Where brands are privately held, we have made an educated guess regarding their size and turnover. Fashion public relations involves being in touch with a company’s audiences and creating strong relationships with them, reaching out to media, and initiating messages that project positive images of the company. Social media plays an important role in modern-day fashion public relations; enabling practitioners to reach a wide range of consumers through various platforms. Consumption is driven not only by need, the symbolic meaning for consumers is also a factor.
Even though the terms are often used together, fashion differs from clothing and costumes — “clothing” describes the material and technical garment; “costume” has come to mean fancy-dress or masquerade wear. “Fashion,” by contrast, describes the social and temporal system that “activates” dress as a social signifier in a certain time and context. Philosopher Giorgio Agamben connects fashion to the current intensity of the qualitative moment and to the temporal aspect the Greek call Kairos, whereas clothing belongs to the quantitative, what the Greek call Chronos. Whereas a trend often connotes a peculiar aesthetic expression, often lasting shorter than a season, fashion is a distinctive and industry-supported expression traditionally tied to the fashion season and collections. Style is an expression that lasts over many seasons and is often connected to cultural movements and social markers, symbols, class, and culture (ex. Baroque, Rococo, etc.). According to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, fashion connotes “the latest difference.”
Shruti enjoys working in the intersectionality of design, education, gender, skill development, & public policy. She is the founder of Global Impact Games, a social initiative that develops games to raise awareness on issues of sustainability, civic participation, negotiation, and global citizenship. Shruti is a co-founder at LEAPP India, a not-for-profit organization helping young citizens engage in their communities and work on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals . She has worked as a consultant with the Government and Civil societies in the fields of education, Skill Development and textiles. She holds a Master in Public Administration degree from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, the National University of Singapore and a Master in Fashion Entrepreneurship from London College of Fashion. Sarah developed the Fashion Transparency Index back in 2016 and has lead its evolution since then.
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion industry as that which is trending. Everything that is considered fashion is available and popularized by the fashion system .
We also drive positive change through wider public awareness raising and education, lobbying governments, championing small and responsible designers, and building a network of activists around the world around a common vision. A lack of transparency perpetuates an exclusive system, where people are expected to trust brands who have continued to put profit and growth above all else. When brands publicly disclose information, it allows anyone to scrutinise their policies, hold them accountable for their claims and advocate for positive change. Transparency underpins transformative change but unfortunately much of the fashion value chain remains opaque, while human and environmental exploitation thrives with impunity. After 15 years in the public eye, Kardashian West has built her shapewear company, Skims, into a global brand valued at more than $1 billion—and her ambitions don’t stop there. The first “high fashion runway show entirely from home” just took place, complete with famous models and designers.
Where necessary, they could call out shortcomings or malpractice and track to see if these are addressed. In fact, currently the highest brand score this year is OVS at 78% – the only brand out of 250 falling in the 71-80% range and the average score across all brands is just 23%. Brands receive points for information that has been publicly disclosed on the brand or parent company website, through self-published annual reports and via third parties where there is a link between the company’s website and the third-party disclosure.