Ethical Fashion

Ethical Fashion 101 | How Ethical Fashion Is Fighting Against Fast Fashion

by
Ethical Fashion 101 how its fighting Fast Fashion

ethical fashion 101 | what is ethical fashion and how it's fighting against fast fashion

table of contents

  1. what is ethical fashion?
  2. ethical fashion vs sustainable fashion | how do they differ?
  3. the pros and cons of the ethical fashion industry
  4. is fast fashion ethical at all?
  5. where can I buy ethical fashion from? (online)
  6. summary

what is ethical fashion?

To understand what Ethical Fashion is we first need to know what Fast Fashion is in the first place, Fast Fashion is a terrible business practice that not only created a production model where very cheap low-quality garments were made very fast following trends with no regard to the environment and the people, but it has also given more importance to fashion movements that wanted a sustainable fashion industry, one of them is Ethical Fashion, which has actually existed since the 1950s, before Fast Fashion was ever born.

Since then, fashion movements like Ethical, Sustainable and Slow Fashion arose to the surface in one way or another, which is kind of a good thing if we ignore the terrible consequences Fast Fashion has on our world, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewaters, which you might already know by now but it still doesn’t lose its importance and never will.

Ethical Fashion refers to a fashion movement that searches for garments made with respect to the workers that make them, the vendors and small businesses that play a role in the production process, fair trade, and the ethical treatment of all the agents related to the fashion industry, including the environment. Strongly opposing Fast Fashion and the terrible conditions fashion factory workers have to deal with.

This fashion movement actually started in the 1950s when people began realizing the harsh conditions of textile factory workers and it is not a direct result of the birth of Fast Fashion in the 1990s, nonetheless, this situation has exacerbated the importance of Ethical Fashion. After the widespread of Fast Fashion textile workers have only seen their working conditions get worse and worse, with more inhumane retributions, reaching sometimes modern slavery levels.

So in simple terms, Ethical Fashion focuses on the ethical treatment of humans, and animals to achieve a sustainable fashion industry, with support for small businesses and the development of countries that are right now in unfavorable conditions. If you want to know more about this wonderful fashion movement feel free to check out our articles on The Ethical Dilemma of Fashion or Why Is Ethical Fashion Important?

What Exactly Is Ethical Fashion

ethical fashion vs sustainable fashion | how do they differ?

We have seen what Ethical Fashion is, but what do Sustainable Fashion and Slow Fashion mean? Aren’t they the same at the end of the day? Well, do not worry because we will be answering these questions now. Having said this, here are the differences between Slow Ethical and Sustainable Fashion:

  • Sustainable Fashion is a movement that focuses on the sustainability of the garments it produces, making sure they are ecological and made from organic and biodegradable materials that have the minimal environmental impact possible. It basically wants to achieve a sustainable fashion industry by reducing the great environmental footprint it has. Read our Sustainable Fashion 101 to learn more about the subject.
  • Slow Fashion is a movement that directly opposes Fast Fashion, from there it gets its name. It promotes garments made with slow manufacturing cycles with respect to the workers that produce them and the environment, strongly avoiding overproduction, disposal, and unnecessary consumerism which Fast Fashion promotes. It also encourages small businesses to promote competitiveness and innovation. If you want to know more about the subject feel free to read our Slow Fashion 101.
  • Ethical fashion, on the other one, focuses on the rights of the workers and agents involved in the production process, in this way achieving sustainability in the fashion industry. It searches for garments made with ethical, decent wage labor with humane working conditions for all of its workers, while also promoting small businesses and vendors involved in the production process.

As you can see, they can differ a little bit, but all of these movements want to achieve the same thing, a sustainable fashion industry strongly opposing Fast Fashion and all the terrible consequences it has. Normally, businesses that sell ethical, slow, or sustainable fashion have garments that comply with all of these movements at the same time, so you shouldn’t feel in a position of choosing between one or another.

Ethical vs Sustainable Fashion How Do They Differ Ethical Fashion

the pros and cons of the ethical fashion industry

Now that you know more about these fashion movements, it is time to learn the pros and cons of them, because yes, even if it doesn’t seem to, the ethical fashion initiative does have some flaws, it is not just all advantages. Having said this, here are the biggest ethical fashion issues and positive points:

Ethical Fashion Pros:
  • It strongly opposes the exploitation of workers, Ethical Fashion was born to produce garments that are ethical, as its name implies, which means that the workers that create them have to be treated humanely, with a decent livable wage and good working conditions. Opposing Fast Fashion and the terrible working conditions it has for its workers, which sometimes reach modern slavery conditions just to produce cheap low-quality garments its customers can constantly devour.
  • Fights for sustainable fashion industry, Ethical Fashion also wants to achieve a sustainable and environmentally friendly fashion industry that cares for our planet and environment, and therefore future generations that will come. It does this by promoting garments that are made with sustainable, non-polluting materials and production processes, such as organic ring-spun cotton or hemp. This is where Sustainable Fashion comes into play, a homolog of Ethical Fashion in the fight for sustainable fashion industry.
  • It promotes small businesses and creators, this fashion movement also looks for small businesses that care about the environment and their workers, as well as small fashion designers that are in line with its ethical standards. When you buy ethical garments from a small business not only you are supporting the environment and the people who made that garment, but you are also supporting and feeding the small business and the family behind it who risked a lot just to satisfy your necessities. This is also true for small fashion designers, whose art is often shamelessly stolen by Fast Fashion corporations.
Ethical Fashion Cons:
  • High Price, is one of the biggest disadvantages of Ethical Fashion because it treats all of its workers humanely and respects fair trade, its garments are more expensive to make than those of Fast Fashion, which outsources its costs to the environment and our society.  This higher price is usually just called the fair price of the garment, that is because it is the real price that the garment should cost without exploiting its workers and destroying our environment, which is also a very big economic cost for our society and therefore our pockets either way (taking strictly in consideration the money we pay for the garment).
  • Greenwashing, or should we say ethicalwashing? This is the practice where big corporations try to hide their environmentally and socially destructive practices as „green” and „ethical”, like Zara saying that they are making enormous changes to help reduce their footprint on the planet when there is no proof of them doing that, or even SHEIN, the ultra-fast fashion brand declaring themselves as ethical as sustainable when they are the complete antipode of that. The solution to this problem is always informing yourself as a customer and reading about Ethical Fashion instead of letting big corporations treat you like you have no brain. If you want to know more about Greenwashing, feel free to check this article from Business News Daily out!
  • This is a relatively young and small industry, Ethical Fashion is a small industry with a small audience and demand, sadly, which means not a lot of businesses are trying to produce ethical fashion garments with respect for the environment and the workers. Not only that, but this lack of demand and economic activity also means that the few businesses that actually offer ethical fashion garments are not productive enough to produce items at a much more affordable price than they would if these garments would be more demanded. In simple terms, the industry still has to wait to become more profitable and affordable for its customers (Kind of like electric cars 20 years ago).

Now, even if this list seems to have more cons than pros, the weight of the pros is much bigger than that of the cons, plus we just wanted to present you with 3 cons and 3 pros of Ethical Fashion, but there are many many more pros we could name if you were interested. The conclusion is that even if Ethical Fashion is not perfect, it is infinitely better than Fast Fashion in all aspects, as we will see in a moment.

The Pros And Cons Of Ethical Fashion

is fast fashion ethical at all?

This is an easy and straightforward question to answer, and it is a clear NO. Fast Fashion is the reason fashion movements like Ethical Fashion and Sustainable Fashion took off because many people began realizing the destructive nature of Fast Fashion for our planet and society. This terrible business practice has a lot of downfalls, the biggest problem with fast fashion is its pollution, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions with its activities, but also the exploitation of its workers. But there are many other reasons why Fast Fashion will never be ethical, here are the biggest problems with fast fashion:

  • Overproduction, Fast Fashion creates a lot of clothes very quickly and many of them end up in landfills without even being worn (85% of its garments end up in landfills every year) just to feed the overwhelming consumerism and the buy-n-throw culture it promotes.
  • Air Pollution, producing around 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, this is one of the most destructive industries the world has ever seen, which is something crazy to even think about.
  • Water pollution, polluting our rivers and seas with the lack of care for the environment Fast Fashion has creating these low-quality garments. It produces 20% of the global wastewaters, which is a dangerously high amount for our planet.
  • Soil pollution, especially when these garments end up in landfills, decomposing into harmful chemicals and leaving plastics behind that do not decompose if the garments are made from polyester. So Fast Fashion garments do not stop polluting our world even when they are no longer on the market.
  • Consumerism, as it promotes a culture of buy-n-throw clothes that its customers can constantly devour without even needing those garments. This goes hand-in-hand with overproduction, and it just aggravates the situation even more as many more clothes are being produced contaminating our planet even more.
  • Worker exploitation, with very low wages, inhuman working conditions, and slavery-like jobs, is partly the reason why these clothes are so cheap. Ethical Fashion directly targets this aspect of Fast Fashion, as it mainly promotes garments that are made from humane work, with decent working conditions and livable wages for its workers, and fair trade. Fast Fashion’s low added value industry that exploits workers in less fortunate countries is compromising the development of those nations, which is condemning them to poverty and vulnerability.
  • Stealing intellectual property, this business practice needs constant new trends and is willing to do anything to get them, like stealing designs from independent artists and giving them no credit, this has happened many times before. One of the best (or better said worst) examples of this is SHEIN, which has stolen many times designs from small artists giving them no credit at all just to keep pumping up new designs every day to feed their customers.

Now you see why Fast Fashion by definition cannot ever be ethical, that is because it is a term that is used to describe the complete opposite of Ethical Fashion and all that it stands for. You can say some Fast Fashion garments are „better than others”, but in reality, they are all truly terrible for our planet, society, and future generations, so the solution is to just ditch them and find more sustainable and ethical solutions because as we will see in a moment there are some available even online.

where can I buy ethical fashion from? (online)

Fortunately, there are a lot of options for you to choose from when it comes to Ethical Fashion and Sustainable Fashion, unfortunately, there are not as many as we would like and they are not as famous as other not-so-ethical counterparts. The good thing is that all of these brands have their products available on the internet, so it doesn’t matter where you are from, you can purchase their products without problems. Having said that, here are the 6 Best Ethical Fashion Companies or Brands you can buy from the internet:

  1. Finisterre

    This brand was started in 2003 in a flat above a Surf Shop, with the intent of creating garments with respect for the people, the environment and the planet, and society as a whole. Its name means „End of the land”, showing the brand’s interest in the sea and waters, and its respect for marine life, fighting the terrible water pollution of the Fast Fashion industry. As of today, this brand is a Certified B Corp, and they have a beautiful user-friendly web page that you can check out from here.

  2. Patagonia

    This is one of the most well-known sustainable fashion brands out there, and it was started in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard, an accomplished rock climber when he began to manufacture and sell his own climbing gear. Although the brand has been in some ugly controversies and legal problems that we will not discuss here, it is still considered an „activist company” that is producing garments with respect for its workers and it aims to be a carbon-neutral company by 2025. In 2012 they became a Certified B Corporation and right now they have a website you can visit from this link.

  3. Pact Clothing

    This online Ethical Fashion store is known for producing high-quality garments that are both affordable and low-impact on the environment. This brand really loves cotton, organic cotton to be precise, and it uses it in every product they have, sometimes adding some synthetic materials to make their garments more comfortable. Some of their products, not all, are certified Fair Trade, which is a great start. Overall, they help developing countries actually develop, and they give their workers living wages and humane working conditions that they need. You can check out their wonderful and minimalistic website right here.

  4. Everlane

    A brand that is known for its transparency policy, has its customers know exactly where its garments come from and how they are made, which, because they are on this list, is with respect for the human lives that are working to produce its products. Everlane was founded in 2010 by Michael Preysman and Jesse Farmer as an Ethical Fashion direct-to-customer business where the products are directly sold to customers without any intermediaries, which lets them cut a lot of costs, be much more productive, and much more transparent about their products and their margins. You can check out their website from this link.

  5. ABLE

    This is an Ethical Fashion brand with a lot of history behind it, its founder, Barrett Ward while living in Ethiopia saw first-hand how extreme poverty forced women to resort to prostitution just to feed their families. Since then, ABLE was born as a brand that aims to end generational poverty, really focusing on empowering women and helping them have a living wage that will keep them off the dangerous streets. All of their garments regardless of where they are produced, in Ethiopia, Mexico, Peru, are made by women with humane working conditions and livable wages that can feed their families and end their generational poverty, creating higher added-value products. If you want to check out their website you can do it from here.

  6. PLEA

    This is our own Slow, Sustainable, and Ethical Fashion online store, and it is the one you are reading this article from right now! We have to give this an honorable mention, of course, and present you with our perks and what we aim for. We are a very young brand started by 4 young teenage entrepreneurs who aim to stop Fast Fashion by doing the best we can to spread awareness and make customers conscious about their fashion choices (That is why you are reading this article right now), and also by providing you with very affordable Slow Fashion, Sustainable Fashion, Ethical Fashion clothes sold using the revolutionary on-demand business model that produces the garments at the time of the purchase avoiding overproduction and stocking costs. We also provide customizable t-shirts and other apparel, and beautiful designs that you will surely love. We highly recommend you to check out our About Us page and even our Shop, or if you would like to read more articles about Ethical Fashion and other related subjects, you can check out our blog.

As you have already seen, there are quite a few options to choose from when it comes to Ethical Fashion, and fortunately, this fashion movement that promotes sustainability in the fashion industry is growing, and we could see more and more Ethical Fashion brands as customers become more conscious about the repercussions their choices have on our planet and society.

How to Shop For Ethical Fashion Online From Home

summary

We hope you have learned a lot from this article today, if so, our main mission is done for today! You see, the best action you can take to end Fast Fashion and achieve sustainability in the fashion industry is to inform yourself, the second best thing is to inform others, to spread awareness. This is because only knowledge is powerful enough to end Fast Fashion, if consumers don’t even know the destructive consequences of their fashion choices on the world they will never move a finger to change it.

We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, Sustainable Fashion, Slow Fashion or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.

We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!

The Best 6 Ethical Fashion Brands You Can Buy From Online

The Pros And Cons Of Ethical Fashion

by
The Pros And Cons Of Ethical Fashion

the pros and cons of the ethical fashion industry

table of contents

  1. what is ethical fashion?
  2. the worst cons and disadvantages of ethical fashion
  3. the best pros and positive points of ethical fashion
  4. pros vs cons: is ethical fashion really that great?
  5. summary

what is ethical fashion?

To understand what Ethical Fashion is we first need to know what Fast Fashion is in the first place, Fast Fashion is a terrible business practice that not only created a production model where very cheap low-quality garments were made very fast following trends with no regard to the environment and the people, but it has also given more importance to fashion movements that wanted a sustainable fashion industry, one of them is Ethical Fashion, which has actually existed since the 1950s, before Fast Fashion was ever born.

Since then, fashion movements like Ethical, Sustainable and Slow Fashion arose to the surface in one way or another, which is kind of a good thing if we ignore the terrible consequences Fast Fashion has on our world, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewaters, which you might already know by now but it still doesn’t lose its importance and never will.

Ethical Fashion refers to a fashion movement that searches for garments made with respect to the workers that make them, the vendors and small businesses that play a role in the production process, fair trade, and the ethical treatment of all the agents related to the fashion industry, including the environment. Strongly opposing Fast Fashion and the terrible conditions fashion factory workers have to deal with.

This fashion movement actually started in the 1950s when people began realizing the harsh conditions of textile factory workers and it is not a direct result of the birth of Fast Fashion in the 1990s, nonetheless, this situation has exacerbated the importance of Ethical Fashion. After the widespread of Fast Fashion textile workers have only seen their working conditions get worse and worse, with more inhumane retributions, reaching sometimes modern slavery levels.

So in simple terms, Ethical Fashion focuses on the ethical treatment of humans, and animals to achieve a sustainable fashion industry, with support for small businesses and the development of countries that are right now in unfavorable conditions. If you want to know more about this wonderful fashion movement feel free to check out our articles on The Ethical Dilemma of Fashion or Why Is Ethical Fashion Important?

the worst cons and disadvantages of ethical fashion

Now that you know better what Ethical Fashion is all about, you may want to know what are the disadvantages of this fashion movement, if there are any (Chances are, if you are reading this article there may be a few). You see, not everything in this life is perfect, you may say nothing at all is, so even this seemingly perfect Ethical Fashion movement has its own flaws. Having said this, here are the biggest cons or disadvantages of the Ethical Fashion industry:

  • High Price, is one of the biggest disadvantages of Ethical Fashion because it treats all of its workers humanely and respects fair trade, its garments are more expensive to make than those of Fast Fashion, which outsources its costs to the environment and our society.  This higher price is usually just called the fair price of the garment, that is because it is the real price that the garment should cost without exploiting its workers and destroying our environment, which is also a very big economic cost for our society and therefore our pockets either way (taking strictly in consideration the money we pay for the garment).
  • Greenwashing, or should we say ethicalwashing? This is the practice where big corporations try to hide their environmentally and socially destructive practices as „green” and „ethical”, like Zara saying that they are making enormous changes to help reduce their footprint on the planet when there is no proof of them doing that, or even SHEIN, the ultra-fast fashion brand declaring themselves as ethical as sustainable when they are the complete antipode of that. The solution to this problem is always informing yourself as a customer and reading about Ethical Fashion instead of letting big corporations treat you like you have no brain.
  • This is a relatively young and small industry, Ethical Fashion is a small industry with a small audience and demand, sadly, which means not a lot of businesses are trying to produce ethical fashion garments with respect for the environment and the workers. Not only that, but this lack of demand and economic activity also means that the few businesses that actually offer ethical fashion garments are not productive enough to produce items at a much more affordable price than they would if these garments would be more demanded. In simple terms, the industry still has to wait to become more profitable and affordable for its customers (Kind of like electric cars 20 years ago).

These are a few of the disadvantages of Ethical Fashion, as you may see, this industry does have some flaws, although it is no where near Fast Fashion, and industry that is basically all flaws since the beginning. However, most of these cons can be corrected, and they will surely be as the Ethical Fashion industry progresses.

The worst cons and disadvantages of ethical fashion

the best pros and positive points of ethical fashion

We have seen the cons, now it is time to see the pros of the Ethical Fashion industry, which are overwhelmingly superior to the flaws it has, as from the beginning it was born to solve the problems if the fashion insustry that was exploiting their workers, as we saw before. Having said this, here are the best pros or perks of the Ethical Fashion industry:

  • It strongly opposes the explotation of workers, Ethical Fashion was born to produce garments that are ethical, as it name implies, which means that the workers that creates them have to be treated humanely, with a decent livable wage and good working conditions. Opposing Fast Fashion and the terrible working conditions it has for its workers, which sometimes reach modern slavery conditions just to produce cheap low-quality garments its customers can constantly devour.
  • Fights for a sustainable fashion industry, Ethical Fashion also wants to achieve a sustainable and environmentally friendly fashion industry that cares for our planet and environment, and therefore future generations that will come. It does this promoting garments that are made with sustainable, non-polluting materials and production processes, such as organic ring-spun cotton or hemp. This is where Sustainable Fashion comes into play, a homologue of Ethical Fashion in the fight for a sustainable fashion industry.
  • It promotes small businesses and creators, this fashion movement also looks for small businesses that care about the environment and its workers, as well as small fashion designers that are in line with its ethical standards. When you buy ethical garments from a small business not only you are supporting the environment and the people who made that garment, but you are also supporting and feeding the small business and the family behind it who risked a lot just to satisfy your necessities. This is also true for small fashion designers, whose art is often stolen by Fast Fashion corporations in a shamless way.
  • It’s just the best option, Ethical Fashion and all of its homologues were born for a reason, to change the most destructive industry the world has seen in a long time and offer a better, ethical and sustainable option for customers all over the world. Therefore, it is just as the fashion you already may be buying from the typical fast fashion stores (we hope not) just without literally destroying our planet, the lives of future generations and entire less fortunate countries exploiting their workers.

In conclusion, these are the most remarkable pros of Ethical Fashion, but there are many more to be named. As you have seen, these pros do have a lot more weight compared to the cons, and it is undeniable that the Ethical, Sustainable Fashion option is an infinitely better option than that of Fast Fashion, in practically every aspect.

pros vs cons: is ethical fashion really that great?

As we said earlier, the pros clearly outweigh the cons regarding Ethical Fashion, so it becomes clear why fashion movements that want to achieve sustainability in the fashion industry are so important because they ultimately want to end the big environmental and social footprint the industry has. It is rather a necessity, because if Fast Fashion continues to grow and prosper the world as we know it may end, suffering permanent damages that we will regret as species for the rest of our existence.

Ethical Fashion as you may know focuses a lot more on the humane treatment of workers and agents involved in the production process, but there is a lot more to that. Promoting fair trade and the creation of new small businesses aims to develop those countries that are still, unfortunately, suffering from poverty. This does not only affect the lives of millions of people worldwide but will ultimately affect all of us, even from the richest countries on earth.

That is because the existence of countries that are economically underdeveloped negatively affects the entire world, because of the opportunity costs that we have if those countries were developed and contributing to the development of humanity as a whole, that is why it is harder to become a rich country if you are surrounded by poorer countries and vice versa.

Not only that, poorer countries have fewer resources to care about and resolve things like their environmental footprint and pollution, which affects all of us, and not only that, the entire planet earth and its ecosystem.

So at the end of the day, Ethical Fashion is a crucial part of achieving sustainability in the fashion industry and saving our planet and species from inevitable doom, which is, unfortunately, closer and closer as Fast Fashion grows uncontrollably. That is why Ethical Fashion is so important, for the sake of our planet and humanity, and it should always be complimented by Slow Fashion and Sustainable Fashion. Anyways, if you want to know more about the importance of this fashion movement, feel free to check this article out.

Pros vs cons is ethical fashion that great

summary

We hope you have learned a lot from this article, and some of the cons of Ethical Fashion, because even movements as world-changing as these do have some flaws that could be changed for the better. Either way, no it is time to put this information into good practice, and one of the best ways to do it is to keep informing yourself as a customer on the subject, as we always say, the only way to combat Fast Fashion and its terrible consequences on our world is to spread awareness and learn more and more.

We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, Sustainable Fashion, Slow Fashion or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.

We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!

How To Shop Ethical Fashion (Online)

by
How To Shop Ethical Fashion (Online)

how to shop ethical fashion from the comfort of your own home (online)

table of contents

  1. what exactly is ethical fashion?
  2. how to shop for ethical fashion online
  3. best ethical fashion brands / companies to buy from
  4. how to support ethical fashion at home
  5. summary

what exactly is ethical fashion?

To understand what Ethical Fashion is we first need to know what Fast Fashion is in the first place, Fast Fashion is a terrible business practice that not only created a production model where very cheap low-quality garments were made very fast following trends with no regard to the environment and the people, but it has also given more importance to fashion movements that wanted a sustainable fashion industry, one of them is Ethical Fashion, which has actually existed since the 1950s, before Fast Fashion was ever born.

Since then, fashion movements like Ethical, Sustainable and Slow Fashion arose to the surface in one way or another, which is kind of a good thing if we ignore the terrible consequences Fast Fashion has on our world, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewaters, which you might already know by now but it still doesn’t lose its importance and never will.

Ethical Fashion refers to a fashion movement that searches for garments made with respect to the workers that make them, the vendors and small businesses that play a role in the production process, fair trade, and the ethical treatment of all the agents related to the fashion industry, including the environment. Strongly opposing Fast Fashion and the terrible conditions fashion factory workers have to deal with.

This fashion movement actually started in the 1950s when people began realizing the harsh conditions of textile factory workers and it is not a direct result of the birth of Fast Fashion in the 1990s, nonetheless, this situation has exacerbated the importance of Ethical Fashion. After the widespread of Fast Fashion textile workers have only seen their working conditions get worse and worse, with more inhumane retributions, reaching sometimes modern slavery levels.

So in simple terms, Ethical Fashion focuses on the ethical treatment of humans, and animals to achieve a sustainable fashion industry, with support for small businesses and the development of countries that are right now in unfavorable conditions. If you want to know more about this wonderful fashion movement feel free to check out our articles on The Ethical Dilemma of Fashion or Why Is Ethical Fashion Important?

What Exactly Is Ethical Fashion

how to shop for ethical fashion online

There are many options for you to choose from when it comes to Ethical Fashion, and fortunately, almost all of them are available online. And when it comes to online shopping, you have to know a few basic rules so that you know the item you are purchasing is truly ethical and sustainable and it is not only the product of unethical greenwashing. Having said that, here are some key aspects to keep in mind when Shopping for Ethical Fashion online:

  • Research the brand you are planning to buy from, if they don’t even have a page talking about their ethical practices in Ethical Fashion garment production, then consider leaving them as the last option. Look into their webpage and how they value sustainability in the fashion industry to know if they truly care about Ethical Fashion or not.
  • Buy from brands that ship closer to you, not only will you save some waiting time but also the environmental footprint that transporting those garments leaves. Although it is not always possible to find brands that ship from the same country as you but at least try to keep that distance at a minimum.
  • Don’t overpay, if you cannot afford a garment don’t feel bad, you don’t have to force yourself to buy it, rather, search for discount codes and other promotional offers if there are any, and more expensive does not always mean better (although many times it does). Remember, buying a 50% sustainable, ethical fashion cheaper garment instead of a 100% sustainable, ethical fashion more expensive garment is always better than buying a 0% sustainable, ethical garment (In the case you cannot afford the fully ethical garment).
  • Don’t look for the country of origin, look for the quality of the working conditions, many keep off garments that are produced in less fortunate countries because they think that the clothing item has been necessarily made in a factory with poor working conditions and inhumane wages, but that is not always the case. There are a lot of instances where factories producing garments in first-world countries have been exploiting their workers and factories in third-world countries have been treating their workers with respect, dignity, and fair wages. Instead of looking at the country of origin, look at the production ethics of the manufacturer, and if they treat their workers right with fair wages, it is even better to buy from the ones producing in developing countries, as you are helping families in the less fortunate countries to develop and to have decent wages to help them feed their families.
  • Support smaller brands, you should support smaller businesses for a variety of reasons, first, you will be feeding entrepreneurs that are risking their whole net worth, free time, and independence just to satisfy the necessities of potential customers, secondly, you will be supporting the growth of new startups in the Ethical Fashion industry, which is a great thing, that way those companies can become competitive and productive, creating more sustainable, ethical fashion garments at a cheaper price! (Kind of the same way electric cars are becoming cleaner and more affordable right now). You also have the advantage of having more direct contact with these small business owners and you will surely have a more personalized, pleasant experience than buying from a bigger business.

These are our main 5 tips for buying Ethical Fashion garments online, but there is a lot more you can do. As we always say, you don’t have to go all crazy on Ethical Fashion, with just a few good deeds a day and making some small changes in your fashion habits, you can make a very big difference in the lives of millions of people and the lives of future generations, so when you think that you are not doing enough, think instead how many people you are actually helping not only in the present but also in the future.

How to Shop For Ethical Fashion Online From Home

best ethical fashion brands / companies to buy from

Fortunately, there are a lot of options for you to choose from when it comes to Ethical Fashion and Sustainable Fashion, unfortunately, there are not as many as we would like and they are not as famous as other not-so-ethical counterparts. The good thing is that all of these brands have their products available on the internet, so it doesn’t matter where you are from, you can purchase their products without problems. Having said that, here are the 6 Best Ethical Fashion Brands you can buy from the internet:

  1. Finisterre, this brand was started in 2003 in a flat above a Surf Shop, with the intent of creating garments with respect for the people, the environment and the planet, and society as a whole. Its name means „End of the land”, showing the brand’s interest in the sea and waters, and its respect for marine life, fighting the terrible water pollution of the Fast Fashion industry. As of today, this brand is a Certified B Corp, and they have a beautiful user-friendly web page that you can check out from here.
  2. Patagonia, this is one of the most well-known sustainable fashion brands out there, and it was started in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard, an accomplished rock climber when he began to manufacture and sell his own climbing gear. Although the brand has been in some ugly controversies and legal problems that we will not discuss here, it is still considered an „activist company” that is producing garments with respect for its workers and it aims to be a carbon-neutral company by 2025. In 2012 they became a Certified B Corporation and right now they have a website you can visit from this link.
  3. Pact Clothing, this online Ethical Fashion store is known for producing high-quality garments that are both affordable and low-impact on the environment. This brand really loves cotton, organic cotton to be precise, and it uses it in every product they have, sometimes adding some synthetic materials to make their garments more comfortable. Some of their products, not all, are certified Fair Trade, which is a great start. Overall, they help developing countries actually develop, and they give their workers living wages and humane working conditions that they need. You can check out their wonderful and minimalistic website right here.
  4. Everlane, a brand that is known for its transparency policy, has its customers know exactly where its garments come from and how they are made, which, because they are on this list, is with respect for the human lives that are working to produce its products. Everlane was founded in 2010 by Michael Preysman and Jesse Farmer as an Ethical Fashion direct-to-customer business where the products are directly sold to customers without any intermediaries, which lets them cut a lot of costs, be much more productive, and much more transparent about their products and their margins. You can check out their website from this link.
  5. ABLE, this is an Ethical Fashion brand with a lot of history behind it, its founder, Barrett Ward while living in Ethiopia saw first-hand how extreme poverty forced women to resort to prostitution just to feed their families. Since then, ABLE was born as a brand that aims to end generational poverty, really focusing on empowering women and helping them have a living wage that will keep them off the dangerous streets. All of their garments regardless of where they are produced, in Ethiopia, Mexico, Peru, are made by women with humane working conditions and livable wages that can feed their families and end their generational poverty, creating higher added-value products. If you want to check out their website you can do it from here.
  6. PLEA, this is our own Slow, Sustainable, and Ethical Fashion online store, and it is the one you are reading this article from right now! We have to give this an honorable mention, of course, and present you with our perks and what we aim for. We are a very young brand started by 4 young teenage entrepreneurs who aim to stop Fast Fashion by doing the best we can to spread awareness and make customers conscious about their fashion choices (That is why you are reading this article right now), and also by providing you with very affordable Slow Fashion, Sustainable Fashion, Ethical Fashion clothes sold using the revolutionary on-demand business model that produces the garments at the time of the purchase avoiding overproduction and stocking costs. We also provide customizable t-shirts and other apparel, and beautiful designs that you will surely love. We highly recommend you to check out our About Us page and even our Shop, or if you would like to read more articles about Ethical Fashion and other related subjects, you can check out our blog.

As you have already seen, there are quite a few options to choose from when it comes to Ethical Fashion, and fortunately, this fashion movement that promotes sustainability in the fashion industry is growing, and we could see more and more Ethical Fashion brands as customers become more conscious about the repercussions their choices have on our planet and society.

Best Ethical Fashion Brands To Buy From Online

how to support ethical fashion at home

We have seen the best ways to shop for Ethical Fashion and the best brands that sell ethical garments online, but there are even some ways to support the movement from your own home, without even having to open your wallet. So without more hesitation, here are the best ways to support Ethical Fashion at home:

  • Reorganize your closet, and determine what items of clothing you use and which you don’t use. Then ask yourself if you have too many garments that you do not even need, if your shopping habits are correct or if you are guilty of over consumerism. You can create a capsule wardrobe, which can maximize the potential of your closet and your clothes with what you already own.
  • Donate, the best way to get rid of the clothes you do not need, that occupy unnecessary space in your closet without being used is to donate them, giving people in need clothes and using those garments for a good cause. Be careful where you donate them though, as they may end up being sold in second-hand markets (which is actually much better than ending in the landfill but they are not being used for the purpose you thought they would). For more information, feel free to check out Donate Clothe’s webpage.
  • Recycle, another great use for your unused clothes is to give them to a recycling center where they will be violently murdered and then reborn into new clothes that people will use in the future without needing to create more materials and potentially contaminate the planet, even more, wasting resources. This is a better option for damaged garments that do not have a long life ahead of them, so you can be sure to not contaminate the planet even further when throwing them in the trash. If you want to know more about this you can check Recycle Now’s webpage.
  • Sell your clothes, this is a great incentive-driven way to get rid of the clothes you do not need. You can sell them at second-hand markets or even to your friends, finding people that may want the clothes that you do not need while also making a quick buck off them. Just make sure the clothes you are selling are in a good state or you will e having some angry customers knocking on your door after, which is not ideal. You can also do it online on one of the best marketplaces online, with the most affordable prices for customers, We are talking about Alibaba, you can visit this marketplace from this link (Affiliate link).
  • Inform yourself as a customer, we have said it multiple times and we will say it again, the most powerful tool for beating Fast Fashion and reaching a Sustainable, Ethical Fashion industry is knowledge, only when customers become aware of the consequences of their choices in the fashion industry will they begin to change and demand ethically produced garments that respect the environment and our society.
  • Spread awareness, we have said before that getting informed as a customer is the most important thing you can do, and it is absolutely true, but the second most important thing is to spread awareness, this is done not only by reading articles about Ethical Fashion and Fast Fashion but by sharing them on social media, talking about the subject with your friends and family and trying to make them aware of the consequences of their choices (without exaggerating of course, if you want to still have friends and family). Doing this is more important than anything else you could think of doing for Ethical Fashion, and it is one of the most forgotten steps of achieving a sustainable fashion industry, sadly.

These were the most important steps you can take to support Ethical Fashion from the comfort of your own home, and the last two are truly the most important steps you can take, which are obvious, you wouldn’t change your fashion habits for the better if you didn’t know that the current Fast Fashion industry needed to change. As always, it is not hard to support Ethical Fashion, and even doing very little every day makes a huge difference to the world.

Capsule Wardrobe Ethical Fashion How To Support Ethical Fashion At Home

summary

We hope you have learned a lot today because also did as well. The most important thing is to put all of this information into good practice, which actually isn’t very hard to do, and always remember to inform yourself, reading a few minutes every day on the subject can help you a lot when making future decisions, so don’t forget to do that, and also to spread awareness, of course, these are the two main pillars of achieving an Ethical Fashion industry.

We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, Sustainable Fashion, Slow Fashion or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.

We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!

Famous Ethical Fashion Brands

by
Famous Ethical Fashion Brands

the 6 best famous ethical fashion brands you can buy from online

table of contents

  1. what is ethical fashion?
  2. why is ethical fashion important?
  3. the 6 best ethical fashion brands
  4. how to support ethical fashion?
  5. summary

what is ethical fashion?

Fast Fashion not only created a production model where very cheap low-quality garments were made very fast following trends with no regard to the environment and the people, but it also gave more importance to fashion movements that wanted a sustainable fashion industry, one of them is Ethical Fashion, which has actually existed since the 1950s, before Fast Fashion was ever born.

Since then, fashion movements like Ethical, Sustainable and Slow Fashion arose to the surface in one way or another, which is kind of a good thing if we ignore the terrible consequences Fast Fashion has on our world, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewaters, which you may already know by now but it still doesn’t lose its importance and never will.

Ethical Fashion refers to a fashion movement that searches for garments made with respect to the workers that make them, the vendors and small businesses that play a role in the production process, fair trade, and the ethical treatment of all the agents related to the fashion industry, including the environment. Strongly opposing Fast Fashion and the terrible conditions fashion factory workers have to deal with.

So in simple terms, Ethical Fashion focuses on the ethical treatment of humans, and animals to achieve a sustainable fashion industry, with support for small businesses and the development of countries that are right now in unfavorable conditions. If you want to know more about this wonderful fashion movement feel free to check out our articles on The Ethical Dilemma of Fashion or Why Is Ethical Fashion Important?

why is ethical fashion important?

Now that you know how bad Fast Fashion really is, it becomes clear why fashion movements that want to achieve sustainability in the fashion industry are so important because they ultimately want to end the big environmental and social footprint the industry has. It is rather a necessity, because if Fast Fashion continues to grow and prosper the world as we know it may end, suffering permanent damages that we will regret as species for the rest of our existence.

Ethical Fashion as you may know focuses a lot more on the humane treatment of workers and agents involved in the production process, but there is a lot more to that. Promoting fair trade and the creation of new small businesses aims to develop those countries that are still, unfortunately, suffering from poverty. This does not only affect the lives of millions of people worldwide but will ultimately affect all of us, even from the richest countries on earth.

That is because the existence of countries that are economically underdeveloped negatively affects the entire world, because of the opportunity costs that we have if those countries were developed and contributing to the development of humanity as a whole, that is why it is harder to become a rich country if you are surrounded by poorer countries and vice versa.

Not only that, poorer countries have fewer resources to care about and resolve things like their environmental footprint and pollution, which affects all of us, and not only that, the entire planet earth and its ecosystem.

So at the end of the day, Ethical Fashion is a crucial part of achieving sustainability in the fashion industry and saving our planet and species from inevitable doom, which is, unfortunately, closer and closer as Fast Fashion grows uncontrollably. That is why Ethical Fashion is so important, for the sake of our planet and humanity, and it should always be complimented by Slow Fashion and Sustainable Fashion.

Why is Ethical Fashion so Important for Our Planet

the 6 best ethical fashion brands

Fortunately, there are a lot of options for you to choose from when it comes to Ethical Fashion and Sustainable Fashion, unfortunately, there are not as many as we would like and they are not as famous as other not-so-ethical counterparts. The good thing is that all of these brands have their products available on the internet, so it doesn’t matter where you are from, you can purchase their products without problems. Having said that, here are the 6 Best Ethical Fashion Brands you can buy from the internet:

  1. Finisterre, this brand was started in 2003 in a flat above a Surf Shop, with the intent of creating garments with respect for the people, the environment and the planet, and society as a whole. Its name means „End of the land”, showing the brand’s interest in the sea and waters, and its respect for marine life, fighting the terrible water pollution of the Fast Fashion industry. As of today, this brand is a Certified B Corp, and they have a beautiful user-friendly web page that you can check out from here.
  2. Patagonia, this is one of the most well-known sustainable fashion brands out there, and it was started in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard, an accomplished rock climber when he began to manufacture and sell his own climbing gear. Although the brand has been in some ugly controversies and legal problems that we will not discuss here, it is still considered an „activist company” that is producing garments with respect for its workers and it aims to be a carbon-neutral company by 2025. In 2012 they became a Certified B Corporation and right now they have a website you can visit from this link.
  3. Pact Clothing, this online Ethical Fashion store is known for producing high-quality garments that are both affordable and low-impact on the environment. This brand really loves cotton, organic cotton to be precise, and it uses it in every product they have, sometimes adding some synthetic materials to make their garments more comfortable. Some of their products, not all, are certified Fair Trade, which is a great start. Overall, they help developing countries actually develop, and they give their workers living wages and humane working conditions that they need. You can check out their wonderful and minimalistic website right here.
  4. Everlane, a brand that is known for its transparency policy, has its customers know exactly where its garments come from and how they are made, which, because they are on this list, is with respect for the human lives that are working to produce its products. Everlane was founded in 2010 by Michael Preysman and Jesse Farmer as an Ethical Fashion direct-to-customer business where the products are directly sold to customers without any intermediaries, which lets them cut a lot of costs, be much more productive, and much more transparent about their products and their margins. You can check out their website from this link.
  5. ABLE, this is an Ethical Fashion brand with a lot of history behind it, its founder, Barrett Ward while living in Ethiopia saw first-hand how extreme poverty forced women to resort to prostitution just to feed their families. Since then, ABLE was born as a brand that aims to end generational poverty, really focusing on empowering women and helping them have a living wage that will keep them off the dangerous streets. All of their garments regardless of where they are produced, in Ethiopia, Mexico, Peru, are made by women with humane working conditions and livable wages that can feed their families and end their generational poverty, creating higher added-value products. If you want to check out their website you can do it from here.
  6. PLEA, this is our own Slow, Sustainable, and Ethical Fashion online store, and it is the one you are reading this article from right now! We have to give this an honorable mention, of course, and present you with our perks and what we aim for. We are a very young brand started by 4 young teenage entrepreneurs who aim to stop Fast Fashion by doing the best we can to spread awareness and make customers conscious about their fashion choices (That is why you are reading this article right now), and also by providing you with very affordable Slow Fashion, Sustainable Fashion, Ethical Fashion clothes sold using the revolutionary on-demand business model that produces the garments at the time of the purchase avoiding overproduction and stocking costs. We also provide customizable t-shirts and other apparel, and beautiful designs that you will surely love. We highly recommend you to check out our About Us page and even our Shop, or if you would like to read more articles about Ethical Fashion and other related subjects, you can check out our blog.

As you have already seen, there are quite a few options to choose from when it comes to Ethical Fashion, and fortunately, this fashion movement that promotes sustainability in the fashion industry is growing, and we could see more and more Ethical Fashion brands as customers become more conscious about the repercussions their choices have on our planet and society.

The Best 6 Ethical Fashion Brands You Can Buy From Online

how to support ethical fashion?

We have seen a lot of things about this fashion movement, but how can you support Ethical fashion? What can you do to be more ethical and support a sustainable fashion industry that cares for the workers, the environment, and also you? Well, you are lucky because there are a lot of options you can do right now from the comfort of your home! Having said this, here is how to support Ethical Fashion:

  • Shop from businesses that you know are respecting their workers and agents involved in the production of their garments, preferably small businesses because you will be also supporting small families that also have to eat, and sadly today most big businesses simply do not care about their actions on the world, because of the Diffusion of responsibility phenomenon.
  • Do not simply avoid all clothes made from underdeveloped countries, the fact that they are made in a country with less favorable conditions does not mean that the garment has been made with inhumane labor, countries that are rich today like Singapore, Taiwan, or South Korea have been producing garments with cheap labor for years before they finally developed. The problem is that Fast Fashion with its cheap low added value garments exploit the workers and do not even contribute to a fair development of the producing countries, which is very bad. That is why you should look for the ways the clothes are produced, and not where they are produced, because even in developed countries there can be garments made with forced labor.
  • Read the business’ morals and how they are dealing with the sustainability of their operations, if they don’t even talk about sustainable practices then do not have trust in them, it is better to find a good business that cares for the people and doesn’t treat them like buy-n-throw tools to make extra money.

Here are some of the key things you can do to become more ethical with your fashion choices and support a sustainable fashion industry that cares for the people and the environment. Now you just need to put this into good practice 🙂

How To Support Ethical Fashion From Home

summary

We hope you have learned a lot from this article today because we have also learned a lot. As we always say, you don’t have to go all crazy on Ethical Fashion, the most important thing you can do is to inform yourself as a customer by reading articles and information on the subject, and to spread awareness by talking about it with your friends or social media followers, because only when customers will become aware of the real consequences of their actions on the world will they support and Ethical Fashion model ditching the planet-killing unethical Fast Fashion.

We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, Sustainable Fashion, Slow Fashion or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.

We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!

The Ethical Dilemma In The Fashion Industry

by
The Ethical Dilemma In The Fashion Industry

ethical fashion | the ethical dilemma in the fashion industry

table of contents

  1. what is the problem with the fashion industry?
  2. what is fast fashion?
  3. what is ethical fashion?
  4. the ethical dilemma in the fashion industry, can it ever be resolved?
  5. summary

what is the problem with the fashion industry?

The fashion industry employs millions of people and feeds many more worldwide, 430 million to be more precise, which is 12.5% of the global workforce available. This is an incredible amount considering that we are talking about only just industry, but it also has many problems that we will discuss right now.

The fashion industry today has been taken over by Fast Fashion, a terrible business model that is ruining our planet, but we will focus on that later. Basically, this gigantic industry is responsible for a great amount of the world’s pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and it is not changing anytime soon, sadly.

Not only that, but its unproductive factories are not only polluting our waters, air, and lands, but it is also using very cheap and inhumane labor, sometimes reaching modern slavery, from less fortunate countries that do not have the resources to care for the welfare of its citizens. This has led to a humanitarian crisis that is affecting the lives of millions of people who are working in terrible conditions without any livable wage.

Overall, the fashion industry has only gotten worse in the last decades thanks to the rise of Fast Fashion and other terrible practices in the industry, and the only chance to change it is the fashion movements like Sustainable or Ethical Fashion, which we will talk about later.

So the next time you buy a cheap garment from a famous Fast Fashion corporation, think about how much suffering and ecological footprint has gone through just to make that low-quality item that you may not even need in the first place.

what is fast fashion?

Fast-Fashion can be referred to as a business model that quickly turns trends into clothes using very short manufacturing cycles with no regard to the environment, the people, and the society. This completely unethical business model has changed the Fashion Industry for the worse, making it a lot more polluting and dangerous, now producing 10% of the total greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of wastewaters thanks to this new production model.

We have to say, there is no „fast fashion book”, and this terrible practice comes in many shapes and forms, but they all have many things in common and that’s why they are all gathered around this term. But the real consequences are undeniable, fashion workers are more exploited than ever, and its low-added value industries are not even contributing to the development in the less fortunate nations in the way that they should to at least assure that they will ever develop.

All of this is done just with the intent to get the freshest styles into the market that will keep customers buying more and more while tragically disposing of the clothes they do not use, clothes that usually do not last a lot of time because of their low-quality materials, that is why Fast Fashion clothes are also extremely cheap because they outsource all of those costs to the environment, the workers and ultimately you, the customer.

This business practice has a lot of terrible consequences and it is undeniable that it has changed the industry only for the worse, and it should be stopped as fast as possible to avoid future permanent damages to our planet and society, so if you want to dig deeper into this subject, which has a lot to be talked about, feel free to read our article is fast-fashion a social issue?.

What Is Fast Fashion

what is ethical fashion?

Fast Fashion not only created a production model where very cheap low-quality garments were made very fast following trends with no regard to the environment and the people, but it also gave more importance to fashion movements that wanted a sustainable fashion industry, one of them is Ethical Fashion, which has actually existed since the 1950s, before Fast Fashion was ever born.

Since then, fashion movements like Ethical, Sustainable and Slow Fashion arose to the surface in one way or another, which is kind of a good thing if we ignore the terrible consequences Fast Fashion has on our world, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewaters, which you may already know by now but it still doesn’t lose its importance and never will.

Ethical Fashion refers to a fashion movement that searches for garments made with respect to the workers that make them, the vendors and small businesses that play a role in the production process, fair trade, and the ethical treatment of all the agents related to the fashion industry, including the environment. Strongly opposing Fast Fashion and the terrible conditions fashion factory workers have to deal with.

So in simple terms, Ethical Fashion focuses on the ethical treatment of humans, and animals to achieve a sustainable fashion industry, with support for small businesses and the development of countries that are right now in unfavorable conditions. If you want to know more about this wonderful fashion movement feel free to check out our articles on The Ethical Fashion Initiative or Why Is Ethical Fashion Important?

the ethical dilemma in the fashion industry, can it ever be resolved?

The dilemma we are talking about is between Fast Fashion and Ethical Fashion, or any other sustainable fashion movement that promotes sustainability and humanity in the industry. You may ask, what is the dilemma? Fast Fashion is literally destroying our planet and using forced labor to produce its garments, why would anyone support it over Ethical Fashion? That is what we will going to explain in a second.

Fast Fashion is still popular for a reason, it produces very cheap garments that although are very low-quality, making you constantly buy more and more clothes, are very attractive to customers because of their price and the psychological effect it gives some buyers when they purchase a new product.

Not only that, but surprisingly and very sadly, most people do not even know what Fast Fashion is, why it is so bad for the environment and for our society as a whole, what is Sustainable or Ethical Fashion… Nothing, because unfortunately we live in a society where watching dumb TikToks is more important than literally the survival of our own society and the planet we live in. And the real problem is that if no one knows there is a problem this big, Fast Fashion is never going to be stopped, Ethical Fashion will reamin unknown, and the Fashion Dilemma is never going to be resolved.

We also have to keep in mind that these movements that promote sustainability in the fashion industry, like Ethical Fashion, are relatively very new and do not have so much support and resources to produce garments effectively and efficiently, so for now as customers we have to pay a higher price, which is actually called the fair price of the garment, than Fast Fashion, who sells garments at a lower price than its fair price because it exploits its workers and destroys our environment.

So in reality the ethical dilemma with fast and ethical fashion is that the industry has to change, urgently, or we will have permanent damages that we will regret for generations to come, but the problem comes when customers are not even aware there is a problem, so our possibility to change things are extremely reduced. The only possible way to solve this is by spreading awareness and educating ourselves as customers.

The Ethical Dilemma Fashion Industry Ethical Fashion

summary

In conclusion, we hope you have learned a lot about Ethical Fashion and the industry’s dilemma today because we did as well. The important thing is, as we said, to educate ourselves as customers and to spread awareness to the people we know because only then we will have the force necessary to overthrow Fast Fashion and achieve a sustainable and ethical fashion industry that respects our planet and people.

We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.

We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!

Why Is Ethical Fashion Important?

by
Why Is Ethical Fashion Important?

why is ethical fashion important?

table of contents

  1. what is ethical fashion?
  2. the terrible consequences of fast fashion
  3. why is ethical fashion important?
  4. what can i do to support ethical fashion?
  5. summary

what is ethical fashion?

Fast Fashion not only created a production model where very cheap low-quality garments were made very fast following trends with no regard to the environment and the people, but it also gave more importance to fashion movements that wanted a sustainable fashion industry.

Since then, fashion movements like Ethical, Sustainable and Slow Fashion arose to the surface in one way or another, which is kind of a good thing if we ignore the terrible consequences Fast Fashion has on our world, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewaters that pollute our rivers and seas.

Ethical Fashion refers to a fashion movement that searches for garments made with respect to the workers that make them, the vendors and small businesses that play a role in the production process, fair trade, and the ethical treatment of all the agents related to the fashion industry, including the environment.

So in simple terms, Ethical Fashion focuses on the ethical treatment of humans, and animals to achieve a sustainable fashion industry, with support for small businesses and the development of countries that are right now in unfavorable conditions.

the terrible consequences of fast fashion

This terrible business practice has a lot of downfalls, the biggest problem with fast fashion is its pollution, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions with its activities, which is a lot.

But there are many other things we can mention about it, here are the biggest problems with fast fashion:

  • Overproduction, it creates a lot of clothes very quickly and many of them end up in the landfill without even being worn.
  • Air Pollution, producing around 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Water pollution, polluting rivers and seas with the lack of care for the environment while creating these garments.
  • Soil pollution, especially when the garments end up in landfills, decomposing into harmful chemicals and leaving plastics behind that do not decompose if the garments are made from polyester.
  • Consumerism, as it promotes a culture of buy-n-throw clothes as you wish without considering the impact of your actions.
  • Worker exploitation, with very low wages, inhuman working conditions, and slavery-like jobs, is partly the reason why these clothes are so cheap.
  • Stealing intellectual property, this business practice needs constant new trends and is willing to do anything to get them, like stealing designs from independent artists giving them no credit, this has happened many times before.

This list goes on and on, sadly, and the environmental impacts of fast fashion are very bad, but if you want to learn more in detail about the issues with this business practice, we recommend you read Huffington Post’s article on Fast-Fashion.

How Fast Fashion Is Ruining Our World

why is ethical fashion important?

Now that you know how bad Fast Fashion really is, it becomes clear why fashion movements that want to achieve sustainability in the fashion industry are so important because they ultimately want to end the big environmental and social footprint the industry has. It is rather a necessity, because if Fast Fashion continues to grow and prosper the world as we know it may end, suffering permanent damages that we will regret as species for the rest of our existence.

Ethical Fashion as you may know focuses a lot more on the humane treatment of workers and agents involved in the production process, but there is a lot more to that. Promoting fair trade and the creation of new small businesses aims to develop those countries that are still, unfortunately, suffering from poverty. This does not only affect the lives of millions of people worldwide but will ultimately affect all of us, even from the richest countries on earth.

That is because the existence of countries that are economically underdeveloped negatively affects the entire world, because of the opportunity costs that we have if those countries were developed and contributing to the development of humanity as a whole, that is why it is harder to become a rich country if you are surrounded by poorer countries and vice versa.

Not only that, poorer countries have fewer resources to care about and resolve things like their environmental footprint and pollution, which affects all of us, and not only that, the entire planet earth and its ecosystem.

So at the end of the day, Ethical Fashion is a crucial part of achieving sustainability in the fashion industry and saving our planet and species from inevitable doom, which is, unfortunately, closer and closer as Fast Fashion grows uncontrollably. That is why Ethical Fashion is so important, for the sake of our planet and humanity, and it should always be complimented by Slow Fashion and Sustainable Fashion.

what can i do to support ethical fashion?

We have seen a lot of things about this fashion movement, but how can you support Ethical fashion? What can you do to be more ethical and support a sustainable fashion industry that cares for the workers, the environment, and also you? Well, you are lucky because there are a lot of options you can do right now from the comfort of your home! Having said this, here is how to support Ethical Fashion:

  • Shop from businesses that you know are respecting their workers and agents involved in the production of their garments, preferably small businesses because you will be also supporting small families that also have to eat, and sadly today most big businesses simply do not care about their actions on the world, because of the Diffusion of responsibility phenomenon.
  • Do not simply avoid all clothes made from underdeveloped countries, the fact that they are made in a country with less favorable conditions does not mean that the garment has been made with inhumane labor, countries that are rich today like Singapore, Taiwan, or South Korea have been producing garments with cheap labor for years before they finally developed. The problem is that Fast Fashion with its cheap low added value garments exploit the workers and do not even contribute to a fair development of the producing countries, which is very bad. That is why you should look for the ways the clothes are produced, and not where they are produced, because even in developed countries there can be garments made with forced labor.
  • Read the business’ morals and how they are dealing with the sustainability of their operations, if they don’t even talk about sustainable practices then do not have trust in them, it is better to find a good business that cares for the people and doesn’t treat them like buy-n-throw tools to make extra money.

Here are some of the key things you can do to become more ethical with your fashion choices and support a sustainable fashion industry that cares for the people and the environment. Now you just need to put this into good practice 🙂

How Can I Support Ethical Fashion?

summary

We hope you have learned a lot about Ethical Fashion today because so did we. Do not hesitate to read our blog, we have a lot more interesting articles like this one available to you. The important thing at the end of the day is to put this information into good practice, to inform yourself and especially others because only consumer awareness can combat the environmental danger of Fast Fashion. 

We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.

We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!

Is Ethical Fashion Affordable?

by
Is Ethical Fashion Affordable?

is ethical fashion affordable?

table of contents

  1. what is ethical fashion?
  2. is ethical fashion affordable?
  3. why is fast fashion so cheap?
  4. will ethical fashion ever be affordable?
  5. summary

what is ethical fashion?

Fast Fashion not only created a production model where very cheap low-quality garments were made very fast following trends with no regard to the environment and the people, but it also gave more importance to fashion movements that wanted a sustainable fashion industry.

Since then, fashion movements like Ethical, Sustainable and Slow Fashion arose to the surface in one way or another, which is kind of a good thing if we ignore the terrible consequences Fast Fashion has on our world, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewaters that pollute our rivers and seas.

Ethical Fashion refers to a fashion movement that searches for garments made with respect to the workers that make them, the vendors and small businesses that play a role in the production process, fair trade, and the ethical treatment of all the agents related to the fashion industry, including the environment.

So in simple terms, Ethical Fashion focuses on the ethical treatment of humans, and animals to achieve a sustainable fashion industry, with support for small businesses and the development of countries that are right now in unfavorable conditions.

is ethical fashion affordable?

Now that you know what Ethical Fashion is and what it stands for, you may wonder how all of this affects the quality of the garment and its affordability. Well, this like any other fashion movement of its kind, Ethical Fashion swears by producing high-quality garments that do not contribute greatly to the pollution of our planet, but the price is a different thing and we will see why now.

Because Ethical Fashion promotes the humane treatment of its workers and decent retribution, both for work and supply of needed materials from local businesses and vendors, the base cost for a garment increases greatly, because everyone in the production process is getting what they deserve based on their contribution. This does affect the final price of the product greatly, making it more expensive.

Not only that, but the base price of the garment represents rather a small portion of the final price the consumer pays at the time of the purchase, and that is because the business selling it has many more costs like marketing, stocking, distribution, salaries, affiliates, website-related costs, and hundreds of different costs that any business has, and at the end, they have to make a profit to stay alive and continue satisfying the needs of their customers.

So when you buy a t-shirt you are not paying what that piece of clothing costs to produce, but rather for all the hundreds of things it took for you to buy it in the first place, plus the profit of the business that sells it to you needed for its own survival and growth. With Ethical Fashion, you can be assured that you paid the fair and right price of the garment itself, without outsourcing these costs to the environment and workers in modern slavery conditions, so although you are paying a higher price it is the right price you should be paying for that garment in the first place.

Is ethical fashion really affordable?

why is fast fashion so cheap?

Fast Fashion, on the other hand, is well-known for its low-quality, buy-n-throw, cheap garments it shoves down its customers’ throats. The question is, how is it possible that Fast Fashion has such cheap clothes? Here is why Fast Fashion is so cheap:

  • It outsources its costs to the environment, without caring for its environmental footprint and violating common decency regarding the welfare of our planet. This makes it so they can produce clothes cheaper without having to worry about investing in secure facilities that do not pollute our earth.
  • Exploits workers, with inhumane working conditions and low wages that sometimes reach modern slavery conditions, all of this to create a cheap garment that customers can buy easily without thinking it two times. This is clearly immoral and illegal, although Fast Fashion companies usually find a way around that even using corruption and unethical practices.
  • It has a lot of economical power, because of its popularity, Fast Fashion corporations have enough power so they can buy resources at bargain price from desperate vendors and local businesses who need to survive from their economic activities. This can be devastating for the fair development of the supplying nations, who need to build their economy with foreign and local investments that produce high added value goods and services, something that Fast Fashion does not do.
  • Produces low-quality clothes, Fast Fashion garments are made low-quality, polluting, non-biodegradable materials that are cheap to produce. This allows them to offer cheap clothes and to feed the buy-n-throw consumerism culture that it promotes so its customers constantly buy clothes they do not need that will sadly end up in landfills polluting our soil even more.

There are many other reasons that explain why Fast Fashion is so cheap, but we have made the most relevant. As you can see, the price you „save” when buying one of its garments you will end up paying in environmental and social issues, if not you, your children will. So you may see why it is wise to pay items for their fair price, because when an item is below its fair price there are hidden costs that are usually way worse. Also remember to not overconsume and to not buy things you don’t need, you will save money and unnecessary environmental footprints this way.

If you want to know more about Fast Fashion and its terrible consequences for the environment and our society, please, do not hesitate to check out our Fast Fashion 101 extended article on the subject. You may be also interested in our article about SHEIN, the ultra-fast fashion brand.

will ethical fashion ever be affordable?

Now that you know why Fast Fashion is so cheap and why Ethical Fashion is more expensive, or better said, at the fair price of what a garment should be, you may wonder if it can ever be more affordable, because at the end of the day the price is what determines what amount of something you can buy, and it unfortunately drives millions of people to choose Fast Fashion.

We have to understand that price is a system to determine how much of anything a person can consume, based on their contribution to the economic system. In simple terms, you can only buy something that you want if you have produced an item of the same value. To account for this we have something called money, which you can obtain by producing goods and services people need and satisfying their necessities.

Okay okay, before you get bored and leave, we have to tell you how this affects the price of Ethical Fashion garments. Basically, right now the fair price can be expensive for some people because the productivity is not very high right now, we do not have the technology and the qualified labor necessary to produce enough Ethical Fashion garments in a way that can be affordable for everyone.

But do not worry, this will and is changing right now. Like any other goods and services we have right now, the technology we have has allowed us to afford a lot of things that we couldn’t even dream of before, like cars, phones, computers, and even food. So the solution to make Ethical Fashion more affordable is time, but that is not the only thing needed, we need customers that demand garments made ethically and sustainably, because only then will businesses invest in better practices, and smaller businesses that care about their environmental and social footprint can emerge, increasing the productivity and making the garments affordable for everyone.

Now you know, that the best thing you can do for Sustainable and Ethical Fashion is to take part yourself in the movement, to inform yourself and especially to inform others, because only the power of consumers can determine the future of the earth and the people who are currently suffering the consequences of a fashion model that does not care for its impact on our world.

Can Ethical Fashion Ever Be affordable?

summary

We hope you have learned a lot today, because so did we. As we always say, you do not have to go all crazy with Ethical Fashion, a few good deeds a day make a big difference for the future of the earth, of your children. It is also especially crucial that you educate yourself as a customer and the people you know, by talking about the issue and sharing information online, because surprisingly and sadly Fast Fahsion is an enormous issue most people do not even know that it exists.

We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.

We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!

The Ethical Fashion Initiative | Consumers’ Fight For The Workers

by
Ethical Fashion Initiative Consumers Fight For The Workers

the ethical fashion initiative | a consumers' fight for the rights of workers

table of contents

  1. what is ethical fashion?
  2. how is ethical fashion different from sustainable fashion or slow fashion?
  3. the ethical fashion initiative | EFI
  4. how to support ethical fashion
  5. summary

what is ethical fashion?

Fast Fashion not only created a production model where very cheap low-quality garments were made very fast following trends with no regard to the environment and the people, but it also gave more importance to fashion movements that wanted a sustainable fashion industry.

Since then, fashion movements like Ethical, Sustainable and Slow Fashion arose to the surface in one way or another, which is kind of a good thing if we ignore the terrible consequences Fast Fashion has on our world, producing 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewaters that pollute our rivers and seas.

Ethical Fashion refers to a fashion movement that searches for garments made with respect to the workers that make them, the vendors and small businesses that play a role in the production process, fair trade, and the ethical treatment of all the agents related to the fashion industry, including the environment.

So in simple terms, it focuses on the ethical treatment of humans, and animals to achieve a sustainable fashion industry, with support for small businesses and the development of countries that are right now in unfavorable conditions.

how is ethical fashion different from sustainable fashion or slow fashion?

We have seen what Ethical Fashion is, but what do Sustainable Fashion and Slow Fashion mean? Aren’t they the same at the end of the day? Well, do not worry because we will be answering these questions now. Having said this, here are the differences between Ethical, Sustainable, and Slow Fashion:

  • Sustainable Fashion is a movement that focuses on the sustainability of the garments it produces, making sure they are ecological and made from organic and biodegradable materials that have the minimal environmental impact possible. It basically wants to achieve a sustainable fashion industry by reducing the great environmental footprint it has. Read our Sustainable Fashion 101 to learn more about the subject.
  • Slow Fashion is a movement that directly opposes Fast Fashion, from there it gets its name. It promotes garments made with slow manufacturing cycles with respect to the workers that produce them and the environment, strongly avoiding overproduction, disposal, and unnecessary consumerism which Fast Fashion promotes. It also encourages small businesses to promote competitiveness and innovation. If you want to know more about the subject feel free to read our Slow Fashion 101.
  • Ethical fashion, on the other one, focuses on the rights of the workers and agents involved in the production process, in this way achieving sustainability in the fashion industry. It searches for garments made with ethical, decent wage labor with humane working conditions for all of its workers, while also promoting small businesses and vendors involved in the production process.

As you can see, they can differ a little bit, but all of these movements want to achieve the same thing, a sustainable fashion industry strongly opposing Fast Fashion and all the terrible consequences it has. Normally, businesses that sell ethical, slow, or sustainable fashion have garments that comply with all of these movements at the same time, so you shouldn’t feel in a position of choosing between one or another.

If you want to know more about Fast Fashion and its consequences don’t hesitate to check out our Fast Fashion 101 article.

How is Ethical Fashion different from Sustainable Fashion and Slow Fashion?

the ethical fashion initiative | EFI

Ethical Fashion is actually the oldest of these movements that want to achieve a sustainable fashion industry, and it is not a surprise, as Sustainable Fashion and Slow Fashion were born as opposing forces to the Fast Fashion industry introduced by Zara in the 90s when environmental issues were beginning to be taken very seriously.

Ethical Fashion instead was born with the beginning of mass production and the bad situation of the workers of a still unproductive industry that was beginning to fully form. This happened roughly in the 50s and it has evolved greatly since then, but it has also gotten worse with the rise of Fast Fashion and the production of low-quality, cheap, and low added value garments.

This movement has not remained isolated, however, and organisms like the UN have begun to take action with their UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion and their Ethical Fashion Initiative (ETI) to begin changing the world and avoiding terrible permanent damages.

This program aims to guarantee the ethical production of garments in the countries where modern slavery is likely to take place, applying standards for humane treatment and compensation for work that will also assure the development of these nations, as well as gender equality and all the rights people should have but are often forgotten about. You can read more about their Ethical Fashion Initiative Program on their website.

how to support ethical fashion

We have seen a lot of things about this fashion movement, but how can you support Ethical fashion? What can you do to be more ethical and support a sustainable fashion industry that cares for the workers, the environment, and also you? Well, you are lucky because there are a lot of options you can do right now from the comfort of your home! Having said this, here is how to support Ethical Fashion:

  • Shop from businesses that you know are respecting their workers and agents involved in the production of their garments, preferably small businesses because you will be also supporting small families that also have to eat, and sadly today most big businesses simply do not care about their actions on the world, because of the Diffusion of responsibility phenomenon.
  • Do not simply avoid all clothes made from underdeveloped countries, the fact that they are made in a country with less favorable conditions does not mean that the garment has been made with inhumane labor, countries that are rich today like Singapore, Taiwan, or South Korea have been producing garments with cheap labor for years before they finally developed. The problem is that Fast Fashion with its cheap low added value garments exploit the workers and do not even contribute to a fair development of the producing countries, which is very bad. That is why you should look for the ways the clothes are produced, and not where they are produced, because even in developed countries there can be garments made with forced labor.
  • Read the business’ morals and how they are dealing with the sustainability of their operations, if they don’t even talk about sustainable practices then do not have trust in them, it is better to find a good business that cares for the people and doesn’t treat them like buy-n-throw tools to make extra money.

Here are some of the key things you can do to become more ethical with your fashion choices and support a sustainable fashion industry that cares for the people and the environment. Now you just need to put this into good practice 🙂

How to support Ethical Fashion

summary

We hope you have learned a lot from this article because we have too! Now is the time to put all of this information into good practice, by changing your fashion habits a little bit at a time to achieve a sustainable and ethical fashion industry that will save our planet and species from doom. As we always say, you don’t have to go all crazy on it, one good deed at a time makes a big difference in the future.

We are thrilled to teach people all around the world 🙂 Also, did you really know what Fast Fashion really is and its terrible consequences for the environment, the planet, the workers, society, and the economy? Do you know exactly what the Slow Fashion or Sustainable Fashion movement is? You should really take a look at these articles about this forgotten and unknown but very urgent and important subject, click here to read „Can Fashion Ever Be Sustainable?”, or Fast Fashion 101 | How It’s Destroying Our Planet because knowledge is one of the most powerful strengths you can have, while ignorance is your worst weakness.

We also have a big surprise for you! Because we want to give you the right to know us better, we have prepared a carefully dedicated About Us page where we will tell you who we are, what our mission is, what we do, a closer look at our team, and many more things! Do not miss this opportunity and click here to check it out. Also, we invite you to take a look at our Pinterest, where we will pin everyday sustainable fashion-related content, clothing designs, and other things that you will surely love!

PLEA