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Sustainable fashion: The community you want to be a part of
2020 has been a chaotic year; politics has become so polarised, the world has gone into lockdown, and our climate is descending into madness. But in reality, this could be our future if we don’t act now. 2020 was the year to save our planet and to hold the big industries accountable. 2020 was the year to redeem ourselves, but the pandemic has diverted our gaze to the immediate threats we’re facing. It’s time to make our consumption sustainable. Climate crisis Environmental activists have been flooding the media with statements trying to draw the world’s attention to our planet’s cry for help. We are rapidly depleting our resources and most…
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The Horror Story of the Fashion World
Simply put, we are killing the planet. And one of the big contributors to this is the fashion industry. It is the third biggest pollutant on the planet and it continues to rip through our natural resources on a daily basis. We have the solution right under our noses, yet we still do nothing. We, as consumers, need to become more aware of the impact this industry is having. Our money is single-handedly funding our planet’s demise and the majority of us have no idea how. The life cycle of fashion The life cycle of your typical fashion garment is probably a bit of a mystery to most – other…
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Extinction Rebellion: London Fashion Week Are You Listening?
Written by Emma SummerscalesBlog: http://emmasummerscales.com/ Instagram: @studiothrift This Sep XR will attempt to shut down London Fashion Week in a bid to raise awareness of the environmental destruction caused by the fashion industry. They have written to the British Fashion Council asking that it be cancelled. Do you agree with the proposed disruption and do you think cancelling LFW will make the fashion world stop and listen? Greenpeace has been campaigning about climate change since the 1970s and there’s no doubt that the actions of Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion (XR) have caused a necessary explosion in media coverage and awareness. London Fashion Week (LFW) wasn’t cancelled, but XR did…
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Fashion’s Climate Emergency
Twitter: @theeasyethical / Blog: The Easy Ethical It’s no secret that fast fashion is unsustainable, despite government attempts to keep this fact hidden. They talk about making our homes energy efficient, using public transport and eating locally, but fast fashion always seems to forgo a mention. But it needs urgent attention. Not only are we consuming fashion made of material harmful to the environment, we’re consuming it at an alarming rate. A lot of us love fashion, and a lot of us are simply unaware that our purchasing habits are causing so much environmental destruction. How many people name fashion when they talk about what they perceive to be the…
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Fashion’s ‘Now’ Culture Fuels Our Climate Emergency
London Fashion Week has always made the headlines. With its history of bold innovation, the showcase of new fashion is well established in Britain’s culture. But this September, London Fashion Week will feature in headlines of a different kind. Extinction Rebellion intends to shut down London Fashion Week and its aims are supported by science. Textile production is one of the most polluting industries, contributing 1.2 billion tonnes of cO2 equivalent (CO2e) per year, which is more than international flights and maritime shipping. And let’s not forget that cumulatively, the industry produces about 20% of global waste water. The science is stark and Extinction Rebellion’s protest must be bold. It’s…
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Dear Fast Fashion: There’s No Plan(et) B
Written by Olivia ZambriWebsite: www.gemifique.com IG: @gemifiqueco The growing millennial consumer group has emphasized the importance of becoming more educated about the origins of products and the industries they come from, and with this newfound enlightenment, companies deservedly feel the pressure to switch to less controversial practices in order to align the company’s values with those of their consumers. It is a company’s moral responsibility to determine and enforce the ethical standards that they use to market their products or services. It is also a consumer’s right to know where their product came from, how and where it was made, and whether it was tainted by any processes fueled by…
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Fashion Influencers And Our Climate Emergency
by Caitlyn HowittIG: @caitlynhowittx / @caitlyn_fashion We know that reducing our fashion footprint is a critical step that needs to be taken to reduce carbon emissions, so why do we find it so difficult to give up our ASOS addictions in favour of more ethical practices? Social media influencers. I’m a 22-year-old woman and I can’t help but wish that I was ‘one of them’. Getting sent free clothing, taking amazing selfies and making hundreds of thousands for essentially being photogenic. It really does seem like easy money. I envy them, but at the same time loathe them. It would be a completely different situation if they promoted sustainable/slow fashion, but they…
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#UseItMore
by Tessy MorelliIG: @tessy.morelli One good lesson I’ve been taught since I was a child is to take care of what I have before desiring something else. It’s a lesson that hasn’t been easy to accept. Back in the 2000s when I was a teenager and all my friends main weekend’s activity was to go shopping with their parent’s cash, always wearing the most fashionable clothes, I was forced to sneak into my mum’s, auntie’s, and grandma’s closets in order to find something “new” to wear the next weekend. I started to be defined by everybody as “creative”, “extravagant”, “strange”; it wasn’t a choice. I deeply wanted to be more…
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Fashion and Waste
by Ana BoguskyIG: @mrsamericanmadeBlog: www.mrsamericanmade.comTwitter: @mrsamericanmade If you could advise government policy to set new sustainability standards for the fashion industry, where would you start? What changes are necessary for genuinely sustainable fashion? Waste is what we throw away and what we do not use. But what really happens when we throw things “away”? In a perfect world, fashion would be a more circular industry instead of linear. But new materials are currently very often made from virgin (and irreplaceable) resources instead of making new materials from old ones. Plus, there is no “away” when things are discarded. They end up in the landfill. And in garment manufacturing, it is no different because…
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Fast Fashion And Our Throw-away Culture
Despite the fact we know the fashion industry is largely impacting our climate we still struggle with reducing our fashion footprint, myself included. I honestly think it’s mainly down to habit, and social pressures. I remember being about 15 or 16, and that’s the age where everyone starts having parties, and there was constantly this underlying pressure to have a new outfit every weekend. Even now, I know people that wouldn’t dare wear the same outfit twice, for fear of being an “outfit repeater”, but in the words of the famous Lizzie McGuire – “I’m an outfit repeater, but you’re an outfit rememberer, which is just as pathetic.” Talking about…
