why sustainable fashion matters
what is sustainable fashion?
The Sustainable Fashion movement aims for sustainability in the fashion industry, strongly opposing Fast Fashion, a terrible business model that produces 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewaters, polluting our rivers and seas. This planet-killing business practice is also responsible for the buy-n-throw and excessive consumerism culture that pollutes our soil and waters with tons of textile waste, as 85% of all Fast Fashion garments are thrown each year.
Sustainable Fashion differs from Slow Fashion in the path it takes to achieve sustainability in the fashion industry, while Slow Fashion focuses more on clothes that are produced with slower manufacturing cycles, fair trade, and supporting smaller businesses, while also caring for the sustainability and quality of its garments, Sustainable Fashion puts a little more weight in the ecological impact of its clothes, using organic, recycled materials like organic ring-spun cotton and other environmentally-friendly biodegradable materials.
At the end of the day, all these anti-fast fashion movements want to achieve the same thing, they just differ in the path they take and on what they consider more important. For example, Ethical Fashion focuses more on the welfare of textile workers, who are exploited in the Fast Fashion industry with inhumane wages and terrible working conditions, many times reaching modern slavery.
why sustainable fashion matters
Fast Fashion is responsible for 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of wastewaters that pollute our rivers and soils, it creates tons of textile waste accelerated by the buy-n-throw culture they have created where customers constantly buy clothes they do not need just to throw them after a few wears because of their terrible quality.
It is crucial to stop this terrible business practice for the sake of our future, the future of the earth, and the welfare of the textile workers that are producing its garments in terrible working conditions. And here is where Slow Fashion and Sustainable Fashion come into play, with their mission to end Fast Fashion and achieve sustainability in the fashion industry.
Sustainable Fashion focuses on using organic, recycled, and biodegradable materials to produce its garments, creating higher-quality and sustainable clothes that have minimal impact on our planet. Not only that, it wants to produce clothes with respect to the workers and all the agents involved in the production process.
This is why it is so important because it aims to solve one of the biggest issues we have as a species, avoiding the destruction of our planet and ourselves. Also letting us wear clothes without having to exploit young workers in some places most consumers don’t want to hear about. It’s about humanity and respect, and we don’t even have to go all crazy on Sustainable Fashion, a few good deeds a day makes a big difference in the future. We recommend you check our Slow Fashion 101 to learn more about this subject.
how to do sustainable fashion
Now that we know the importance of this anti-fast fashion movement, you may wonder how you can support it, and how you can change your fashion habits in your day-to-day life that will make a difference. Don’t worry, we have an answer for you, here is how to do Sustainable Fashion even at home:
- Choose garments made from organic, biodegradable materials, like organic ring-spun cotton, never synthetics or polyester that, although they use less water, never decompose. Low-quality Fast Fashion garments made from polyester can even decay and leave microplastics that end up in our rivers and oceans, so avoid them preferably (unless you recycle them afterward).
- Choose businesses that ship closer to you, that way you will save time and also Co2 that the international shipping of your product may produce. Although this can be sometimes hard to find, choose the option that is closer to you.
- Donate Clothes, Fast Fashion garments still pollute our soils when they end up in the landfill, letting harmful toxic materials leak into the soil and potentially into the water, instead of throwing your clothes, you should donate or recycle them. If you want to learn more about this feel free to check Planet Aid.
- Inform yourself, this is one of the greatest things you can do to stop Fast Fashion, the reason this terrible business practice still exist is that the majority of people don’t even know what it is and why it is bad. And if no one knows what Fast Fashion is, nobody is going to fight against it, that is why knowledge is the biggest asset you can have and no one will take it from you.
- Spread awareness, this is the best thing you can do after informing yourself because as we said earlier, lack of knowledge is the reason why Fast Fashion is still destroying our planet without consequences. Just by sharing news and articles on social media, and talking about it with your friends, you can make an enormous difference, even some sort of domino effect.
These are the best things you can do to support Sustainable Fashion, as we said earlier, just by doing a few simple good deeds a day you can make an enormous difference in the future. So now you know how you can change your fashion habits for a more sustainable, ethical, and respectful lifestyle.
best sustainable fashion retailers
Now that you know why it is important and how you can begin to change your habits for the better, we will show you the best businesses you can buy from online so you can begin to look up Sustainable Clothing. Having said this, here are the best sustainable fashion brands you can buy from:
- Grammar NYC:
This beautiful store sells one of the best clothes out there, not only do they use the best quality materials, but they also make their designs with FASHION in mind. The only bad thing about this brand is its price, which is arguably very high, but at least the quality and sustainability match the price greatly. You can visit their store here.
- Grammar NYC:
- Two Days Off:
This store uses locally produced, ecological clothes made with recycled materials. They use linen, cotton, wool, and hemp for their products. Like the last one, price is not their strength, but they do offer original and stylish clothing. You can visit their store here.
- Two Days Off:
- ABLE:
This Ethical Slow Fashion Brand has clothing and accessories made fairly by makers around the world. They are taking a big step in the way for transparency in the fashion industry by publishing their wages. Their clothes are more affordable than the other brands but still not as cheap as one would like to. You can visit their store here.
- ABLE:
- Valani:
This colorful Plant-based clothing brand creates mostly feminine clothing for a lighter living. Valani’s dreamy garments are made from low-impact fibers like hemp, Tencel, and banana viscose, a bit like Two Days Off. Additionally, the brand uses strategic cutting techniques and reuses fabric scraps to minimize waste. They have really colorful clothes that you should check out here.
- Valani:
- PLEA:
This is our own brand! We too offer sustainable slow fashion clothing that you can buy. We mostly focus on t shirts, hoodies, and accessories, but they’re at an affordable price, and not only that, but we offer customizable clothes, That’s right! You can create a custom t shirt, hoodie, or accessories so we can then make them and sent them to you because we use a revolutionary method that does not involve creating tons of clothes before selling them, we just produce them on command! You can check out our shop here.
There are more brands out there that you can easily find online, but this is a list of a few of the best ones. Now you know where to get your Sustainable Fashion clothes that are made with ethical labor and fair trade, feel free to give them a try!
summary
We hope you have learned a lot today, and that you put this information into good practice. Now that you know how important Sustainable Fashion really is and why Fast Fashion needs to be ended, why don’t you take a look at our blog where we talk about many other related interesting subjects.
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!
