Class, Social Justice, and Sustainable Fashion: Singaporean Designers in a Precarious Creative Industry

Despite being a key creative sector in post-industrial economies and a skilledprofession, fashion design is often characterized by uncertainty and financial precarity. Even in the progressive field of sustainable fashion, it is difficult for working class designers to succeed. Growing awareness of the global environmental crisis has stimulated interest in sustainable design. Sustainability draws together three pillars: environmental, economic and social-cultural justice. Yet, in fashion, the focus has primarily been on the ecological dimension. Within the sustainability sector the economics of fashion remains stacked against those from poorer socio-economic backgrounds, favoring designers with access to funding who can afford to be experimental from the outset. The limited engagement of those from lower-class backgrounds narrows the creativity and range of expression in sustainable fashion. Focusing on the grants systems in Singapore, which support sustainable fashion and could provide seed capital for designers of all backgrounds, this paper shows how state policies solidify rather than relieve class differences. Based on extensive ethnographic work and interviews, the ways in which financially independent, well-educated and globally mobile entrepreneurs have overwhelmingly succeeded in Singapore is critically analyzed. This serves as a signal case for understanding the limits to social justice in sustainable fashion.