Why Sustainable Fashion Is Today's Hot Pick

Sustainable fashion is making headlines as the newest trend in fashion. 

The fashion industry has been responsible for several environmental concerns, such as contributing to 10% of the world’s carbon emissions and 20% of the global industrial water pollution. 

The fast fashion industry releases about 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

In response to that, the fashion industry is evolving to look for ways to remain stylish without compromising the environment. This includes ethical farming practices like sourcing organic cotton, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and ensuring the factory workers are paid fairly—all these factors affect the production process that goes into making fashion sustainable.  

What is Sustainable Fashion?

In short, sustainable fashion is a movement that aims to create ethical clothing without harming the environment.  

There are four main issues when it comes to environmental sustainability in fashion.  

  • Waste creation: Once the garments are worn and used, they are thrown into the landfill, which accumulates and creates more trash as they pile up. 
  • Water usage: Water is always in demand for agriculture and consumption, but the fresh water supply is starting to dwindle, due to our oceans and rivers becoming polluted.  
  • Hazardous chemicals: Dangerous chemicals are emitted during the production process from creating dyes. These are not only harmful to the environment, but impacts the workers’ health as well.   
  • Agriculture: The fibers used to produce the garment are often grown using pesticides and other harmful treatments that damage the natural environment and wildlife in the area.  

Contributing To Sustainable Fashion 

These days, sustainable fashion is all the hot topic when it comes to protecting the environment. But how many of us actually care, and how many are willing to take up the initiative? 

Workers sorting out old clothes to reuse in an effort to make fashion sustainable.
Workers trying to sort out the excess fabric so that it can be re-cycled.

If you want to ensure that your wardrobe is as sustainable as possible, here are a few ways to start with. 

1) Buy Less, But Better

Keep this mantra in your mind every time you’re out shopping and a brand-new white shirt catches your eye. Sure, it has a cool new print, but do you really need it? How different is it from the other dozen white shirts you have at home? 

Before making a purchase, ask yourself these questions: 

  • What are you buying and why? 
  • Is this something you really need? 
  • Are you going to wear this at least 30 times?  

Committing yourself to buy less is the first step towards leading a sustainable wardrobe, but it’s worth it! 

  

2) Shop Secondhand Or Thrift Shop

Step aside, fast fashion, thrift shopping is making a comeback! 

Thrift shopping is ideal to create a trendy, easy-to-match outfit.

Pre-loved clothing can be just as fashionable if you know how to pair them right. The great thing about buying and wearing secondhand is that you can reduce the environmental impact of your wardrobe, plus give the clothes a second home!  

Nothing beats the thrill of thrift shopping when you find a rare vintage item that is not only cheap, but looks great on you too! #thriftshoppingforthewin 

Looking for some good thrift stores to start a vintage collection? Start here

3) Join A Clothes Swap 

A clothes swap is a great way to give your pre-loved clothes a second home. It’s also a neat solution to avoid filling up the landfill with plastic waste.   

You can either join a clothes swap event in your local community, or organize your own.  If you do plan on a private event, do remember to sort out the clothes by size, so you don’t end up bringing a size 7 shoe home by accident! (P.S. If that’s your size, more power to you!) 

  

4) Donate Your Unwanted Clothes

You know that pile of old clothes sitting in the corner of your wardrobe, waiting for someone to come and rescue them? 

Don’t abandon them, will you? Rather than leaving them to gather dust, donate them to a good cause that will help others to be more sustainable. A great way to do this is to have a one-in, one-out policy—each time you buy something, you give another one away!  

  

5) Buy From Sustainable Fashion Brands

Maintaining an ethical wardrobe can also mean supporting fashion brands that use sustainable practices. Brands like PACT, Eileen Fisher, and Boden use eco-friendly practices to make their garments, such as sourcing for organic materials, recycling old fabric, and ensuring fair wages for their workers.

Sustainable fashion brands help to reduce the negative environmental impact.

While looking for sustainable fashion brands, it also helps to know the type of materials the brand uses and its impact on the environment. You’ll be more aware of how important your purchasing decisions are and ensure you buy from a brand that matches your beliefs. A good rule of thumb is to avoid synthetic materials like polyester and nylon, due to their harmful effects on the environment.  

You can check out a list of more sustainable fashion brands here 

  

Why Should I Care About Sustainable Fashion? 

Here’s a little something you might’ve not known about the fashion industryIt’s one of the world’s biggest polluters of our oceans and rivers.  

That’s right, the fashion industry is only second to oil in the pollution of industrial water pollution. 20% of the water pollution comes from the microfibers found in our clothing, which are tiny pieces of synthetic materials used to produce the garment. Companies opt to use these simply because they are cheaper and easier to produce.  

When our clothes are washed, these microfibers tend to fall off. 

They are washed down the drain, passed through our filtration plants, ending up in our oceans and rivers, and eaten by fish and other sea creatures. That’s where the real danger begins—because when the microfibers enter the food chain, we are at risk as well.

Sustainable fashion is an important issue that is garnering more attention to consumers.

Sustainability has become an increasingly important issue that more fashion brands and manufacturers are trying to incorporate in their values. Hence, the main responsibility of fashion companies lies in changing their production, distribution and marketing practices to include sustainable methods.  

As consumers, it’s time we take a good, hard look at our purchasing behaviors and overall attitudes towards fashion.  

Sustainable fashion doesn’t mean compromising your style. Just because this top isn’t in trend with the latest collection, doesn’t mean it won’t make a good outfit! 

So go out there and show the world what it means to be fashionably sustainable!

Tee May

Tee May

Teemay is a content writer who relishes telling a good story as much as she enjoys reading one. A fan of fantasy and time travel lore, she indulges herself with quaint daydreams of living in a vintage cottage settled deep in the woods. She hopes to achieve this one day, or may just settle with a treehouse instead. In her free time, she practices amateur astrology and interprets birth charts. These started out as a hobby for ‘fun’, but they come close to being obsessions these days.

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