Fast Fashion: The Dark Side of Fashion

The exhibition “Fast Fashion” at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg casts a critical glimpse behind the scenes of glamorous fashion. It is bounded by the magic triangle of consumerism, economic interests and ecological issues, and throws light on these themes from the following aspects: fashion & victims; poverty & affluence; global & local effects; wages & profits; garments & chemicals; clothes & the ecological rucksack; new fibre technologies. One part of the exhibition consists of the “Laboratory”, a platform for ethical fashion labels and new approaches to design aspects such as recycling or upcycling. The laboratory shows what tomorrow’s ethically defensible wardrobe could look like. And finally the question is in the air: what influence does the consumer have? Fashion is a social regulative of a very special kind and is regarded as the pacemaker of social change. In this context the exhibition would like to encourage visitors to think actively about the whole topic of fashion and its social, economic and environmental impacts. To this end it offers comprehensive information and background facts researched together with eminent experts, presented in a scenography especially created for this exhibition The exhibition is being made possible with generous support from the Karin Stilke Stiftung and the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt.