By Laura Benwell
In recent years, sustainability has become a buzzword especially amongst a younger generation. Just as consumers today are taking a closer look at the food they consume, they are also shifting their purchasing decisions to create a cleaner environment through the clothes they wear.
One of the biggest culprits in the fashion industry is “fast fashion,” or clothes made cheaply to meet demands for the hot new styles. Websites like Boohoo are one of the many websites which produce fast fashion with dresses as cheap as £2, lower than the delivery fee. Fashion, as a general rule, is trend focused; which is exactly what places like Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing are culprits of whereas sustainability looks to longevity and extending life cycle. If these two terms are to be used together, we need to reevaluate the overall fashion system and how it currently operates.
One argument is that we need fast fashion in order to make it sustainable. I agree that you can take a piece of clothing and reinvent it in many ways- not just for clothing purposes but when there's sustainable fashion brands using only materials like bamboo, it seems silly to then say we NEED fast fashion.
It all comes down to the consumer, it is impossible for one fashion brand to tick all of the ‘ethical’ boxes, so we have to look at ourselves and consider what our own personal morals are and how we can apply them to our shopping lives.
Louison Webb runs her own sustainable fashion brand and reworks vintage pieces of clothing, paints over clothing, creates new and modern looks using clothes anyone would usually throw away. This sort of business is inspiring, and has influenced many people to start doing this themselves to clothes they already have, including myself! If people start to rework their own clothes then it has a more positive effect on the environment and overseas sweatshops.
Images taken Pre Covid-19 Lockdown
Comentarios