How to be Sustainable in Fashion

With Four hard facts of fast fashion and our planet and my Six savvy tips on how we can be better at protecting it.

It's not as hard or expensive as you think to be sustainable in fashion. We can each reduce the damage to our environment by being informed and making wiser choices, read on...

A brief background... When I was working in Paris in my twenties the word ‘sustainable’ didn’t exist but neither did ‘fast fashion’. The closest ‘sustainable’ thing that us Irish girls did was to occasionally buy a nice preloved designer piece at one of the many Parisian ‘depot-ventes’ (French shops that buy and sell second hand/pre-loved clothing). I remember feeling so happy on my 21st birthday wearing a pre-loved black Issy Miyake top and Jean Paul Gaultier tartan leggings that, although not cheap, I bought for a fraction of the original price and I treasured them for years afterwards!

So much has changed since then with the onset of 'fast 'fashion' and its rapid rate of manufacturing, selling and irresponsible disposal of clothes. While fast fashion has made many fashion companies wealthier, and created lots of fun for some social media fashion addicts, sadly it has been hurting many overworked factory workers and our precious planet.

The Hard Facts of Fast Fashion:

1. The production of textiles has become one of the most polluting and energy-intensive industries, responsible for an estimated 4 to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, producing almost 1.2 billion tons of CO2 per year, more than the international airplane and shipping industries together. Despite all the talk about sustainability in recent years, those emissions are predicted to rise by a third by 2030, to a shocking 2.7 billion tons a year! On top of this, the fashion manufacturing industry employs millions of people working in very tough physical and overworked conditions and only around 2% of those earns a living wage.

2. Overproduction in fashion is a huge problem - Consumers of fast fashion are partly responsible for this as they drive demand. We are buying 60% more clothes than we did in 2000, but each garment is only kept for half as long, and over half of them are thrown away, creating the term ‘disposable’ fashion. Out of approximately 80 billion of clothing items manufactured each year, we throw away 2.1 billion tons of clothing to landfill. And to add fuel to the fire, it’s estimated that a shocking 30% of garments that are produced are never even sold…. This is a real consumption horror story! Many fast fashion companies have gone from producing two fashion seasons a year (Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter) to 52 seasons (with new items arriving in stores every single week) and this is only driven by consumer purchasing and demand.

3. Sustainability in clothing is not regulated; Clothes described as ‘sustainable’ have quadrupled in the last four years. The word sometimes loses its meaning and can be confusing when we are bombarded with messages about ‘eco-friendly’ collections, ‘recycled’ fibers and ‘ethical’ fashion but often there are no certifications to prove it. Unlike food which is regulated with labels such as ‘Free range’ or ‘Organic’, fashion clothing still isn’t regulated so there has been a lot of greenwashing (misleading claims of a product by a brand to appear as a ‘sustainable’ business). It has been estimated that 40% of environmental claims could be misleading customers so we must all check the labels before purchasing.

4. According to Vogue magazine, the latest report from the United Nations IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scientists have warned that time is running out to keep the global warming increase limited to 1.5C, many of the changes caused by human-induced global warming are already “irreversible”. As the world heats up from environmental damage, we can unfortunately expect to see more of the devastating events and deaths like the previous wildfires in Turkey, Greece and the US to extreme flooding in Europe and Asia.

Six Tips on how to be sustainable with your fashion:

1. Donate your unwanted clothes to a good cause, rather than leaving them hanging in your wardrobe for years. This will help you and others to be more sustainable as people will buy and enjoy your old pieces rather than them ending up in landfill. A great thing to do is to have a ‘one-in, one-out policy’, that every time you buy something, you'll remove something from your wardrobe and donate or sell.

2. Buy quality over quantity - The 30 wears Question. Invest in pieces with more longevity, standard advice is to buy less but buy better items that you can wear again and again. Look for quality and lasting design where you can rather than lots of cheaper, less eco-friendly pieces every month. This will dramatically reduce your carbon footprint and you're likely to have it for longer. Ask the question when considering a purchase: can I wear this 30 times?

3. Check labels for certifications (like Oeko-Tex 100 or GOTS Certification) to purchase sustainable fabrics where possible and opt where possible for items made with recycled cotton, recycled polyester (like my great Nike yoga pants I bought 5 years ago, made from recycled bottles), recycled viscose, certified wool and even recycled feather down (as in the photo examples above and below of recycled fabrics, bags and jewellery - watch out for the next article on where to get these!). It’s good to buy from a brand that aligns with your values. There’s been a huge increase since 2020 of international brands demonstrating their sustainability stance and policies (from Hermes and Armani to Patagonia, Tommy Hilfiger, Whistles, Mango and H&M) with lots of useful information tags showing certified sustainable textiles and ethical practices to people and animals. Thankfully these certifications are going to increase. A general rule to apply when researching into whether a brand is sustainable is that if it's difficult to find their policies on hang tags or their website, the chances are they aren't as eco-conscious as they seem!

4. Invest in trans-seasonal clothes that you know are going to work for you all year round (which is probably easier in Ireland!). Try to avoid buying that statement piece you know you are only going to wear for one occasion and might fall out of fashion in no time, and instead pick more versatile pieces that can be styled in different ways. For those on tight budgets, there is nothing wrong with buying from fast fashion’s sustainable collections such as Penney’s recycled polyester loungewear or H&M’s Conscious range (one of the best vests I ever bought was from their organic cotton range four years ago and it’s still almost as good as new).

5. Consider buying vintage (retro and pre-loved) clothing, while buying preloved does mean that sizing can be tricky (there is rarely more than one of anything), it also means that your purchase is likely to be very unique too. Sometimes all that’s needed is either to get a hem taken up, a sleeve shortened, or some beadwork or lace added to give a piece a fabulous upgrade. Vintage clothing has a huge role to play in making fashion more sustainable and reducing a global footprint that includes the 132 metric tons of coal used yearly through the production of new fibres, dyeing and bleaching of garments and the 6-9 trillion litres of water used by the industry, the amount of new energy needed to produce vintage clothing is zero.

6. Look after your clothes so they last longer - It sounds obvious, but it's important. If you buy higher-quality clothes rather than fast fashion, they are likely to last longer (and you're more likely to treat them more carefully because they were more expensive). Look after them properly and you won’t have to replace pieces so often. Use a gentle wool machine cycle for any wool or cashmere - remember 'wash at 30 unless it’s dirty'! I also always use laundry bags or pillowcases to protect anything delicate and wash and iron most clothes inside out to last longer. If you have the space, a small steamer is an efficient and gentle alternative to an iron. To revive old bobbly 'bally' sweaters and other tired woolen items use a lint remover like Woodie’s ‘Bobble Off’. Finally use cedar hanger blocks to keep moths away from making holes in your lovely woolies (I could have cried last year when I saw a moth hole on a favorite Karen Millen woolen sweater!).

And the good news is…

Thankfully there's a sustainable fashion revolution happening right now for a change to slower fashion, a global movement that involves an increasing number of global brands rethinking their manufacturing and sourcing methods, as well as educating their consumers of these changes so we can make better choices.

It all begins simply, with us taking a few minutes to look at revamping our clothes in our wardrobe, donating unworn items and making wise choices with new purchases.

I hope you found this article useful, don’t hesitate to contact me on 086 3947031 to help you with your wardrobe and fashion needs and I'll be delighted to help you too. Louisa x