WHAT IS ETHICAL FASHION?

I read something the other day that said: “It’s hard to live in a world with so many issues, but such simple solutions”. Whether it’s global warming, ethical fashion, what food we should/shouldn’t eat, obesity, the rise of technology, fights over religion (the list goes on). The solutions to these problems would be easy to fix if we just listened to each other, cared less about money and more about the environment in which we live.

While we are all super lucky to have the ability to read this, to have a house over us and clothes to wear each day I think we all need to be more mindful about where our clothes are coming from, and what chemicals we are ingesting into our body.

Isn’t it funny that in order for things to be ‘ethical’, ‘organic’ or ‘fair trade’ we have to state it, and use it as a way differentiate ourselves from the rest of the market?

The ‘fast’ fashion that corporations are producing has become so commonplace and accepted in society, that we don’t stop to think about where the things we consume are coming from. For the terms ‘organic’ and ‘ethically made’ to need to be labeled on products that do the right thing by society in the first place, displays just how horrific the standards are for what businesses are allowed to sell to consumers or the supply chain processes they use to create the product. The higher profit margin for the cheapest price to manufacture is the main goal.

So What is Ethical Fashion? and Why should you care?

The need for the everyone to wear clothes everyday has resulted in the billion dollar fashion industry pumping out different options of clothes almost every second of every day with little to no thought about the effect this has on the environment, and the people who make the clothes we wear.

The great Emma Watson explains “as consumers we have so much power to change the world by just being careful in what we buy”. The fashion industry is one of the biggest contributor’s to waste and global warming, as well as using many unethical means such as sweatshops and child labour to create these $5 garments we all love to buy. As fashion is a way to express ourselves and our identity, I’m not arguing that the way to solve this issue is to stop utilising developing countries for creating garments, or that clothing corporations stop doing what they are doing altogether.

What I am taking a stand for, and what Ethical fashion is fighting for, is better working rights for the people creating what we wear in these countries and the use of less harmful dyes and waste that is not only polluting these countries waterways but contributing greatly to global warming. If all clothing companies did ‘the right thing’ and focused on fair trade, minimising environmental destruction and poverty reduction the world we live in would be a much better place. Because “Fast fashion isn’t free, someone somewhere is paying”.

Follow me on my journey of learning more about ethical fashion, the brands we should support and things we can do to help do our part to change the world.