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Cotton dominates the natural fibre market worldwide, as evidenced by its 24% market share. Australia is a major exporter of cotton, following China, India and the United States. The industry is significant for Australia, generating $2 billion dollars in exports per annum and employing approximately 10,000 people across the industry. However, sustainability concerns associated with cotton production, as well as evolving consumer awareness and an increase in sustainability initiatives and regulation, have brought sustainability to the forefront of the Australian cotton industry's agenda. The paper will provide a contextual review of the various sustainability aspects of cotton, such as genetically modified and non-genetically modified cotton, credible claims around environmental impacts, chain of custody and circularity approaches. This paper draws on publicly available information including industry reports, news articles, and certification websites. The paper provides valuable insights into the sustainability challenges for the Australian cotton industry, which can inform policymakers, industry stakeholders and consumers.

ABSTRACTThe Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) is a disclosure regulation that seeks to encourage corporate self-reflection and subsequent self-regulation on the issue of modern slavery. However, fashion companies have an established history of self-regulating on labour exploitation, and critics argue that company actions often fail to acknowledge power asymmetries between themselves and their suppliers, or how business practices might foster labour exploitation. These criticisms generate doubt on whether fashion companies will reflexively respond to the Act. This paper evaluates how fashion companies are self-regulating against modern slavery, informed by reflexive and smart regulation theory, and draws on an analysis of 57 fashion companies’ modern slavery statements to create a first-of-its-kind comprehensive typology of anti-slavery tools. We examine how fashion companies are self-regulating according to the actors involved, the coercive and persuasive pressures used, and the reflexive capacity of the tool. We find that fashion companies predominately use coercive and non-reflexive tactics to regulate their suppliers and use weak persuasive and partially reflexive tactics to regulate themselves. Our findings demonstrate that regulatory reform is needed, and fashion companies need to improve their anti-slavery strategies by reflecting on their own capacity to support suppliers and further scrutinise their own practices.

Australian fashion is emblematic of Global North countries with high levels of consumption and waste, dominated by high street fast fashion brands. It also has some unique characteristics as it is located in the Asia-Pacific region – the central production hub of garments – and is a leading producer of quality natural fibres such as cotton and wool. Despite this, Australia has a hollowed-out manufacturing sector that can provide minimal value add to these fibres, and little reuse, remanufacturing or recycling infrastructure for post-consumption garment waste. Ambition for change in the Australian fashion sector is rapidly accelerating with product stewardship initiatives, a modern slavery act and textile waste being designated a priority by the Commonwealth government. Both the policy and industry landscape is evolving. This article reflects on the research landscape of Australian sustainable fashion. The authors of this article draw on multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to survey and consider the trajectory of fashion sustainability research in Australia over the past decade and to identify key strengths and gaps. This survey culminates in the development of a research agenda for the next decade to 2030.

AbstractIn the South Asian Region, the Sri Lankan apparel industry is transitioning from apparel assembly to providing higher value-added product and services. Fashion designers are key actors in this transition. The purpose of this article is to examine the evolving role of the fashion designer in the Sri Lankan apparel industry. The study adopts a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews conducted with twenty-eight fashion and product development professionals in the Sri Lankan apparel industry. Based on an inductive thematic analysis, the study finds that the Sri Lankan designers take a multidisciplinary approach to their design practice, integrating the key functions of fashion design, product development and manufacturing capabilities, in alignment with the functional and strategic ambitions of the apparel companies. Their approach to design through technical skills extends the conceptual approach of brand designers in fashion design practice. However, the fashion knowledge of Sri Lankan designers varies significantly depending on their familiarity with Western brands and retailers as well as Western consumer culture and lifestyle.

AbstractThis article traces several interwoven traditions of considering waste and its materiality within fashion practice. Waste in fashion is commonly considered a problem to be solved, whether through reduced consumption, improved production processes, or recycling and upcycling practices. While the pragmatic and effective “waste management” approaches are key to developing a sustainable fashion industry they can also distance and obscure the materiality of waste, and in doing so overlook the potency and poignancy that waste can have. As a counter-approach to the problems of waste, this article explores a poetic element that relates to an aesthetic of the worn and wasted, and a fashion practice that elevates rather than disguises waste. This is discussed through a case study of experimental fashion label Maison Briz Vegas, reflecting on time, place and waste.

Since the 2000s activewear has grown as a fashion category, and the tropes of gym wear – leggings, leotards and block colours – have become fashionable attire for both men and women outside the gym. This article examines the rise of activewear in the context of an on-going dialogue between fashion and sport since the beginning of the twentieth century. Through an analysis of the Australian activewear label, Lorna Jane, we consider the fashionable female body as both the object and subject of a consumer culture that increasingly overlays leisure with fashion. Activewear can be seen as the embodiment of an active and fashionable lifestyle that is achieved through a regime of self-discipline, and that symbolizes the pleasure in attaining and displaying the healthy and fit body.

AbstractIn the Australian fashion industry, few fashion brands have intervened in the design of their products or the systems around their product to tackle environmental pollution and waste. Instead, support of charities (whether social or environmental) has become conflated with sustainability in the eyes of the public. Thus it is difficult to assess with any accuracy fashion brands’ response to sustainability. This article aims to address this through proposing a categorization system to structure the various interventions that a company may make. This system is applied to two case studies, analysing campaigns that respond to environmental sustainability by two established Australian brands, Country Road and Billabong. The case studies demonstrate how the interventions employed by a company, at least in the Australian context, are carefully developed to align with their brand story, revealing the interplay between the intangible aspects of a brand’s positioning and the tangible, measurable impacts of their garments.

AbstractFashion Thinking: Creative Approaches to the Design Process, F. Dieffenbacher (2013) London: AVA, 224 pp., ISBN: 9782940411719, p/bk, $79.99