A Comparative Advantage?

Without media displaying multiple images defining fashion and top designers for a particular season, would consumers be more influenced by their community’s perception of fashion? Would they shop local designers instead of foreign brands? Would this assist in limiting the environmental issue of mass consumption? As a nation, we take pride in our individualist culture and strive to be unique; yet our clothing consumption habits might prove otherwise. We often form our opinions of popular fashions for each season from different forms of media based off the styles of others globally. This subsequently leads us to feel as though we are distinct in fashion, when we are actually very generic. The article Local and Light, by K. Fletcher, states that as multiple global retailers begin to mass-produce these generic garments for our consumption, they produce more then what is needed wasting natural resources and polluting the environment. Fletcher suggests the idea of shopping locally, explaining that this would allow for less generic clothing as it would be based around fashion within our community and history, while making the production process more sustainable.

Fletcher’s idea is developed from the biomimicry principle, by scientist Janine Benyus, called shopping locally. Benyus’s principle describes how animals in the environment cannot import products from other places. She also discusses that there is a drive for a globally, borderless economy where one product is built in several nations and sold in a completely different nation. This inspired one of my concepts for the apparel industry, which would be based around consumers shopping locally, but still desiring certain garments made from materials that may not be found within their general region. Although Benyus discusses that products are solely manufactured locally, I do not believe that it is completely sustainable for certain crops to be grown in certain areas that are not natural for their growth, nor do I believe that our country will ever prohibit foreign trade. This is why my concept would incorporate the idea of comparative advantage, which defined by Investopedia.com is when one country, individual, company or region can produce a good at a lower opportunity cost than a competitor, meaning if America could produce cotton more sustainably than India; they would grow cotton and India would grow a different crop. All countries and regions would take comparative advantage into consideration and develop an agreement as to where a product would grow most sustainably and as to how the product should be traded among nations. This would allow for consumers to shop locally purchasing items that are in fashion for their area, but would also allow them a diverse selection of materials.

Along with the principle of shopping locally, this concept was also inspired by Benyus’s principle “Diversify and Cooperate to Fully Use the Habitat.” In this principle, she describes how animals have “agreements” with one another and at times their cooperation can be seen as partnerships that are formed to benefit each other to survive within their habitat. In my concept, the countries have an agreement with each other as to where it is more sustainable to grow a particular crop based off of comparative advantage. They also cooperate with one another by trading these crops in order to make different textiles. From there, the crops are sold throughout different regions in order for the locally owned retailers to develop garments that their niches will purchase.

In conclusion, my concept discusses how comparative advantage, agreements, and trade could affect our nation in the future as we diversify and cooperate with other countries to fully use the habitat and begin to shop locally. As sciences develop more synthetic materials that are sustainable, such as those discussed by B. Quinn in Textile Futures: Fashion, Design and Technology, more agreements and policies will need to be created to trade these materials and their secrets that explain how to develop these textiles in order for the countries to cooperate with one another efficiently.