The role of fundamental rights in fashion

Starting from the idea that a profitable business fashion can be compatible with the respect for fundamental rights, this presentation analyses nowadays abuses of fundamental rights which occur in the fashion world, and suggests solutions for a sustainable and ethical fashion culture. It will focus on some real cases related to the right of protecting one's image (how models can control their own image), freedom of expression, fashion press freedom and freedom of cultural creation (the censorship of fashion press or the impositions on designer's creativity in closed societies due to religious and political reasons), fundamental rights related with labour (child labour in the fashion industry: child models and child workers), freedom to create and to trade union membership (i. e. fashion models which are independent contractors unable to become a member of trade unions under the law of certain countries), the right to moral and physical integrity against fundamental rights' abuses from suppliers of multinational fashion retailers and other fashion agents (forced labour and bad working conditions), property rights (the violation of intellectual property rights by design piracy) and the right to environmental protection. Based on my recent research project on the relationship between law and fashion, 'Law and fashion: a study on the law of fashion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries', the present study aims at presenting a legal response to the above mentioned problems and consequently to promote a debate in order to find adequate solutions.