Fashion journalism ethics and the pursuit of a responsible fashion system

What are the ethical obligations of a fashion journalist? We argue fashion journalists have a central role to play in addressing the industry’s most pressing issues, including but not limited to environmental degradation, worker exploitation and social justice. Moreover, we argue fashion journalists are in a unique position to help co-constitute the ‘good life’ as it pertains to our fashionable selves and societies. However, without a clearly articulated ethic of fashion journalism, we cannot hope to have an ethical and responsible fashion industry with which to build such a life. We contend that this must be done not through prioritizing a consumer identity for readership – the default subject position in lifestyle journalism – but through the readership’s subject position as citizen and moral agent. In the broadest critique we offer here, we posit that fashion journalism and journalists have been exempted from the traditional ethical obligation of a press responsible to a public, and we seek to recentre the fashion journalist as a key agent in the work towards a more just and caring society.