If you are walking down a street in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York and its trash day, or it’s any normal day, you’ll see piles of unwanted clothes for the taking – people put out their unwanted clothes for people to take. Taking she did.
If you look at fashion as a big corporate machine, well this is the report that comes out every year to forecast what the corporate industry will be up to in the coming year.
If the average life of clothes could be extended by just nine months it could reduce carbon, water and waste footprints by 20-30%. –Leigh Mapledoram , Program Area Manager, Wrap UK
Exactly a year ago, within the first few months of the pandemic, I wrote a profound and comprehensive piece on what effect the COVID-19 virus would have on the fashion industry, Correction, Contraction, and Cessation. COVID-19 Calls to Action a Sustainable Fashion System. Here is what I had to say at that time and it still […]
Over 90% of the emissions for apparel come from four activities: dyeing and finishing, fabric preparation, yarn preparation, and fiber production. – Quantis At the rate we consume fashion, we buy clothes to throw away! Today’s fashion industry is plagued by over-consumption, all driven by speed and disposability – fast fashion. In the last two […]
Ignorance is a handicap. There is a shift towards buying more sustainable fashion, but on a small scale. Those that are educated, arm themselves with information on the industry’s negative impact on the environment and are asking the right questions, demanding transparency from brands. But there needs to be a massive campaign strategy to the […]
Are development and production samples considered waste? Product development and pre-production samples are of multiple sets: a set for the designers, a set for a subgroup of the design team – the specification package team, a set for media photo shoots, and a set for the sales team. What should happen is at least one […]
Ukraine’s BE SUSTAINABLE! Fashion Summit is in its third year of presenting an international event aimed at increasing the level of expertise of Ukrainian professionals working in the field of design and production of clothing. The Summit took place during Ukrainian Fashion Week No Season 2021 [UFWNS]. Did you notice “no season”? One of the […]
Against the backdrop of unprecedented store closures, bankruptcy, and excessive inventory throughout the supply chain, is fashion week necessary? Mckinsey & Company suggest the global industry’s economic profit will fall by 93 percent in 2020 after rising 4 percent in 2019. In a worst case scenario, the industry won’t get back to 2019 levels until […]
Despite the efforts of governments and other actors, anthropogenic GHG emissions continue to increase. Under current trajectories, global mean temperatures are projected to increase by 2.2°C to 4.4°C by the end of this century. – Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action | Climate Action Playbook
Without a doubt, the ongoing global health crisis has shaken industries in more ways than one. From record low revenues and great losses to missed partnership opportunities and canceled events, the negative effects of the pandemic on businesses are endless. However, if there is one good thing that has sprung from the decade’s greatest economic […]
Is the industry doing that? Lady Gaga has said ‘fashion doesn’t need to go together; it just needs to be upsetting’. She was referencing her dismissal of wearing designer clothing from head to toe. That’s just one aspect of the control culture or out-of-control culture that the fashion industry emits.
What I hope to accomplish is basically a diversion of the practices we use to satisfy our materialistic needs. I personally believe that the urge for something new is something not worth trying to change, what I focus on changing is the reaction to that urge. – Ophir El-Boher
What I find fascinating about the subject of sustainable fashion is that many in the industry don’t truly understand, or let’s say embrace, the benefit of a complete supply system that conserves and values our resources.
This is a re-post from October 2014, Sustainable Fashion Never Goes Out of Style. This future scenario was published in February 2010 report, Fashion Futures 2025, by Levi Strauss & Co. We are 10 years into their 15 year forecast. Not too far from a future like this?
The carnage of closures from the impact of COVID-19 throughout the supply chain is forcing the industry to pause and re-set. According to Mckinsey & Co., if stores remain closed for two months, 80 percent of publicly listed fashion companies in Europe and North America will be in financial distress. Revenues for the global fashion industry […]
I began seeing the clothes I had been accountable for making as post-consumer waste: in thrift stores, jammed into markdown racks, and on the streets as rags. From an organic farm to procurement of fashion artifacts to a zero waste product development operation, Karen Glass, founder of Ø [zerøwaste] GLASS, walks the talk of a circular fashion […]
Non-biodegradable clothes are manufactured synthetic textiles including polyester, spandex, nylon, and rayon[*]. It may take between 20 to 200 years to fully biodegrade these textiles.
IMAGINE A FUTURE LIKE THIS: Community Couture [Scenario 2] 1. The world is… struggling to cope with the impacts of climate change and resource shortages but community bonds are strong – many strive for self-sufficiency. 2. Fashion is… expensive new or cheap and second-hand… very high costs of raw materials and disrupted supply chains have […]