Fashion in ‘crisis’: consumer activism and brand (ir)responsibility in lockdown

The Covid-19 pandemic precipitated an ‘existential crisis’ in the global fashion industry. The effects of the crisis on the retail sector resulted in many brands deferring or cancelling orders from supplier factories without paying workers, which had an instant and calamitous impact on the lives of garment workers in the global South. While activist organizations were quick to launch campaigns demanding that fashion brands #PayUp and take responsibility for their producers, these calls seemed futile in the face of fashion supply chains that have long been structured in ways that absolve brands of responsibility. The stories of worker exploitation and abuse in the garment industry that emerged during the pandemic were not discussed as effects of global capitalism, but rather were recast as evidence of a world suddenly in ‘crisis.’ In this article, we reflect on how the language of ‘crisis’ adopted in the early months of the pandemic produced particular modes and instruments of (ir)responsibility. We present an analysis of the effects of the pandemic on the global fashion industry, as well as the #PayUp and #WeWearAustralian campaigns, and argue that the exceptionalism underpinning the crisis discourse has both diffused and narrowed responsibility for garment worker exploitation, reiterating the very racialised inequalities that allow such exploitation to occur in the first place.