How ‘woke’ marketing allows quick fashion brands to abuse environmental and labor laws with impunity

Despite growing awareness of the environmental and social consequences of quick fashion, overproduction and overconsumption of clothing persists. To appeal to a more informed audience, fashion brands have adopted “woke” marketing tactics and released ads that illustrate political and social awareness around race, LGBTQ+, feminism, and the environment.

A well-known sportswear brand Nike used images of NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s anti-racism protest in a marketing campaign. You may also remember Dior 750 euro (£640) A T-shirt printed with the slogan “we should all be feminists”, a phrase taken from feminist TEDx talk by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and later used by Beyoncé in her song Flawless.

Fashion can be a useful vehicle for political messaging—until someone asks who makes the clothes. The Spice Girls wore T-shirts with the slogan “#IWANNABEASPICEGIRL” in 2018 to highlight the pay gap between women and men and promote female empowerment. It was later revealed that the seamstresses who made the T-shirts were paid poverty wages in Bangladesh.

Clothing retailer Shein paid influencers to visit factories in China and post videos praising working conditions there. A subsequent investigation by Swiss human rights organization Public Eye confirmed that many of these garment workers worked about 75 hours a week.

In the novel testsI discovered how Swedish fashion companies disproportionately target women with advertisements promising ethical or sustainable consumption while hiding the environmental and social damage their supply chains cause.

Greenwashing in Sweden

Sweden is home to quick fashion giant H&M and other global brands, many of which utilize eco-friendly advertising.

In one Instagram ad I analyzed, Swedish influencer Bianca Ingrosso posted a paid post for fashion company Gina Tricot, promoting the brand’s commitment to donate sales revenue to creating a forest and installing commercial beehives in Denmark.

A few years later it was revealed that only 503 teenage trees were planted in Gina Tricot’s name by the organization Ecotree on a piece of land in Denmark that is too diminutive to be called a forest. Only two beehives were installed (Ecotree he stated that Gina Tricot only paid for two years of maintaining the hive, which later expanded for another year).

In another Instagram story, Kappahl featured three women wearing white T-shirts and jeans with the text “DO YOUR PART” overlaid on them as part of an Instagram story series titled “Responsible,” which included a promotion for a takeback program that lets customers return unwanted clothing for a discount. In yet another example, the influencer states that Rönisch is a brand “created by women for women that produces sustainable sportswear.”

These ads are often vague, and the product isn’t always related to the cause or initiative being promoted. But the message remains the same: women can make the world a better place by shopping.

As a consumer, it can be difficult to tell the difference between a clever PR campaign and a genuine desire for change. For years, Swedish brand Monki, owned by H&M, has promoted size inclusivity in its marketing and communications. In early 2024, the brand announced that withdrawing larger sized products from their lines due to lack of consumer demand. This has been met with considerable criticism.

Women and conscious consumption

There’s a reason companies push these narratives specifically at women. Consumer research shows that women are more likely to make sustainable lifestyle choices, while tests suggests that in some cases, men do everything they can to protect their masculine identity.

There is an elderly but common stereotype of women as naturally caring and nurturing. When women are targeted by “green” or “feminist” advertising, they are encouraged to utilize their innate capacity for care through the act of consumption. Instead of telling everyone to consume less, women are told to consume certain products over others, which can lead to more consumption overall.

Women are traditionally associated with making consumer decisions and running a household, which is why advertising has always been aimed primarily at women.

Making the environment a matter of individual responsibility, with a specific product as the solution, takes away the perspective of political engagement in solving systemic problems and distracts from the potential for collective action. In most cases, using what you already have is better than buying more stuff.

The belief in the caring woman is used to justify overconsumption and transform it into something sustainable and ethical. Pro-feminist and environmental advertising uses the idea of ​​caring – whether it’s taking care of clothes by washing them properly and making them last longer, or caring for the environment by donating unwanted clothes (even if they end up in a Kenyan landfill).

It is significant that these feel-good campaigns do not include garment workers who… reported Down earn very little in factories that maybe just add to ecological disaster.

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