Southeast Asia’s apparel market is expected to be worth US$51.4 billion in 2024, according to Statista. This is set to grow further, with the region’s middle class projected to reach 65 per cent of the population by 2030, Fulcrum reported.
Meanwhile, the Southeast Asian fashion market is forecast to have an average annual growth rate of 8.62 per cent for the next five years. However, the region’s insatiable appetite for fashion has led to the degradation of the environment. One example is the severe chemical waste contamination from textile factories in the Citarum River, West Java’s longest river, causing contact dermatitis and respiratory problems for residents along the river.
Besides environmental issues, the fast fashion industry has faced heavy criticism as its desire for higher profits has led to outsourcing production to countries with poor labour rights, such as Cambodia. Corruption is rampant in Cambodia’s labour inspectorate system, which comprises officials tasked to enforce Cambodia’s labour laws. To escape prosecution, companies bribe officials with amounts of US$100 to $200 to receive reports that claim they abide by the law. Nevertheless, since consumer demands drive fast fashion, consumers can “vote with their dollar” and buy less from unscrupulous companies. In response, firms such as H&M are improving transparency by disclosing their suppliers and manufacturers, allowing the public to scrutinise their operations and alert them of suspected malpractices in their supply chain.
While increased transparency helps to improve conditions, cases of harassment and abuses of garment workers still happen. Due to these concerns, in the mid-2010s, the region started to see a rise in demand for sustainable fashion (apparel produced in an environmentally and socially responsible manner). In 2017, a directive by Vietnam’s Ministry of Trade and Industry placed limits on the amount of formaldehyde – which can cause skin irritation – in clothes’ dyes. Concerns about synthetic dye usage on the environment and the health of humans have led to growing demand for sustainable natural materials and dyes. One sustainable option features the Hmong, along with other ethnic minorities, who use indigo dye obtained from the indigo plant that grows in the mountains of Northern Vietnam. Extracting indigo dye is a time-consuming process, where the leaves need to undergo harvesting and fermenting before the dye is extracted. Despite the difficulty of procuring indigo dye, it is increasingly used, as its extraction process is more environmentally friendly.
Meanwhile, local worries that traditions are being lost or made obsolete have led to a rise in the promotion of traditional apparel production methods. If cultural practices are lost in favour of homogeneous production methods, societies will lose an intangible part of their cultural heritage that makes them unique. Therefore, in countries like Cambodia, there are efforts to revitalise and preserve the millennium-old cultural heritage of golden silk production and weaving. This process requires workers to rear silkworms on a diet of native mulberry leaves and extract the silk from them when they spin their cocoons, by boiling the silkworms. The extracted silk is then spun and woven. Despite these efforts, Cambodia’s golden silk industry faces competition from foreign textiles which are cheaper and faster to produce, brought by large multinational companies who set up garment factories there.