Image curtesy of William Murphy (Creative Commons)
On the 1st of March 2018, at the "Fashion and the Sustainable Development Goals: What Role for the U.N.?" forum, the institution accused Fast Fashion of causing an "environmental emergency". Finally.
The fashion industry is the second largest polluting industry after the oil industry. Though being worth $2,5 trillion, it is also one of the most unfair in terms of workers' conditions and human rights. Many remember the Rana Plaza disaster, when more than 2000 people died because the clothing factory collapsed.
Big retailers are less transparent than we think they are, and every few year several scandals stain the reputation of famous brands: child labour, very low pay, crazy hours, unsafe facilities... When the CEO of such brands are among the richest men on Earth (Armancio Ortega from Zara was the richest man in the world in 2014)
Moreover, we have never consumed so many clothes as of now. That is why the industry is called Fast Fashion, cleverly referring to Fast Food: we buy clothes quicker than ever, and they are of bad quality and disposable. Yet, we still want more.
According to the U.N, with the ever growing population, by 2050, we will need three times the resources we have now to get everybody dressed... when producing one T-shirt already requires 2,700 litters of water. It is what somebody drinks in 2,5 years.
I was not aware of these facts and numbers before a few years ago, when I watched Sweatshop, a reality TV show from Norway which sent three fashion blogger to Bangladesh to live the life of the textile workers for a while. It completely opened my eyes.
I decided it was enough for me and that I had to make great changes in my consumption of clothes. To stop buying what I don't need, to stop waiting for the sales to splurge all my money.
At first, I was a bit discouraged: what could I do against these gigantic companies?
But the more I learned, the more I gained faith in alternative ways of consuming clothes. And now I embrace then completely to live true to my values, and do my part, at my small scale.
I want to give you just a glimpse of the solutions there are. On my search for new ways, I met different passionate and talented people, those who come with a little idea and make them flourish. Alternatives brands, bloggers, citizens... all of them do they part at their little scale.
Against the gigantic Fast Fashion monster, yes, there are solutions:
It's called Slow Fashion.
" I have to educate my students about these things: we need to do things differently and they are the new generation of designers."
- Caroline Raybould
In order to have more details about the consequences of Fast Fashion and to understand more the underlying relationships of power in this huge industry, I met Caroline Raybould, a fashion sustainable expert. She told me more about the responsibility of the brands, the solutions technology can bring, and the psychological bond with have with clothes.
After this interview, I wanted to dig even more into the responsibility retailers have and the drastic changes some of them are ready to make.
My first idea was to learn more on Fashion Revolution's website. Fashion Revolution is the leading NGO in the fight against Fast Fashion. Very active, they held several campaigns, both online and in real life, which directly involve us. Their most famous campaign is Fashion Revolution Week, each year in April, to commemorate the victims of the Rana Plaza disaster.
They released their 2018 Fashion Transparency Index to help the consumer choose the most sustainable option, between 150 famous retailers. But it can seem like choosing between two evils: indeed, none of the brands scored more than 60% of transparency, meaning that some information is still in the shadow.
Even though H&M is one of the brand which has the best transparency so far, it is still a Fast Fashion brand. By having a sustainable collection each year named Conscious (as do Zara and ASOS) they do send a good incentive to the general industry. However, this is just one collection among hundreds per year. Moreover, H&M is frequently accused of other deeds, such as burning their unsold clothes... even though they ask the consumers to bring their unwanted garments to their shops to recycle them. And if I target this brand, it is because it is one which, despite apparent efforts, could do much more.
But if they don't, it is because Fast Fashion is a model which is economically viable for the industry. And instead of trying to change toward a more sustainable one, they create a need for more clothes via marketing strategies. This has a psychological impact of fashion on the consumer: it is what Dr. Jonathan Chapman calls the Emotionally Durable Design.
However, some companies, as Patagonia, decided to really take the lead in changing the industry. The brand decided to openly call themselves "activists", to send a powerful message to the fashion world.
But activism is not enough, that is why politics is more and more involved in this issue: the Centre for Sustainable Fashion was created for politicians and retailers to meet and discuss on a common ground towards more ethics.
Some Haute Couture brands decided to play a part as well, and open debates about society issues, such as feminism. Dior decided to address the fashion world by creating their "we should all be feminist" T-shirt, which was a bold move in Haute Couture.
Fashion has to handle drastic changes for it stands at an important ethical crossroad in its History.
"What you spend is a certain amount of power: consumers need to realise that they can choose where to put their money"
- Caroline Raybould
Want to discover other ways of being a sustainable fashionista? Click on the links below!
Ok, now I made the choice to buy sustainably, I could not buy clothes in big retailers anymore. But where to look at?
Well, on the Internet, obviously. Just typing "sustainable fashion brand" on a browser gave me hundreds of results.
One in particular intrigued me.
1083 is a french brand of jeans, with a very clear value: selling trousers purely Made in France. But far from just having a label, all the production and sales are made in the french territory, as Romain Didier, the development manager of the brand, explained:
"A jean from a big retailer would cross 60 000 km on average from the factory to your closet.
But since the whole production is made in France, your pair will travel 1083 km maximum, since it’s the largest distance between the two most distant towns in the country."
And it is not just a motto:
"Our jeans are not produced at the end of the world, we know how they are made and in which conditions.
The thread is created in the Vosges, then weaved and dyed in the Loire, and the jeans are assembled in Roman. The washout isn't made with pollutants but with a laser washout machine (the only one in France), powered with renewable electricity. The dyed is Oeko-tex certified. However, since cotton doesn’t grow in France, we have to get it organic from Tanzania or Mali. All the cottons have organic labels as well.
Our new project is to make jeans from entirely recycled children jeans."
This sustainable concept definitely seduced the consumers:
"The banks did not believe in the project, so Thomas Huriez, the founder, turned himself to crowfunding. It worked more than expected and it was the largest crowdfunding in France at the time: 4000 jeans were already pre-ordered before the launch of the brand."
Such enthusiasm pushed the company to employ 55 persons, and to create jobs where the workers are treated fairly, contrary to the factory workers for big retailers:
"It does not work as a sweatshop where the worker only does the same seam on different clothes all and all again, like chain work. Instead, each seamstress makes the entire jean, from cutting the pattern to the last button."
This enthusiasm pushed Thomas Huriez to be even more innovative, and propose products one wouldn't find in the big retail shops.
"On average, good child's jeans can cost between €70 and €80. This can be really expensive for parents, especially because a child grows a lot between 3 months old and 8 years old. So Thomas came with this idea: to loan children’s jeans for €6 per month. The legs are removable so when the pair comes back to us, we just have to change them and we can re-loan the jeans to another child.We would like to make more innovation but we lack the funding for this."
Another of their concept is to sell denim by the meter, so you can make your jean yourself, and the pair will not travel a single mile.
To discover a brand which is sustainable on every level has really incited me to look for more shops like this one. But for now, these initiatives lack funding and support to make a significant change in the fashion industry.
"We are just a drop in the ocean: the French market represents 88 millions pairs of jean, and we produce only 20 000 of them."
That is why us, the consumers, should buy more from these sustainable companies, even if it means paying a little bit more, to send a clear message to the industry, and show them we want people to be treated and payed fairly, and our planet not to be destroyed.
After all, we vote with our wallets.
"Our jeans are not produced at the end of the world:
we know how they are made and in which conditions."
- Romain Didier
Find all the video interviews on Youtube!
Want to discover other ways of being a sustainable fashionista? Click on the links below!
