Fashion crimes- An awareness project by Campaign for the Advancement of Women

Specifically targeted for the production, advertisment, and consumption of fashion products, women of all ethnicities, classes, and nationalities are being exploited for profit by the Fashion Industry and the powerful men who control it.

The many different injustices suffered globally by the women who make, advertise and consume these products are not seperate, isolated issues. Rather, they are interconnected aspects of a greater global problem.They are different links in a chain of exploitation.

Fashion Crimes is an informational site that seeks to expose this chain of exploitation, and raise awareness about the relationship between the profit-seeking heads of the Fashion Industry, and the millions of women world-wide who are suffering at their hands.

The facts that appear on this page have been chosen and are arranged in order to:

1) illustrate the connection between the different types of Fashion-Industry related exploitation and

2) prove that what has previously been viewed as a collection of individual injustices against women, is, in reality, a problem of epidemic proportions that is larger than the sum of it's parts.

"30 million people are making clothes and textiles across the globe.

And of these 30 million, most are women."

-Women and the Economy (United Nations Platform for Action Committe)

"90% of all sweatshop workers are women"

-www.feminist.org

"50% of all United States garment factories classify as sweatshops."

-US Department of Labor

"U.S. retail sales of apparel total $172 billion annually"

-Garment Industry Development Group

"In the United States, six retail conglomerates capture $9 out of every $10 spent on apparel"

-NPD Group

(All six conglomerates are owned by men.)

Chairman and CEO of Belk Inc: Thomas M. (Tim) Belk Jr.

Chairman of the Board and CEO of Saks Incorporated: R. Brad Martin

Chairman of the Board and CEO of Dillards: William Dillard II

CEO of Federated Department Stores Inc: Terry Lundgren

CEO of Macy Department Stores: John Dunham

"Saks Incorporated alone, spends $212 million annually on advertising."

-www.business2.com

"The average American woman sees 400 to 600 advertisements per day"

-www.about-face.org

"37.2% of American women say that they get their clothing ideas from fashion magazines."

-www.cottoninc.com

"Fashion magazines and advertising are becoming bigger factors when it comes to the clothes-buying decision process."

-www.cottoninc.com

"Each publication is vying for both the consumer’s time and money. That competition has lead to higher quality, more extravagant fashion photography."

-www.cottoninc.com

"The average weight of a fashion model is 23% lower than that of the average American woman"

-California Department of Health

"Exposure to pictures of fashion models from popular women's magazines resulted in negative body image and increased weight concern."

-Research Study (Posavac, Posavac, & Posavac, 1998) Sex Roles: A Journal of Research

"By the mid-1980s, female nudity and erotic content had become quite commonplace in contemporary United States advertising."

- Research Study (Soley and Kurzbad1986) Sex Roles: A Journal of Research

"After being exposed to sexually explicit advertisements, both men and women showed greater gender role stereotyping, rape myth acceptance, and acceptance of sexual aggression against women"

-Research Study (Mcay and Covell, 1997) Sex Roles: A Journal of Research

"In a comparative study of images of women in weekly U.S. news magazines (Time and Life) and weekly Indian magazines (India Today and Illustrated Weekly of India) Griffin et al. (1994) found that many of the Western advertising conventions and poses for women were being transferred across cultures. They reported that female models in India were adopting poses and displays that conformed closely to gender portrayals in the advertising of the industrialized Western nations. "

-Research Study (Griffin, 1994) Sex Roles: A Journal of Research

"In Vogue, sexualized images are the primary way of portraying women in positions of inferiority and low social power. This portrayal of women as inferior and "flawed" is a necessity for the existence of a women's fashion magazine such as Vogue, which is primarily a means for advertising and selling products that are suggested to be a "cure" for women's feelings of inferiority and inappropriateness. The illusion is created that purchasing and using these products will make them sexy and beautiful, and thus happy and successful."

-Images of women in general interest and fashion magazine advertisements from 1955 to 2002

by Katharina Lindner

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, Oct, 2004

"Photographs are airbrushed or otherwise altered to remove any lines, bumps, or lumps - anything less than "perfection." If the ideal of beauty is physically unattainable, then consumers will never be able to attain the image they want, and therefore there will be an endless demand for new beauty products. This is the reason for the incredible proliferation of the weight-loss, fashion, and cosmetics industries, which are among the largest and most profitable consumer industries."

-Jean Kilborne, Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising