If we talk about fashion, the preferences, tastes, desires, and priorities always differ from one generation to the other. This phenomenon has been in place for centuries. However, there is a difference between growing up in a “newer” world and growing in a “different” world altogether.
Probably, the most prominent watershed moment in the history of mankind has been the advent of social media, a place where you can like, dislike, argue, view, post, share, follow, un-follow and even switch between different social avatars you might have.
Since the time, social media came to our lives, there has been a phenomenal increase in how humans from one part of a particular class, gender, society, culture or even country, have come to view those who lay on the other side of the spectrum. We are now more empathetic to other’s people’s plight, our own planet’s well being and how our decisions might affect the lives of others.
Fashion made clothes more than wearable. It transformed clothing from something that covered our bodies to something that deeply defines who we exactly are.
The Ethical Fashion Forum described what it means to be fashionably ethical in the best possible way. It goes like this:
The meaning of ethical goes beyond doing no harm. The goal of this approach is to primarily reduce poverty and at the same time create a sustainable lifestyle. Ethical fashion as the name suggests is an approach to minimize and counteract environmental concerns.
People say “You are what you wear.”
Since the industrial revolution, when fashion became fast, and brands pervaded our lives, we have devoured everything thrown our way without giving even the faintest of thought to where these clothes come from and where they end up.
Events like the Rana Plaza disaster, where 1135 garment factory workers perished in a fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh and other similar incidents of the appalling working conditions in the fashion industry, coupled with the pervasiveness of social media have undoubtedly triggered a change.
More often than not, the big corporations, the modern-day fashion marvels have always been to blame for human tragedies, and the harm that discarded clothes cause to our environment.
The big corporations of yore don’t seem to question their practices when such vast amounts of money usually are at stake - $3 trillion or 2% of Global GDP to be exact. However, the millennial consumer has started to become enlightened on how its choices about fashion are harming communities and the planet. But, the answer to any problem never lies in the ones who created them first. It lies elsewhere.
As people with different intentions and guiding principles, Enter Ethical Fashion brands.
Nudie Jeans, Patagonia, Outerknown are just some of the unique ethical fashion brands that have started challenging the norms of the fashion industry. They deploy and enforce fair treatment for all workers involved in the production of their clothes, use greener and more organic materials and even go to the extent of discouraging people from buying new clothes by providing them with the facility to mend their old outfits to look good as new.
They might still be small as compared to the giant fashion behemoths that they are out to challenge. But their ideas and operating procedures have successfully persuaded big firms to dilute their impact on environment and communities and try and help them out of poverty or providing them with economic emancipation.
This signifies an underlying change in ideology and mindset of how to take things forward from here. But the most significant driver of this change has to be the millennial generation, who asks corporations to do more good and not just be satisfied by how you are doing no harm.
For ethical fashion, it’s probably too early to believe the hype, but it’s the perfect time to change the way we view fashion. No idea, no matter how great can be sustained if people reject it downright.
It’s not just up to the ethical fashion brands to keep challenging the industry giants. They need more fashion enthusiasts to join their noblest of causes, so that the next time people are looking to up their fashion game, they do so with a little introspection and ensure that when their desires touch north, the people who manufacture those hopes are not left down south.
