THE EXACT COST OF FASHION IN OUR LIFE
Sustainable fashion can be defined as “Clothing, shoes and accessories that are manufactured, marketed and used in the most sustainable manner possible, taking into account both environmental and socio-economic aspects.” This has now become a major concern for every fashion conscious as we hurtle towards breaching the limits of our planet. Fashion industries churn out products which meets the desire of its consumer. The term “fast fashion” has been in lime light recently, which means throwing the cloth as soon as it seems cheap or out of trend, that is, not re-wearing them.
Being a designer student, we must know and follow certain methods to achieve our consumer’s demand by keeping its impact on environment in mind. Sustainable is partly about the process of producing fashion items but more about pattern of consumption and use. Here, the aim should be to minimize any undesirable products from the environment. Following are the ways we can ensure a sustainable fashion on every product’s life cycle:
1. By ensuring efficient and careful use of natural resources
2. Selecting renewable resources at every stage
3. Maximizing repair, remake, reuse and recycling of the product and its components.
One of the greatest example we can see, through movie is through True Cost, True cost
a 2015 directory film directed by Andrew Morgan that focuses on fast fashion. This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a ground breaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?
The True Cost is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes. It discusses several aspects of the garment industry from production—mainly exploring the life of low-wage workers in developing countries—to its after-effects such as river and soil pollution, pesticide contamination, disease and death. Using an approach that looks at environmental, social and psychological aspects, it also examines consumerism and mass media, ultimately linking them to global capitalism.
facts from The True Cost, that will completely change the way you look at fashion
The Fashion Industry is the second largest polluting industry, only after oil. At every stage of production, excessive amounts of natural resources are used up or adulterated.
Fast fashion has made clothing cheaper, but someone somewhere in the supply chain is paying the price for it. Garment manufacturing workers in sweatshops are barely paid living wages, let alone worker safety.
Clothing is a deflationary product. While most products are appreciated in value, clothing is now cheaper than ever before.
Cotton is excessively used in the fashion industry, largely cultivated in India and is a cash crop. Over 250,000 Indian cotton farmers have killed themselves in the last 15 years, mostly as a result of going into debt to buy GMO cotton seeds, courtesy of Monsanto.
From my point of perspective ,Objective behind the making of the film is that Morgan was not trying to blame just a single company nor the fast fashion industry as “it did not invent a very irresponsible way of manufacturing, it did not invent over marketing the consumption of things.The film was intended to be a caution on the “incessant consumption of mediocre stuff” and an incentive to view shopping as something more than a hobby, adding that buying is “a moral act and there is a chain reaction of consequences”.] He was not trying to be “anti-business or anti-market” but was just reaffirming basic human rights and showing the limits of natural resources.
In short, the power is in your hand. If you want to reduce the impact of your fashion choice- show the corporations you care about what your clothes are made of, by consciously choosing what you wear because fashion has always been a way to indicate who you are to the world so now is the time to think about what you want your clothes to say about the kind of world and future that we aim for.