Reduse, Reuse, Restyle

It’s 2018: a year when simply talking about change won’t help the imminent environmental crisis we’re in. It’s now about taking steps to educate oneself and act consciously and sustainably in every aspect of one’s daily life. Fashion is no exception. One of the recent major trends is “sustainable fashion.” Sustainable fashion is designed with the main goal of using a process to produce clothes that supports the positive human impact on the environment.

Fast fashion refers to low-cost clothing collections that recreate looks seen on runways at fashion weeks across the world. It is instant gratification in its truest form. Around the world, 80 billion items of clothing are collectively “consumed” each year. Unfortunately, these short-lived trends have to end up somewhere, either in landfills or overseas to be sold at markets. By its very nature, fast fashion encourages disposability. Zara, H&M and Mango are stores that mass produce of-the-moment collections at a fraction of the cost of luxury clothes. Companies like Zara and Mango offer between 12 and 24 collections a year while traditional retailers offer 2–4. As a result, clothes have shorter lifespans than ever before.

But how are the clothes so cheap from these fast fashion businesses? Labor is outsourced to factories in countries like Bangladesh, Turkey or Brazil where the pay is below a living wage. This is just one of the numerous unethical aspects of fast fashion conglomerates. Companies like Zara, owned by the corporation Inditex, do not officially own these factories—they are outsourced and owned by individuals in the home country. When disastrous events happen, they shift the blame from themselves to the individual factory owners. In 2013, the Bangladesh factory Rana Plaza, where clothes were made for brands including J.C Penney, Primark and Zara collapsed and took the lives of more than 1,000 workers. Catastrophes like Rana Plaza are the beginning of a catalyst of change for the fashion industry. After the collapse of the factory, a shock wave pulsated through the industry and new, ethics-focused brands began to gain more popularity.

A slow but conscious shift is helped by the exposure of sustainable brands who are using their digital platforms to reach out to potential customers willing to change their minds about the way sustainable fashion looks. Guidelines and tips about what to do with old clothes and where to find sustainable new ones are easier to access thanks to the popularity of cool, trendy brands putting ethics at the core of their marketing campaigns. Reformation is a Los Angeles based brand doing just that. They let their slogan speak for itself, “Being naked is the #1 most sustainable option. We’re #2.” They take a friendly, conversational approach to teaching their customers about how the fashion industry affects the environment. Reformation shows that sustainable fashion is

shifting from niche to best practice by helping their customers with simple and achievable ways to make changes (and look cute while doing it).

Since its founding in 2009, Reformation has committed to making “killer clothes, that don’t kill the environment” by using recycled, vintage, or deadstock fabrics. Although they bring new styles from concept to stores in one month, they are not a stereotypical fast fashion brand. Reformation uses analytics to inform merchandising decisions—creating styles in small numbers first and then making more if they sell quickly—all in their own factory in downtown Los Angeles.

Veja is another brand that is turning the economic fashion system on its head. This French sneaker brand that works directly with small producers in Brazil using materials like organic cotton and acacia-tanned leather (an environmentally-friendly substitute for substances like chrome that can oxidize and become toxic) for sophisticated and fashion-forward shoe designs. The company refuses to charge low prices so that they can pay their workers a fair wage and support the rights of their employees. Veja has been championing sustainable fashion for 14 years and continues to do so through their marketing technique. They have just added a “cultural pillar” to their sourcing program which includes a Paris-based concept store to showcase their products as well as host events to highlight social and environmental issues. The brand also refuses to use traditional advertising, instead spending the money on the production of their sneakers. Both Reformation and Veja keep sustainability at the core of their digital marketing strategies, especially on Instagram, where trendy brands like these reach countless customers. Sustainable brands frequently refer to their sustainable practices in the captions of their Instagram photographs including where their fabric or materials come from and how much energy or water was saved in doing so.

Instagram is the most recent platform being used to reach the large number of customers who take an interest in fashion and aesthetics. Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform and the hashtag “sustainable fashion” has been used on almost 2 million posts on the app. Social media platforms like Instagram have allowed for sustainable fashion brands to spread their message of sustainability and positive ethics in order to affect change in an industry that needs help. Through this digital influence, unique and capsule-style collections from brands big and small have gained popularity with millennials and fashion-forward media-savvy individuals.

The definition of traditional sustainability is meeting a current generation’s needs without compromising those of future generations. Sustainable fashion has evolved from earthy clothes that were not on the

radar of a fashionista to now being a viable and trendy option for young fashionable people. Younger consumers now question how their clothes are sourced and manufactured, some even making clothes themselves. This shift fromfast fashion to sustainable fashion expresses the value that millennial consumers attribute to their clothes and the merit that unique garments hold over mass-produced ones.

Creative Director of Infamous Vie and AUP student Arafat “Harpy” Adekunle has always been inspired by “a mix of unique streetwear pieces and high-end fashion.” Growing up, he was influenced by musicians like Michael Jackson, Kanye West and Lil Wayne. Now, his inspirations for his clothing line include anything from “a recycled handkerchief to a dress made in pearls.” Sustainable garments carry a unique weight and prestige to him, with the clothes from his Infamous Vie brand made from 50 percent recycled garments (thrift shop finds) and 50 percent organic cotton. The garments are all one-of-a-kind— once they’ve sold out, he doesn’t re-stock. Sustainable fashion practices are in fact trickling down to small brands and individuals that value unique garments crafted by hand.

Millennials are spending more than other generations on clothing, but the recent vintage shopping trend is just one aspect helping to shift the scales from fast fashion to a sustainable way to shop. Twenty-one-year-old AUP senior Samantha Gilliams uses second-hand shopping as a way to express her unique sense of style, “I would rather buy something that I know does not harm the environment, animals, or the employees working for the brand. Additionally, I love finding vintage pieces but I feel like buying vintage is always a gamble because often times vintage items fall apart quickly if they are old or made of delicate fabric.” Vintage shopping, as Gilliams mentions, can often be a double-edged sword, but the value of a special vintage piece is worth more than a massproduced t-shirt.

Gilliams has been a part of the Brandy Melville product research and development team since 2013 and has visited multiple factories in various countries with the popular women’s clothing company. She has visited factories in China, Italy, Great Britain and the United States and explained that, “[The factories] are all usually large warehouses with machines going and people working. It’s not overcrowded and there are no unsafe fumes in the air.” With Gilliams’ insider knowledge she thinks the industry is adjusting to become more ethical but knows it won’t happen at a fast pace. She went on to explain that, for now, art lies at the root of fashion and is the focus of many designers, not yet sustainability or ethics.

Sustainability is a goal that a growing number of individuals and brands in the fashion industry are working hard to achieve. Ethics are being put at the

“This change will not happen overnight. It is a slow shift in values that starts with the brands and then trickles down to the consumer.”

forefront of brands as well as the sustainable processes they use to find materials and fabrics. This change will not happen overnight. It is a slow shift in values that starts with the brands and then trickles down to the consumer—whether

they are cognizant of it or not. Alternative methods to fast-fashion like vintage shopping and repurposingindividual garments for a clothing brand are ways that young people take steps to educate themselves and act consciously on behalf of the environment and the fashion industry. Hopefully, 2018 will bring further changes to shift the scales to put sustainable and ethical practices first in the fashion industry.

BY ISABELLA CHRISTIAN