The Start of the Sustainable Journey

As a young designer just starting out, I see that I am surrounded by sustainable Fashion. It\"s no longer just a Unique Selling Point to be sustainable, all companies have this expectation to be reducing carbon emissions, paying fair wages, not exploiting third-world countries and reducing their production waste. With this mindset, the price of fashion and textile globally has seen an increase. Manufacturers need more money in order to be more sustainable. Therefore, if like me, a consumer is looking to be more eco-conscious and reduce their impact on the planets waste, we need to be prepared to either spend a little more, or put aside more time to create our own sustainable items - rather than purchasing from non-eco-friendly companies. 

I\"ve explored a few videos on YouTube to start my research into sustainability. As a future designer, I am conscious of waste produced by the consumer. Unwanted clothes and printed items are often just thrown away when they could be given to fabric bins, charity shops or even new apps such as depop and vinted for selling or even swapping. There are so many alternatives to throwing things away and that is one of my biggest concerns as well as sweat shops and the impact we have on the ocean and wildlife. Some of the videos I have watched this week have included these topics and have excited me to explore more.

The first video I watched was about using flowers and a hammer on light fabric to dye it gently at home. I learnt just how quick and effortlessly you can stain fabric using the fresh flowers. Although it isn’t great for clothing that needs washing often, I found that the process was simple enough to repeat if you wanted to change the design when it washes out. This temporary style of dyeing could actually solve issues of growing out of love with a piece of clothing and throwing it away. Instead you would just switch up the design. Very resourceful!

The second video I watched was a chat with Dana Thomas, a green fashion advocate an author that wrote \"Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes\". She spoke on a Live for Selfridges about what you can do to be more sustainable. One thing she touched on that spoke to me was the phrase \"buying less, buying better\". By this she means if you go out to buy expensive or quality items, they will last a lot longer and you won\"t have to be constantly replacing items or clothing or printed textile. I think this is something that is apparent in the more mature sector of fashion consumers. For example, the elderly that have the same bag they bought in the seventies or sixties that has apparent wear to it, but is still perfectly useable. This greatly differs from the younger generation that are constantly switching styles and searching for themselves within fashion. This can lead to unwanted items of clothing withing just months of purchase. And where do these clothes go?

Well, we are slowly introducing and combining the excitement of selling and earning non taxed cash and de cluttering within fashion with these apps. Depop and Vinted are consistently advertised on YouTube (I got 2 Vinted ads when watching these videos!) and inspire young people with persistently changing styles to swap or sell there unwanted clothes. I think the surprise of these apps is going to save a generation of waste. It\"s very promising to see, as both a producer and consumer of fashion.

Lastly, I watched a video that touched on ethical fashion and most importantly who is making your fast fashion clothes. It was filmed following the disaster of the Rana Plaza collapse that killed 1138 people in Bangladesh. Companies such as Primark and Walmart used these cheap unsafe sweatshops to make their clothes cheaper in order to sell cheap clothes in bulk to the first world countries. Primark was the only company to quickly donate to the cause, and £6 million was given to help aid those who were injured, and compensate little to the families that had lost loved ones. Following this tragedy, many sweatshops have seen an increase in wage, making the clothes slightly more expensive on the consumers end. They also seem to be having more health and safety checks and regulations in order to protect their workers better. 

I believe that purchasing from companies such as Primark and Shein can be fairly controvesial to many, in the fact that it is contributing to fast fashion and poorly paid workers. But others will argue that you are contributing to the wages and livelihoods of people in the third world countries that would have no job if sweatshops were abolished. I think my opinion lies somewhere inbetween. I see changing third world countries poverty is the main issue meaning that poorly paid jobs are no longer seen as a blessing to have. Instead, greater jobs and opportunities should be available for everyone. This is something that probably can\"t be solved by simply boycotting fast fashion, it\"s more complex than that. We need to address poverty in those countries as a whole, and not just within the fashion industry. How we go about that, is something I am very keen to explore and learn about throughout my degree and further into my life as a designer and practitioner in Textile.

Check out the videos I touched on, below!

Using Flowers to Dye Fabric:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0wopQ0A-7A

A chat with Dana Thomas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJmhtmowfOk&t=349s

Who made my clothes?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKr139yIzO8

The deadly cost of Fashion - Rana Plaza disaster 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fkhzdc4ybw