Transnational Fashion Sustainability: Between and Across the Gulf and the UK

In this moment of ecological crisis, the consequences of crisis are unevenly distributed, with those with the least power impacted the most. The fashion industry’s growth, spurred in the past decades by fast fashion and a reliance on growth of petroleum-based fibers, is a con- tributor to this uneven distribution of ecological consequences. This paper explores fashion and ecology as interconnected transnational sys- tems. It does this with reference to two contexts: the UK and the Gulf state of Bahrain. By exploring positions on environmentalism in the UK and Bahrain, questions around fibers, clothing care and waste, this paper underscores the political urgency and the relational effects of change that span nation states within the fashion sector. Decarbonizing the fashion system requires both localized action and methodologies in addition to political will to work between and across such themes. Transnational perspectives are central to cumulative whole-systems effects.

This article was part of the Special Issue of Fashion Theory on Transnational Fashion edited by Djurdja Bartlett. We dedicate this paper to the memory of Djurdja.