Evergreen Magazine

ACCELERATED TRENDS CAUSING A RISE IN WASTE SWAPPING SUSTAINABLY

THE RISE OF DEADSTOCK FASHION

TAKING

A STAND AGAINST FAST FASHION

The Editor’s Note

Dearest Reader,

This issue of Evergreen was created to educate, inform, and sustain you. We believe that fashion is something that tethers us to this planet, and we want to explore and inform our readers about the countless ways to interact with fashion in ways that improve the environment. We believe in moving the fashion industry from a linear model to a circular one; fashion should be evergreen.

In response to the overconsumption of fashion in recent years, Evergreen was created to help solve that problem. With the rise in shorter trend cycles due to the media, more and more people are turning to cheaply made and cheaply priced garments. Fast fashion has resulted in a major increase of water usage, CO² emissions, chemical pollution, and textile waste. In 2019, 208 million pounds of waste were created by single-use outfits. We have made it our mission to do our best save our environment.

In this magazine, you will find that all of the content revolves around sustainable fashion. We cover a variety of topics in the sustainable fashion industry; from the our ultimate thrift guide to the acceleration of the fashion trend cycle. Here you will find out how to embroider clothes and how luxury designers are doing their part to erase the carbon footprint created by the fashion industry. Our goal is to not only inform and educate, but to provide readers with one main takeaway: anyone can build a sustainable closet.

Hannah Ryan

Table of Contents

Katie Jones: The Weird and Wonderful

Up and coming UK-based knitwear and eco-friendly designer, Katie Jones, incorporates playful aesthetics with serious ethics in her designs.

Deadstock is Alive and Chic

A rise in deadstock fashion has luxury designers turning plain, unused garments into one-of-a-kind chic pieces.

Who Made My Clothes?

The story of how a simple social media hashtag raised awareness and sparked major change for garment factory employees around the world.

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The Macro-Impact of Micro-Trends

Experts describe the rise of micro-trends, the media, and how the acceleration of trend cycles impacts the industry and our environment.

Waste Me Not

Six different ways you can turn your old pair of jeans into something new, without the risk of them ending up in a landfill.

Swapping Sustainably

Our team shares their tips on the best swaps for the ultimate sustainable closet, and recommendations for the perfect staple pieces that will last a lifetime.

Contributors

Hannah Ryan Editor in Chief

Hannah Ryan is the chief editor and lead designer of Evergreen . With a background in graphic design and creative writing, she has always strived to use her skills to make a positive impact on the world. Her passion for sustainability in the fashion industry led her to create Evergreen . She has won numerous international and national editorial design awards, and continues to influence the masses.

Caroline Newton Art Director

Caroline Newton is a dedicated photographer and visual artist, and rightfully so. Her award-winning photos have been featured in magazines such as Vogue , Elle , and The New York Times . She has an eye for composition and strives to take photos that aren't just artful but intrigue the viewer with playful takes on the norm. Newton is in charge of the art direction of each Evergreen issue.

Carter Love Editorial Lead

After recieving an MFA in ethical fashion and a minor in journalism from Parsons University, Carter Love joined the Evergreen team. Using her knowledge in fashion ethics, Love is in charge of curating the written content and features in Evergreen . Love does a spectacular job of overseeing the writing team and protecting the integrity of the brand and its mission to raise awareness about ethical fashion.

Contributors

Diego Hadis Editorial Writer

A former writer for Men's Vogue , Diego Hadis joined the editorial team at Evergreen after realizing something was missing from his life. He has always been interested in fashion, but concerned about the negative impact the industry has on our planet. He found what he was looking for when he learned about Evergreen . Here, Hadis uses his talent to inform and educate our beloved readers.

Paloma Sheehy Fashion Expert

Paloma Sheehy studied fashion at NYU, and has since built an ethical clothing brand, Paloma Wool. Her knowledge in ethical fashion has led her to Evergreen . Here, she informs our writers about the fashion design process and styles our models with ethical brands. Her insight to the fashion world has been extremely helpful to the Evergreen team as we navigate the editorial fashion landscape.

Dina Howard Production

Dina Howard is the lead production manager at Evergreen ; her job is the final stage of the magazine. Dina does a stellar job with quality assurance, like making sure the magazine is printed on recycled paper. Howard is an alumni of Arizona State University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in environmental sustainability. Her knowledge is a crucial part of the Evergreen production process.

Written by Carter Love

atie Jones loves to crochet, and boy does it show. Spending as much as eighty hours working on a single jacket, Jones pieces together upcycled leather and denim to produce labor intensive, highly crafted fantasies of color. Jones’s work is a melodious juxtaposition of color, texture, shape and style. Flirty, frilly, playful and frothy, covered with hearts, frills, and bows, her sense of style is simply joyful.

The spring Summer 2016 collection is a riot of kitsch, Tex-Mex inspired color and texture that includes jeans plastered with multi-colored stars and hearts, knitted cardigans with candy-cultured ribbon fringing, a simple summer dress made from reclaimed denim, paneled and pieced together with classic bright crochet, the Katie Jones trademark.

The collection is produced from her studio in Stratford, East London, where she works alongside her mother, and a very small team, to produce her exuberant collection, each piece a labor of love. Favorite current pieces are made from denim and

leather, hand punched and crocheted together with brilliant colored yarns.

Katie Jones Weird & Wonderful K

Jones is in her element, and clearly happiest when she’s doing crochet work. With a love of the hand made and the bespoke nature of her designs, the constant connection to the work, the knowledge of who made it and how, increases the innate value of the piece, embellishing it not only with crochet and patchwork, but also a transparent supply chain, and the stories and value of designs hand made with love, ultimately making the end product less likely to become waste.

Jones’s design approach comes from a belief that the planet can’t take much more overconsumption and gratuitous waste. “You pick a couple of battles when working with sustainability and decide what you want to target”, for Jones, that means focusing on reusing waste. Challenging herself to make something new without using any new fabrics, the bulk of the collection is by default upcycled, with a small percentage of virgin British manufactured materials with local and transparent supply chains.

Photos from Katie's latest collection "Let Them Eat Cake"

Courtesy of Miu Miu

DEADSTOCK is Alive & Chic

Luxury Designers’ Approach to Sustainable Fashion

Written by Diego Hadis

‘Sustainability’ is, without question, the biggest buzzword in fashion at the moment. But with the threat of ‘greenwashing’ - using eco and sustainable terminology without doing the work to ensure verifiable benefit to the planet - on the rise, consumers are having to become more savvy about interrogating their purchases.

Upcycling clothes that already exist is one way to ensure sustainability, because it promotes the idea of circular fashion. To ‘upcycle’ is to take something already made and then improve upon it, or turn it into a fresh item, meaning that you’re not seeking out new, raw materials to start from scratch. It means older clothes remain in circulation rather than heading to a landfill.

There are, of course, plenty of ways to upcycle clothes yourself at home. But as the pressure to adopt sustainable practises increases, plenty of brands are also finding ways to introduce upcycling into their production process.

Arise in the use of deadstock and already existing fabrics has recently been embraced by many an upcoming designer. This means, using materials that would otherwise go to waste, pattern cut-offs, deadstock garments and limited runs of fabrics crying out for a second lease of life. So while it doesn’t necessarily eliminate the fabrication of new clothes, it does mean that designers are creating collections whilst considering the life-cycle of pieces.

So, what actually is deadstock? In short, deadstock refers to leftover stock of a product, be it whole garments that haven’t sold or leftover fabrics. Simple! This differs from sourcing vintage fabrics or secondhand pieces, because ‘deadstock’ means that they haven’t previously been worn or even sold. Instead, you’re looking at a brand new fabric or garment that never quite made it into stores, or did, but wasn’t snapped up by a shopper to fulfil its fashion destiny.

Why should it be used more? It’s estimated that over 100 billion, yes billion, garments are produced annually, and sadly not all of these will be worn over and over again. Hold onto your second-hand hats here people but, according to Clothes Aid, the UK sends a staggering 300,000 tonnes of wearable clothing to landfill every year. Which is enough to put you off your sexy new summer wardrobe.

Here is where Circular Fashion comes into play; reducing fashion industry waste and therefore the number of chemicals, water and greenhouse gasses produced when manufacturing fabrics. To give you a further idea of the magnitude of the problem, the fashion industry currently contributes around 10% of carbon emissions around the globe. This puts it on a par with agriculture.

Using deadstock textiles alone doesn’t automatically make a brand sustainable, as the process of creating clothes is not waste-free, but it does help reduce the amount of material ending up in landfill.

Who is actually using deadstock fabrics? The process is on the rise and upcoming designers are at the forefront of the practice. Emerging designer HRH, who debuted their Autumn Winter 2021 collection at London Fashion Week with Fashion East back in February, aims to use sustainable materials as often as possible. They use recycled plastic bottles for the fabric of their crossbody bags, for example. forefront of the practice. Emerging designer HRH, who debuted their Autumn Winter 2021 collection at London Fashion Week with Fashion East back in February, aims to use sustainable materials as often as possible. They use recycled plastic bottles for the fabric of their crossbody bags, for example.

For Spring Summer 2021, Valentino collaborated with Levi’s in re-editioning vintage styles made solely from upcycled 1970s jeans, each pair reinforced and rereleased with all new patches.

And they’re not the only ones; Miu Miu recently announced a collaboration with Levi’s, too. This capsule collection sees carefully selected, pre-loved jeans given a new lease of life. Each pair of 501s and tucker jackets are then embellished and decorated, by hand may we add, to give the perfect Miu Miu stamp.

Brooklyn based company ‘Fabscrap’ is just one organization taking advantage of this wasteful industry, collecting scrap fabrics from brands and designers and either recycling or redistributing and selling onto other artists, designers and creators. One of the most exciting new labels, Ahluwalia, works solely with deadstock fabrics.

‘At Ahluwalia, we work with as much preexisting material as possible, we work like this because there is already so much that exists on the planet,’ designer Priya Ahluwalia tells us.

‘We can support the environment by adding value to things that would otherwise be sent to landfill. We also used recycled and organic fabrics. We are not perfect but we are trying our best.’

With so many emerging designers pushing the agenda, it was only a matter of time before the major fashion houses started to take note. The Mulberry X Ahluwalia collaboration launched just a few weeks ago. The vibrant capsule collection of scarves and re-imagined Portobello totes use only repurposed leathers, meaning each piece is available only in super limited quantities.

Top: Upcycled by Miu Miu

Left: Mulberry x Ahluwalia Collab

Photos courtesy of Conner Ives

Well-worn denim has a charm that you just can’t get with something box fresh. There is also no real reason to invest in a 100 per cent new pair of jeans when some of the most popular cuts were invented over 100 years ago. Case in point, the imitable Levi 501 jeans, created in 1873. That’s right, nearly 150 years ago.

Having launched menswear only for her past collections, Priya has also turned her hand to womenswear, launching a capsule collection with everyone's favourite label, Ganni.

'The process of choosing the surplus materials was really led by what Ganni actually had available and how much there was of each style and fabric. Then it was very instinctive, I started to pull the materials I resonated the most with. The key inspirations for the collection was the UK Garage scene, partying with my friends and the female form,' Ahluwalia tells ELLE on the process of getting the collaboration started.

Luxury fashion houses are, at long last, taking sustainable fashion seriously. There is still an enormous way to go, but we're heading in the right direction. As the availability of deadstock fabrics is limited, it means collections are a lot smaller and designers are releasing more capsule collections or made to order pieces. Queen of the nap dress Cecilie Bhansen launched the 'Encore' capsule last year, which uses leftover couture fabrics to create limited runs of dresses. And, for the sixth Encore capsule, available now, the garments will also be made-to-order, available for a limited time only until the last meters of fabric are used. It feels like an ode to the feelings of Cecilie’s first collections and cherishes the brand's history.

Denim aside, upcycling yarn is also becoming more popular. For the Autumn Winter 2021 collection, Australian brand Zimmermann has reused existing thread for all pieces of knitwear in the collection, while Gabriela Hearst, who showed her first collection for Chloé for Autumn Winter 2021, used upcycled cashmere in her knits and eliminated all synthetic fibres. Alongside the show, the fashion house outlined a series of sustainable objectives that they intend to reach by 2025.

While the use of deadstock fabrics is by no means a catch-all solution to the industry's grim issue of throwaway fashion, it is a step in the right direction. And with recent studies showing that over 50% of British consumers say they would be willing to pay more for sustainable fashion, surely it wont be long before retailers want a slice of the action?

The Social Media Hashtag that Sparked Major Change

Written by Carter Love

Why do we need a fashion revolution? Because six years after the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, which killed 1,138 garment workers, our clothes are still being made by some of the poorest, most overworked and undervalued people in the world.

A report published in April 2019 by the Worker Rights Consortium, gives a shocking picture of repression, violent attacks and intimidation of garment workers in Bangladesh who are simply trying to campaign for a living wage. Desperate workers – vital cogs in the country’s $30 billion industry – have been asking for more money since the minimum wage was raised in November 2018 to the equivalent of $22 a week, less than 45 cents an hour.

Since last December, at least 65 workers have been arrested on false charges, while factories producing clothes for some of our favorite brands have fired and blacklisted 11,600 workers with no legal justification. According to the WRC, some have paid with their lives, shot dead by the police as retribution for speaking out.

“The industry and the government seem to be driven by a desire to maintain control and low prices, regardless of the risks to workers’ lives and well-being,” says the report. “They are clearly betting that western brands and retailers care a great deal about prices and very little about labor standards.”

I care, and I want the brands I spend my money with to care, too. That is why I will be taking part in Fashion Revolution week this week to ask: Who made my clothes?

“We are campaigning for an industry where environmental protection, as well as human rights, are the standard and not the exception,” says Carry Somers, who founded the campaign in the immediate aftermath of the Rana Plaza collapse. She started Fashion Revolution because she, like co-founder Orsola de Castro and many others working in the industry, felt that the disaster had to stand for something. “It had to lead to revolutionary change within the fashion industry.”

Carry Somers, Campaign Founder

In 2018, 3.25 million people took part during the week to ask, #WhoMadeMy Clothes? That question, when a brand is tagged on social media with the hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes?, has already resulted in major change within the industry.

Marks & Spencer now publishes its supplier list along with an interactive map of the factories who produce its food and clothing around the world. The map covers 67 countries and details 1,720 factories employing 994,512 workers; 85 of these are in Bangladesh. Many other brands are now publishing their supplier lists including ASOS, the H&M group (including Cos, Arket and & Other Stories), Primark and Levi’s.

“Fashion Revolution has been really successful in terms of giving people easy tools to be curious, find out, and to do something about it,” says Somers.

I will be doing just that. The textiles industry accounted for 1.2 billion tons of CO2 in 2015. Its use of nonrenewable resources - including oil to make synthetic fibers - is estimated to increase from 98 million tons in 2015 to 300 million tons by 2050. Dyeing and textile treatment processes contribute to 20% of the world’s industrial water pollution.

“When the system is killing us, we must change it,” said Sara Arnold, founder of fashion rental company Higher Studio, which is taking part in the Extinction Rebellion protests. “The privilege and influence of the fashion industry should be used to force governments to declare emergency and act.”

Fashion Revolution week provides the perfect platform to urge brands to put worker welfare and safety and environmental safeguards above shareholder profit. “We have to start looking at the true cost of our clothing, because at the moment that is hidden,” says Somers. “Ultimately, future generations are going to bear the cost of the unseen social and environmental impacts.”

We all have the power to make a change. Fashion Revolution week is all about demanding fair and decent conditions and pay, environmental protection and gender equality.

Garment Workers taking part in the hastag

THE FASHION TREND

The Macro-Impact of MICRO-TRENDS

Written by Hannah Ryan

Fashion trends have been a staple in society for centuries, and continue to evolve today. These trends tell us a story about the quality of life in a certain time period. For example, during the 1920s fashion became more casual; men started to forgo suits and lean towards sportswear, this is due to the rise in sports during the time. With our unlimited access to the internet, more and more trends are starting to resurface. Younger generations are re-introducing fashion trends and broadcasting them through social platforms. Due to the globalization of social media, fashion trend cycles are starting to have shorter lifespans; they are known as micro-trends. The traditional life cycle of a trend is twenty years, however micro-trends tend to last for three to five years. Experts have noticed an uptick in the number of trends in mainstream popularity; this in turn has caused larger retailers to turn to a cheaper production model, which has caused a lot of harm to our environment.

A trend cycle begins with the introduction of a new trend, when the concept or design is in limited supply, and usually comes with a large price tag. The second stage is known as the acceptance stage; this is when we start to see more people start to take part in the trend, such as influencers and models. Designers use social platforms as a tool to share their ideas and trends to become widely spread. In this stage, retailers begin to pick up on the new trend and implement them to become more affordable for workingclass people. As the trend becomes more saturated in popular culture, it is safe to say the once new idea has peaked. More affordable retailers start to replicate the original idea, massproduce it, and sell it for a lower cost; this expedites the process of bringing trends into everyday life. The next stage in the trend cycle is the inevitable decline, when a certain trend becomes oversaturated in popular culture. People are already taking part in newer trends and have abandoned the ones that recently had the spotlight. This pushes the trend in decline into the next stage: obsolescence, when the trend slips out of relevance.

How did the micro-trend become mainstream? Before society became social media addled, we turned to models, movies, and celebrities who were the tastemakers of fashion trends. For example, Paris Hilton is the queen of the 2000s; who is credited with trends involving millennial pink, trucker hats, and lowwaisted pants. This group of influencers was relatively small compared to what we are used to today.ociety

was provided with a small, curated selection of images. This hindered people from becoming aware of other trends, allowing them to last longer. With the introduction of social media in the early 2010s, society was provided with mass communication and burdened with being mass-influenced. We had access to a larger group of influencers, some often being your own peers, who started wearing new styles you had never seen before. In order to gain consistent viewership and provide new content, social influencers often turned to affordable retailers. Not only are these brands affordable to most people, but they were able to provide the hottest new styles and trends. Companies like Shein produce cheaply made garments for outrageously low prices; this, in turn, caused people to buy mass amounts of clothes to show off in haul videos. This was accessible to a large audience of people, and more people started partaking in large hauls. The sad truth about this is that a lot of these clothing items were worn once, and discarded. Micro-trends are the cause of overconsumption in fashion culture.

In order to mass-produce garments to accommodate the ever changing micro-trends, retailers make pieces out of cheap materials and pay their workers a low salary. These retailers hire large teams of fashion designers that churn out 10,000 new pieces each year, whereas sustainable designers create around 50-100 pieces per year. Most fast fashion manufacturing facilities are located in countries like China, Bangladesh, and India, where the minimum wage represents half to a fifth of the living wage; this is not enough money for employees to provide for their families. Not to mention the fact that most workers are forced to work 14-16 hours a day, seven days a week. During peak season, workers are forced to work overtime and sometimes aren’t paid for it.

Fast fashion has its ethical issues, but it is known for making a large contribution to environmental harm. With a generation of people overconsuming the fashion market, the industry continues to grow. Fast fashion has made a significant impact on water use, chemical pollution, CO² emissions, and textile waste. Because of micro-trends, there has been an increase in clothes being discarded. In 2019, 208 million pounds of waste were created by single-use outfits. Because these garments are cheaply made, they tend to last for a few washes before shrinking or fraying; consumers have no choice but to throw them away. To reverse the damage created by micro-trends, we must turn to sustainable forms of fashion consumption.

"With the introduction of social media in the early 2010s, society was provided with mass communication and burdened with being mass-influenced."

Have a lot of old jeans lying around? Cut them into squares to make a denim quilt.

Waste Me Not

Some ideas of how you can turn old jeans into something new

REFRIGERATOR MAGNET

Cut out the entire back pocket of jeans. Using fabric glue, place sheet of magnet on the back.

Using denim scraps, you can sew together a coffee cozy to comfortably hold your hot coffee or tea.

If your pant legs are long and wide enough to hold a yoga mat, you can make a bag for it.

Depending on the size or style you want, the possibilities for making a tote bag or purse are endless.

You can cut out a block of denim and stuff thick cloth inside to make a mini cushion to rest or hold your pots with.

JEAN POCKET

DENIM COFFEE COZY

JEAN TOTE BAG

DENIM POT HOLDER

JEAN QUILT

DENIM YOGA BAG

Swapping Sustainably

A guide to obtaining a sustainable closet that will last a lifetime.

In the digital age, it’s easier than ever to shop for clothing. Fast fashion practices make clothing cheaper but less sustainable, leaving many of us searching for ways to be more conscious while still cultivating our personal style. Fortunately, there is a way to enjoy fashion ethically: shopping with sustainability in mind. Instead

Plain White T-shirt

A plain white tee is an essential building block in your wardrobe, as you can build any type of outfit around it. Make it work-ready with a chic blazer and a pair of trousers or go casual with a pair of jeans. A tee that's good for the environment and ready to be loved for years to come is well worth the investment.

Simple Sweater

A sweater is a perfect layering tool for seasonal transitions. Invest in a quality piece that can last for years with the right maintenance. A neutral color sweater goes with anything, so you can dress it up or down with ease.

Jeans

It’s always good to have a pair of jeans around when you need them, and the right pair of denim can last for years, even if you’re active in them. Make sure you look into the brand you buy from so you get an ethically created pair that's sure to last.

Little Black Dress

While it’s tempting to buy a whole new wardrobe for any special occasion that comes your way, all you really need is a little black dress and the right accessories. Find a black dress that's versatile enough for any event in the future.

of spending on trends that won’t last past next season, try investing in everyday staples and planning your wardrobe around that. Not sure where to start? Ahead, see 10 sustainable style swaps you can make for a conscious and versatile wardrobe that is functional, fun, and will last the test of time.

Everyday Shoes

While I would argue that you could never have enough shoes, it’s important to have a pair that's easy to wear with anything in your closet and won’t wear out after a couple of uses. Plus, sustainable shoes tend to last longer than a cheap pair. Support ethical shoe makers and protect those toes with nothing but the best.

Crossbody Bag

If you hate changing out all your everyday items every time you switch purses, try investing in a sturdy crossbody bag that holds everything and can withstand everyday wear and tear. Brands may come and go, but functionality is forever.

Loungewear

Yes, even your loungewear and pajamas can be more sustainable. If you work from home, it’s a good idea to invest in your loungewear, as you're likely to be in it more often. Be cozy knowing that you’re wearing ethically made fashion.

Underwear

Along with loungewear, you can also give your underwear a sustainable upgrade to wear something that feels good for both you and the environment. It’s a good idea to invest in period underwear to cut down on waste in other areas as well.