The 24th of April marks the anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, which in 2013 killed 1,133 and injured 2,500 garment workers, most of whom were women. But the deadliest garment factory disaster ever was just the peak of the iceberg. Many fast-fashion as well as luxury companies have a long history of sweatshop labor, dangerous working conditions, and ethical and environmental issues raised in their supply chains, accompanied by distracting marketing techniques, empty promises, and outright lies.
The fact is that many of the high street brands are sending out on the streets approximately 50 collections per year in order to deliver us the latest, most fashionable items before anyone else does. Go for a walk through main shopping streets in Ljubljana, London, New York, or Shanghai on any day of the week, and you will see masses of people enticed by cheap price tags and the adrenaline rush of bagging a bargain. We all love a great deal, right?
The problem is that we have internalized the feeling that our work can be rewarded by buying more and more stuff and on the way gained unrealistic expectations of what fashion should cost and how much of it we deserve to bring home every month.
Let’s write it down, once and for all: the great-looking dress you desire or the shirt you bought last week simply cannot cost as much as the meal in a fast-food restaurant without taking a great toll on workers and the environment.
It’s true, brands must take individual responsibility for all the ethical and environmental issues raised in their supply chains, but only the collaborative effort of consumers will transform the industry. When the representatives of the Fashion Revolution, an organisation that challenges the fashion industry to provide greater transparency, safer work places, fair pay and addresses its environmental issues, were asked how much has changed in the recent years, the findings weren’t really encouraging: “Brands are still acting with impunity; they’re doing a lot of cosmetic work but none of the groundwork. When we spoke to garment workers at the Rana Plaza memorial, they said there was no difference to their working conditions.”
So what can we do? The easiest way to become a more sustainable consumer is to resist buying things with impossibly low price tags and avoid the buy-and-toss behavior. Those clothes you bought impulsively might have been cheap to you, but once you add to them the real cost someone else had to pay, you see that cheap in fashion simply doesn’t exist.
Meanwhile, small independent brands with sustainable production models are becoming more and more available. They ignore the insane fashion cycle, create pieces that can be worn all year round, or produce smaller collections per season. Besides, a lot of them use recycled fibers and opt for sustainable options, like hemp, Tencel, etc., unlike mainstream fashion that mostly uses elastics, nylon, and polyester that contain plastic. And we all know that when thrown away, plastic does not compost – it sits in soil and floats in oceans forever. The small independent brands usually produce their clothing close to their stores, in their local environment, and avoid the staggering CO₂ emissions caused by shipping garments over the globe. So with every purchase you make, you support craftsmanship in the region and enable your local designers to grow.
What we pull out of our wardrobes every morning tells a story about who we are today and where we are heading. And never before have our choices had such a huge impact and carried the stories of so many people involved in the process as today. So… as editors-in-chief of Dansk magazine Uffe Buchard and Kim Grenaa put it in their latest editorial: “Be less greedy! Use common sense! Think!” Simple rules, right?
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Editorial note: And who made your clothes?
The 24th of April marks the anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, which in 2013 killed 1,133 and injured 2,500 garment workers, most of whom were women. But the deadliest garment factory disaster ever was just the peak of the iceberg. Many fast-fashion as well as luxury companies have a long history of sweatshop labor, dangerous working conditions, and ethical and environmental issues raised in their supply chains, accompanied by distracting marketing techniques, empty promises, and outright lies.
The fact is that many of the high street brands are sending out on the streets approximately 50 collections per year in order to deliver us the latest, most fashionable items before anyone else does. Go for a walk through main shopping streets in Ljubljana, London, New York, or Shanghai on any day of the week, and you will see masses of people enticed by cheap price tags and the adrenaline rush of bagging a bargain. We all love a great deal, right?
The problem is that we have internalized the feeling that our work can be rewarded by buying more and more stuff and on the way gained unrealistic expectations of what fashion should cost and how much of it we deserve to bring home every month.
Let’s write it down, once and for all: the great-looking dress you desire or the shirt you bought last week simply cannot cost as much as the meal in a fast-food restaurant without taking a great toll on workers and the environment.
It’s true, brands must take individual responsibility for all the ethical and environmental issues raised in their supply chains, but only the collaborative effort of consumers will transform the industry. When the representatives of the Fashion Revolution, an organisation that challenges the fashion industry to provide greater transparency, safer work places, fair pay and addresses its environmental issues, were asked how much has changed in the recent years, the findings weren’t really encouraging: “Brands are still acting with impunity; they’re doing a lot of cosmetic work but none of the groundwork. When we spoke to garment workers at the Rana Plaza memorial, they said there was no difference to their working conditions.”
So what can we do? The easiest way to become a more sustainable consumer is to resist buying things with impossibly low price tags and avoid the buy-and-toss behavior. Those clothes you bought impulsively might have been cheap to you, but once you add to them the real cost someone else had to pay, you see that cheap in fashion simply doesn’t exist.
Meanwhile, small independent brands with sustainable production models are becoming more and more available. They ignore the insane fashion cycle, create pieces that can be worn all year round, or produce smaller collections per season. Besides, a lot of them use recycled fibers and opt for sustainable options, like hemp, Tencel, etc., unlike mainstream fashion that mostly uses elastics, nylon, and polyester that contain plastic. And we all know that when thrown away, plastic does not compost – it sits in soil and floats in oceans forever. The small independent brands usually produce their clothing close to their stores, in their local environment, and avoid the staggering CO₂ emissions caused by shipping garments over the globe. So with every purchase you make, you support craftsmanship in the region and enable your local designers to grow.
What we pull out of our wardrobes every morning tells a story about who we are today and where we are heading. And never before have our choices had such a huge impact and carried the stories of so many people involved in the process as today. So… as editors-in-chief of Dansk magazine Uffe Buchard and Kim Grenaa put it in their latest editorial: “Be less greedy! Use common sense! Think!” Simple rules, right?
Written by Sandra Gubenšek
There is more:
/ 10 steps to becoming more mindful fashion consumer
/ Quiet but Powerful: Minimalism in Fashion
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