Since the mid-twentieth century, the T-shirt has been regarded as one of the most iconic symbols in fashion and culture. Indeed, it is cheap, classless and globally recognized, and is a key item in many people’s wardrobes. Low price points attributed to the fast fashion T-shirt make it an item available to all. However, this in itself raises questions regarding sustainability. This paper considers how, through its iconic status, the T-shirt can create opportunities for a more sustainable future by exploring the role that the T-shirt plays in encouraging individuals to become activists on a personal level. One of the ways they can do this is by wearing shirts displaying meaningful messages. This prompts the research question, ‘how effective is the T-shirt as a sign vehicle to promote environmental activism?”
Using research drawn from FashionMap, a garment archive housed in NTU’s School of Art and Design, the paper details how the T-shirt has evolved from a protest garment to a tool used by environmental activists. T-shirts which convey messages and signs through their design and typography were examined as communication tools, with a particular focus on protests and brand activism. Primary research using a focus group and wardrobe studies explore how participants respond to the T-shirt as personal expressions of courage, protest, and change. Findings demonstrate how social justice can impact on a personal level through the wearing of T-shirts.

This study examines the symbolic fashion practices among Indonesian domestic helpers to resolve acculturative stress and identity conflicts in Hong Kong. We adopted a qualitative research approach and conducted 15 in-depth interviews. Our findings revealed that the domestic helpers developed different fashion practices to a) liberate from home culture, b) reconnect to home and religious identity, c) manage private and public identities at work, and d) relieve from stress at work. This study contributes to offer a cross-cultural perspective of how migrant workers experienced and negotiated their conflicting identities with their fashion choices, drawing new insights into fashion acculturation experiences and market segmentation.

In contemporary Western society, people are increasingly focused on well-being, with national well-being statistics reported by numerous developed economies. Wellness is now a consumer mindset, which has gone beyond a trend and become a lifestyle, described as individual, multi-dimensional and influenced by community and environment. Fashion is recognized as a powerful social force, capable of enhancing both physical and emotional well-being. The cultural shift toward prioritizing comfortable clothing and more casual dress has led to the rapid development of female sportswear as fashionwear, described as athleisurewear. This category has seen high levels of growth compared to slowing growth in the overall clothing market.

Existing studies on activewear focus on positivist paradigms and scientific testing, with few examining the sociological or fashion perspective, therefore this research adopts an interpretive, qualitative methodology. An exploratory literature review established several well-being categories related to fashion; safety, time, the body, community, confidence and colour, as well as hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Qualitative content analysis on four female-targeted activewear brands was completed, utilizing posts from each brand’s Instagram feed over a six-month period. Results were coded to the well-being categories established in the literature and critiqued using a Baumanian sociological lens. The findings reveal high levels of positivity, a strong sense of community, messages of female empowerment, and inclusivity, underpinning the value of female-targeted activewear brands to the well-being of the women who wear them, and the role of both activewear brands and social media in facilitating community.

Hemiparesis, or partial paralysis on one side of the body, can be a result of stroke. Persons with hemiparesis often have difficulties with significant movements in their limbs, which restrict their clothing choices. The selections available to this population are limited to either ready to wear (RTW) clothing, adaptive clothing, or custom-made, locally designed apparel. Although there is currently a dearth commercially in fashionable and stylish adaptive clothing, the area has been analyzed only through the lens of functional and symbolic values while omitting the affordability criteria.

This paper aims to map the current challenges and explores the need for readily available, stylish and aesthetically pleasing and reasonably priced adaptive garments in the mass market that can contribute to improving the customers’ social experience and their self-esteem.

Thirteen female stroke survivor participants were recruited using advertisements through community agencies and support networks. The study used a mixed methods research design consisting of a quantitative questionnaire rating the ease of donning and doffing the garment and semi-structured interviews and qualitative questionnaires. All sessions were video and audio recorded for post-analysis.

The authors suggest that there is an urgent need for the unique lines (or capsule collections) to be designed, manufactured, and marketed by the mainstream retailers specifically for the person with a disability on a fixed income.

The use of fish skin for the construction of garments and accessories is an ancient tradition shared by Arctic societies in coastal areas. Arctic peoples have maintained a strong relationship with the environment, developing a subsistence lifestyle depending on the marine environment’s animal resources for food and clothing. Arctic fish-skin craft has become a way to communicate ecological change and traditional knowledge—effectively enhancing cultural resilience for the Arctic people. During the broad transformation occurring over the last century, Arctic indigenous peoples have demonstrated resilience to systematic colonization and repression of their language, culture and native fishing rights as well as dramatic ecological changes in seafood security. This paper looks at the role of fish skin in the Arctic as a way to bridge knowledge and social justice between generations and cultures and to nurture resilience during times of change and transformation.

Meanwhile, the use of fish skin by Arctic indigenous peoples has recently been assimilated as a fashion sustainable material alternative to exotic leather, due to its lower environmental impact. The Atlantic Leather tannery, located on the north coast of Iceland, has been one of the main agents in the renaissance of the fish-skin craft. Processing fish leather since 1994, based on the ancient Icelandic tradition of making shoes from the skins of wolffish, revived ancestral tanning techniques. The tannery has brought this historic eco-luxury material back into fashion, providing blue jobs for coastal dwellers in remote rural areas, maintaining the viability of the fisheries sector, and attracting young people to work in them. This paper looks at Atlantic Leather’s role in preserving the rich cultural traditions that have been developed within the Icelandic fishing industry while processing fish leather, promoting social justice through inclusive jobs.