P. Diddy’s popular clothing line, Sean John, has recently found success with a controversial but increasingly fashionable material: fur.

Fur in the fashion industry was one of many topics addressed during a panel discussion on fashion industry ethics yesterday in Shemin Auditorium. The sudden reappearance of fur on runways and in designers’ studios has caused people to a question the morality of its use in the fashion world. Fur is considered to be fashionable or stylish by some designers, but the moral dilemma is still an issue that faces consumers.

‘Fur lost popularity in the ’80s and ’90s but has since made a comeback in the fashion industry,’ said Ben Bradley, a Syracuse University philosophy professor. ‘There are two methods of obtaining fur for clothes. They are killing the animal by trapping them or by creating fur farms where animals are bred and kept in cages to be killed for their fur.’

The animals raised on these fur farms are foxes and minks, animals that are not are subject to human consumption. Therefore, their sole purpose on these farms is contributing their fur to the fashion-conscious.

‘People like to look stylish,’ Bradley said.

The New York Public Interest Research Group formed the panel discussion as an open dialogue to address all ethical concerns in the fashion industry, including cultural appropriations, environmental degradation, sweatshops and animal rights, said Matt Walton, moderator and project leader for the Labor Rights group within NYPIRG.

Panel members included Bradley; Allen Fannin, textiles professor at SU; Karen Steen, fashion design professor at Cazenovia College and Nancy Steffan, deputy program associate of the Worker Rights Consortium.

Professor Steen elaborated on her research in the fashion industry, specifically the connection between what is happening today compared to what happened at the beginning of the fashion industry during the industrial revolution. She spoke about the development of the first women’s labor union in 1900 and addressed the developments of the fashion industry up until today.

‘The garment industry is essentially, historically and currently labor intensive,’ Steen said.

Steffan built off the point that the fashion industry is in fact based on human capital, which the Worker Rights Consortium specifically addresses. The consortium is a non-profit organization that works to address, investigate and change conditions for workers around the world. Steffan addressed the collegiate apparel industry, which is especially important to colleges and universities with successful sports teams, such as SU.

‘About five or six years ago, students started pushing for codes of conduct within sweatshops employed by the collegiate apparel industry,’ Steffan said.

Companies such as Nike and Reebok must get permission from each university to use their logos, and because of the schools’ close relationships with these companies, students can effect change in the codes of conduct in this $3 billion market.

‘Universities have had great success recently in enforcing these codes of conduct,’ Steffan said.

Fannin’s personal experience in the fashion industry led him to a different opinion about the notion of sweatshops and ethical concerns. From 1965 to 1995, he owned and managed a weaving mill, which he believes could loosely be defined as a sweatshop.

‘I do not have a quantified definition of the term ‘sweatshop,” Fannin said.

Fannin spoke of his personal experience in the industry, and he emphasized the pressure to produce quality goods so that the manufacturer can give the consumers an acceptable product, one that must fit into a culturally and socially acceptable realm.

‘The fashion industry itself has an ethically shaky foundation because there is this idea that people have to look a certain way so as not to be marginalized,’ Fannin said. ‘There is an economic concern for consumers because consumerism creates a downward pressure on price.’

This aspect of the fashion industry is what perpetuates the formation of sweatshops, which are mostly located overseas because of cheaper production. Fashion design majors concerned with these ethical dilemmas will face challenges when they join the workforce.

‘Designers have to diversify their collection by creating cultural aspects to appeal to certain groups,’ said Meieli Sawyer, a sophomore fashion design major, ‘a factor that can exploit specific cultures around the world.’

Published on April 1, 2004 at 12:00 pm