the trade. The less adapted the course, the more money the college makes and the more staff they can allocate to government liaison and grant-applications.

Top 20 largest recruiters of international students 2015-16

most mainstream economics degree - click the number under "degree" to see student feedback stats
                    overseas students      national student survey of all students
                    degree   grad.  total  stimulated interested applied satisfied (1-83)   
UCL                 7,860    7,115  14,975 72%        92%        65%      79 / 83

Uni of Manchester   5,950    6,970  12,920 74%        76%        59%      78 / 83 protests
Uni of Edinburgh    5,085    5,695  10,780                                81 / 83 no degree
Kings College       4,115    4,785   8,900   ?          ?          ?      70 / 83 new course

Uni of Sheffield    4,595    3,930   8,525 64%        81%        74%      40 / 83       
Uni of Warwick      4,520    3,920   8,440 80%        89%        77%      64 / 83  
Imperial College    4,550    3,970   8,520 45%        62%             
            see notes
Uni of Oxford       5,760    2,300   8,060   ?          ?          ?              PPE Ec/Hist
LSE                 4,635    2,280   6,915 60%        74%        52%      83 / 83
Uni of Birmingham   4,670    2,945   7,615 66%        81%        58%      45 / 83
City, Uni of L      4,320    3,180   7,500 57%        82%        52%      60 / 83

Uni of Southampton  4,050    3,175   7,225 66%        83%        52%      72 / 83
Uni of Glasgow      3,845    3,790   7,635                                        no degree
Coventry Uni        3,540    6,175   9,715 93%        100        98%       5 / 83
Uni of Nottingham   3,170    4,070   7,240 79%        81%        75%       6 / 83
Cardiff Uni         3,285    3,825   7,110 46%        69%        52%      73 / 83

Uni of Leeds        3,825    2,760   6,585 89%        92%        77%      38 / 83
Uni of Liverpool    2,075    5,235   7,310 71%        78%        62%      56 / 83
Uni of the Arts,    2,035    6,425   8,460 50%        62%        71%       3 /  3 Footwear

Non London
London                              55,270



Planb4fashion is a blog by Veganline.com which is a vegan shoe shop





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