Want your fashion brand to be a success in the world, without being a blight on the planet? This How-To Guide probably raises more questions about sustainable fashion than it answers (sorry)! But they are important questions. So do read on for plenty of inspiration, encouragement, support and hope…
The price of being sustainable versus the cost of not
One of the main hurdles for sustainable fashion is that it shares the marketplace with numerous brands that are competing to be cheap (as opposed to aspiring to be ethical). When online fashion retailers flog a basket of new clothes for a few quid, it ought to raise alarm bells. Instead, it has shoppers racing to buy. We need to educate customers to be as interested in the human cost as the checkout cost.
As well as providing quality clothing that lasts, sustainable fashion is about ensuring that workers are fairly paid and that fabrics, dyes and processes don’t harm the environment (oceans, creatures, people), etc. So if customers knew what they were buying into – as well as what they were buying – surely they’d want to pay more money for products that do less harm?
Perhaps it should be a legal requirement for clothing manufacturers to declare the provenance of their clothing on the labels (in the same way that food companies have to display their ingredients).