I edited an article on Wikipedia on "Sustainable Fashion". This is the second written on this subject, because a year ago I did the same for my Popular Art Writing class. The first time I wrote the article there was no existing entry and it was quickly deleted due to the 'lack' of references. This time there was an article already there, but I found it bare minimal. I've begun to edit the entry and so far, since I posted the recent changes this morning , nothing has happened. I still have a lot more I want to and will continue to write.
I find writing entries in Wikipedia to be very difficult, and truly only possible when you are an expert in a topic. Yet there again it puts you in a predicament, because you may know information about a topic in your head, but you have to find resources to support the information. Another way that I find Wikipedia difficult is writing in 'fact' form, which is different than sort the opinion format that we're guided to take at this school.
I am excited to continue working on this article, find as much information as I can and be a contributor to Wikipedia!
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2 comments:
Keep at it! And have a look at Kate Fletcher's website: www.katefletcher.com
Her book is the best thing out there, and it goes beyond material/fibre selection, into consumption, needs, use patterns, etc. (Many people would rather not know that most clothes make their biggest environmental impact through laundering and tumble-drying. Buying an organic cotton tee is easier than changing laundering practices, I guess.)
I did find this worrying in the Wikipedia entry: "According to the May 2007 Vogue appears not to be a short-term trend but one could last multiple seasons."
It implies that it's simply a trend. It should be a fundamentally different way of thinking, of making, of using, etc. And for those of us who've been looking at the issues for a while (only four years for me but how things have changed!) I think 'sustainable fashion' is starting to sound slightly irritating, and problematic. I've said it before but I hope one day we can drop 'sustainable', and just call it fashion again - because one day it can all be regarded as 'sustainable' (which can mean a whole lot of different things to different people, too). Also, having it in the name makes it sort of optional, a choice, and hopefully one day it won't be.
Coming across fashion students with an interest in these issues is really reassuring, so please, keep studying, sharing, doing! The problems really are complex but Fletcher's book deals with them in an accessible way and her optimism is contagious. Get your school's library to order it in if you can't afford it right now (I was a fashion student not that long ago and know how expensive it can be...)
Best of luck!
t
Oh and in case you've not seen it, I wish this blog was around when I was a student:
http://fashion-incubator.com/mt/
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