Did you know that clothing waste accumulated between today and 2025 will weigh as much as today’s world population? It is time to radically rethink our fashion choices!
Fast fashion allows us to consume clothes at a rapid pace with no opportunity to wear them. When we buy something and don’t wear it, we’re wasting natural resources associated with making these clothes. Worse, when we dump our clothes into landfills they release methane into the environment owing to the potentially 1800 chemicals used on them. It's a colossal environmental damage we can avoid.
Thus responsible brands and designers such as Stella McCartney, H&M and others are aiming to end this TAKE-MAKE-DISPOSE behavior and design fashion that lasts longer, are rented, resold and recycled and do not release toxins or pollution system. But they can’t do this without you!
CHOOSE UP-CYCLED FASHION: Buy items that can be easily dissembled to change the outfit shape, or have occasion and mood versatility. On your next shopping spree, look out for products with disintegration qualities (organic fabrics, reusable trims and, wide cuts). Count this as your contribution towards effective disposal of your loved fashion items at the end of its life.
CHOOSE QUALITY OVER QUANTITY: Invest in heirloom fashion. Remember how that Chanel tweed jacket passed onto you from your Grandma is still your prized possession?. Opt for such fashion designed with high quality materials and enduring style is more durable and is relevant to more than one user. This is one of the ways to close the fashion cycle loop.
TRY ON EVERYTHING BEFORE BUYING: We all have been guilty of the sale season greed! But try swaying away from that and buy items that you genuinely appreciate, that suit your body type and your taste so that you don’t just hang the clothes in closets, but wear them as many times as possible.
CHOOSE NATURAL PRODUCTS: Buy items made of natural, non-toxic, organic and degradable material instead of synthetics like polyester, acrylic or nylon. This way you will help our planet’s metabolism.
CHOOSE ETHICAL PRODUCTS: ‘What goes around comes back around’. Pay practice to ethical fashion. Buy only those products that are manufactured with ethical labour based on fair wages, good working conditions and are cruelty free. This will be your way of supporting a higher quality of life for all people, animals and our planet.
CHOOSE CONSCIOUS BRANDS: Buy brands that are making judicious use of finite resources like water and are using organic or recycled material. Going deeper, look up certifications like GOTS, EU Ecolabel or the Nordic Ecolabel, while purchasing a product. When you ask for attestations like these, you encourage the cause. Advertise these brands to your friends too!
CHOOSE PRELOVED: Opt for swapping, renting, borrowing or second hand clothing. For fashion users to be a part of this change is now easier than ever before. There are so many options and brands to help you look sleek and stylish with sustainable sensibilities. These choices we make as consumer of products, and of knowledge will bear long-term, positive impacts on our closet, in the fashion industry, and to the future of the planet itself. So be stylish, be sustainable and be smart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi I'm Menka! I am from India.
In my happy place, I am making ayurvedic concoctions for beauty and wellness.
Notoriously, pinterest-ing fashion and decor. And, I love forests.
Let's connect on Instagram.