Deconstructing sustainable fashion, amplifying Southeast Asian narratives
Mental Health in Fashion Workplaces
10 October 2024 is World Mental Health Day. Today, we honour that mental health is a sustainability issue. Mental health and wellbeing are intricately linked to challenges such as poverty, inequality, work, education, gender, infrastructure, air pollution, access to quality green spaces, peace, and so many others. If we don’t look after our well-being, other aspects of our working, living, and caring lives can’t function as good as it can be.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) theme this year is “Mental Health at Work.” It’s a great opportunity for us to shed light on the critical link between mental health and the fashion industry. Safe, supportive working environments — whether on the design floor, in retail, or in garment production — are key to promoting good mental health. Conversely, unsafe conditions, such as long hours, unrealistic demands, discrimination, and harassment, can take a toll on workers’ mental well-being. In an industry where creativity and productivity are vital, mental health challenges can affect both personal quality of life and professional performance.
With millions employed in fashion-related jobs worldwide, urgent action is required to ensure that mental health risks are mitigated, and that every worker, from designers to factory employees, is supported. Governments, fashion brands, and industry leaders must collaborate to create healthier work environments. This should be done through meaningful engagement with workers, mental health advocates, and those with lived experience of mental health conditions. By investing in evidence-based practices and interventions, the fashion industry can foster workplaces where everyone has the chance to thrive, both mentally and professionally.
Apart from workplaces, everyone in the fashion industry is affected by mental health. From designers, to interns and students, to garment workers, to instructors and teachers, BIPOC and differently abled people… so many are affected by fashion in varying degrees.
Over the years at FASHINFIDELITY we’ve always dedicated October to making sure speaking up about mental health in this industry becomes a norm. So, here is a compilation of our posts over on Instagram that you might like to catch up on.
Now is the time to take action for a more sustainable and mentally healthy future in fashion. I’m sure you would agree!
How Fashion is Harming Mental Health, October 2021
Statistics show that people who work in fashion are 25% more likely to experience mental illness, due to its fast pace, demand for the highest standards, and heavily anticipated nature (Source: ICAAD – Fashion x Mental Health). Most people think fashion is all glitz and glamour — but the truth is, it’s far from it.
Fast fashion, social media, and Mental Health, July 2021
Social media can be a force for good (like us, *ehem*), but, there’s so many things it’s not good for. Take for example: the rise of fashion influencers and throwaway culture. It’s no surprise this overconsumerism, overproduction, and overmarketing world is more heightened when the algorithm takes over your feed. Also, #SheinHauls… really??
And all of this effects our mental health. Here’s our take on it.
How a Trendy Green Dress Divided TikTok, July 2021
A while back we covered the Cancel Culture phenomenon and how trends are so fleeting, that consumers could face backlash and worst yet — get cancelled! — for wearing a mere piece of clothing that is deemed out-of-date!
Surely, on top of fast fashion’s micro trends influencing individuals and groups simultaneously, are we not allowed some space to breathe on social media to celebrate our eye for trends and expressing our individual admiration for fashion and creative spaces? Read the controversy about this green dress below.
Fashion Student Mental Health Forum, November 2022
It all started with the question of why aren’t we talking about mental health issues among fashion students? So inNovember 2022, we hosted a Fashion Student Mental Health Forum to do just so!
Hosted by founder of FASHINFIDELITY, Najah Onn, we had Dhan Illiani Yusof, our very own Joanne Nathaniel, and Adleena Aishah on the panel, sharing their experiences in their past academic settings, including coping tools that have helped them in times of distress and how they have carved out career paths that align with their values within the fashion industry.
We hosted anonymous contributions from students all over Malaysia (and beyond) to share their experiences in the lead up to the Forum, too. Sleepless nights? Impossible deadlines? Harsh critiques? Apparently, there were many that students had in common! What is it about fashion school that helps cultivate a vulnerability to mental health problems? See some of the community responses below.
If you’d like to share with us your experiences, please feel free to DM us on Instagram or shoot us an email at [email protected].
Prior to the Open Forum, we invited Adleena Aishah, ex-fashion student and now mental health advocate to share her fashion student experiences.
Adleena says fashion school took a toll on her mental health. She journeyed in the world of art therapy as a way to cope with the stress and anxiety. Adleena is a freelance fashion designer, writer who upon graduating from a Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion Design, worked as a Product Developer before pursuing her Master’s Degree in Design Technology. She is now committed to spreading awareness on the causes and effects of mental illness among fashion students while sharing tools to help them thrive both academically and mentally through her podcast, Adleena Aishah Studio on Spotify.
Taking Action
Finally, we’re happy to report that Olivia McQuie, an ex-fashion student at RMIT University was so impacted by our Fashion Student Mental Health Forum that she initiated a mental health survey as part of her final year project in her course! Her work, “Mental Health and Wellbeing in Fashion Education: a report on wellbeing at RMIT Brunswick’sSchool of Fashion and Textiles”, and the strategies for the betterment of mental health of students, ended up being implemented. You’re welcome, Olivia 🙂 And well done!
I want to thank you for speaking about this on your page as it’s such a current and important issue!
— Olivia McQuie, RMIT University School of Fashion and Textiles graduate
We hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s World Mental Health Day edit. Look after yourself and your workmates and colleagues today, please. Be kind to yourself has to be the most overused statement of our generation, but it holds so true in times like today. It’s a crazy world out there.
Have a safe and wonderful day!
Join us in our Slow Fashion movement with the hashtags #ConscientiousFashionista and #wardrobetruths on Instagram, and follow us at @fashinfidelity. To receive early updates about our events and happenings, join our mailing list! Go to https://bit.ly/fashinfidelitysubscribe
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