Abstract
Fashion, and its impacts on the environment and the lives of people, is being engaged with
increased debate. While it’s industry contributes to 10% of the world’s waste, and is engrained
with a culture of worker abuse, there are those pushing against the tide; imagining and
reimagining a marriage of Fashion and Sustainability. This dissertation attempts to unpack the
way in which South African fashion brands and associated fashion people manifest valued
relations toward a considered fashion future that prioritises its social and environmental impacts.
Through engagement and critique of the interviews with ten South African fashion designers
and associated fashion people, the research sought to identify the ways in which the worker is
reframed, the materials from plants or animals sourced from the Earth are reassessed; as well
as the reclamation of selfhood through mindfulness and a questioning of consumption. The
dissertation is intended to urge the reader to question and think critically about their
consumption and their reason to consume. The research study uses the findings garnered from
interactions with South African fashion designers and associated fashion people who are
attempting to make and create their work through compassion and intention, a love for
community and recognition, care, continuity, and consideration. Through an appreciation of the
thought and engagement that goes into the work of each of the research participants, this
research challenges the reader to slow down and rethink consumption and reassess the way in
which value is ascribed to products. In this way, the research challenges the reader to engage
their consciousness to rethink the practises that go into fashion production, as well as
questioning one’s own reason to consume. Using Marxist theories of alienation, estrangement
and commodity fetishism as the basis for the analysis of the findings, the research shows the
way in which value is derived from the experiences shared by the research participants. Value is
personal and social; the value one ascribes to a garment is explained through Marxist theories
that nuance the valued relations manifested by South African fashion designers and associated
fashion people.