Getting Dressed Shouldn't Hurt
When I set out to design clothing, the industry had just been touching on sustainable fabrics and paying people a living wage. After I had returned to school, it opened my eyes to how truly unsustainable the fashion industry is. But yet, a sustainable fashion industry should not just be a far fetched idea or a trend to lure in customers, but should be the norm with the guidelines, framework and infrastructure to back it up.
The fashion industry is second largest polluter. Contributing to over 92 million tons of textile waste.
Today’s fashion industry contributes to 10% of the whole world’s carbon emission.
Creating a sustainable fashion industry would mean minimizing the effects the chain places on the planet’s resources such as water, energy, land, soil etc and maximizing its use of repairing, reusing and recycling its different components. From a socioeconomic perspective, a sustainable fashion industry would take into consideration the working environments of its workers in its factories, transportation chain and align with stores and businesses that have a similar code of conduct.
Ethical practices would set guidelines on the correct way to offset a company's carbon footprint.
Sustainable fashion looks at the entire cycle of a garment, from where and how it is made to what happens when the consumer is finished with it.
Garment workers would be manufacturing in a safe environment and be compensated a fair and ethical wage.
The fashion industry as a whole creates a harmful impact on our environment, but one of the most harmful ways this is done is through the practices and responses that are formed because of fast fashion. The flip side to the fast fashion industry is the empty hole for sustainable brands to emerge that are making movements to be zero waste, green and leave a positive impact on the environment.
"The answer isn’t necessarily in shutting down the fashion industry: it’s in inciting consumers to desire a higher standard of production and transparency, and making it “weird” to accept anything less." - Ashley Lauren
By addressing these conversations I can believe that the fashion industry should be held accountable by being required to meet certifications through company’s like Carbon Neutral that measure its sustainability, recycling and carbon practices though the way the company manufactures, markets, transports and recycles its products. Companies within the industry should also set regulations when it comes to labeling their clothing when it comes to terms like sustainable, organic and environmentally friendly.