Sustainability has a new look.<\/p>\n
No longer just about hand-me-downs in families and vintages in thrift stores, sustainable fashion has been the talk of the year in the fashion industry.<\/p>\n
As more consumers are getting interested, the market is responding.<\/p>\n
According to a research<\/a> by Common Objective, in the past six years, Google searches for \u201csustainable fashion\u201d have increased by 46 percent and \u201cethical fashion\u201d by 25 percent.<\/p>\n In January 2018, 64 major industry leaders, including affordable brands like Zara and high-end brands like Gucci, met in London to pledge to making their brands more sustainable by 2020.<\/p>\n Not only the current market leaders, but also the nation\u2019s top fashion schools are focusing on sustainable fashion by incorporating it into their curriculum.<\/p>\n Parsons<\/a>, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD<\/a>), Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT<\/a>), and Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM<\/a>) all teach their students about sustainable textile sourcing and creation and sustainable production methods.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are becoming increasingly aware of who is making their clothes, where they are being made, and how they are being made,\u201d Shannon Cooney, a 21-year-old senior at FIT whose thesis collection centers on sustainable skiwear, told Teen Vogue<\/a>.<\/p>\n As the once predicted consequences of global warming turn into reality, consumers are no longer pretending as if their everyday decisions don\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n One of the choices people face daily is \u201cwhat am I going to buy?\u201d and fashion falls directly under that.<\/p>\n Surprising to many, the term sustainable fashion is decades old.<\/p>\n Starting as early as the late 1980s and 1990s, companies like Patagonia and ESPRIT, both best known for their outdoor wear, practiced sustainability in their production process to stop the environmental degradation.<\/p>\n They used fibers made of renewable materials, such as organic cotton, recycled wool and \u201clow-impact\u201d dyes that use less water energy and chemical toxins.<\/p>\n In 2001, Stella McCartney, one of the first champions of sustainable fashion in luxury brands, launched her fashion label that abstained from fur, leather and PVC, a type of toxic plastics, \u00a0setting her label apart from other high-fashion brands.<\/p>\n Not only is her bestselling bag made from vegetarian leather and recycled plastic bottles, but her mannequins also are made from a bioplastic material.<\/p>\n To McCartney, the high standards of sustainable fashion makes it innately a luxury.<\/p>\n But, maybe that was the reason it couldn\u2019t quite take off. The morals were great, but for the general population, sustainable fashion was either too expensive or unfamiliar.<\/p>\n On top of that, by the mid-2000s, fast fashion, championed by affordable brands like H&M and Zara, boasted huge revenue success even against traditional high-fashion brands.<\/p>\n Running on business models that are completely opposite from those of sustainable fashion, fast fashion uses quick and easy-to-get resources, which are mostly bad for the environment and the workers, to mass produce current clothing styles at a lower price.<\/p>\n Like everything in nature, fast fashion had consequences.<\/p>\n Environmentally, according to a Global Climate Action Summit<\/a>, fashion industry has a huge carbon footprint, contributing up to 10 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n Since the start of fast fashion more than 25 years ago, landfill has increased 50 percent, according to a Forbes article<\/a>.<\/p>\n Because of these past ecological footprints, more frequent floods<\/a>, hurricanes<\/a> and wildfires<\/a> are becoming more likely.<\/p>\n Culturally, consumers are constantly throwing away their clothes for new ones.<\/p>\nNot a new kid on the block<\/b><\/h2>\n
Then, there are consequences<\/b><\/h2>\n