Sustainability

Reflecting on our current shopping habits within today's society, many consumers of fast fashion are encouraged to believe in having more clothing in order to stay up to date with the latest trends and styles. Although this can become an expensive habit, our substantial use of fast fashion puts a potential risk to our existing planet.

What Is Slow Fashion?

Slow fashion incorporates an alertness and perspective towards fashion, where the resources which are sourced to create these items of clothing are considered through sustainability and contributions to our surrounding environment. Clothing within slow fashion lasts for a longer lifespan within our wardrobes, as well as better quality, yet still considered stylish and wearable. Through a variety of clothing, slow fashion values protection of animal rights, promotion of recycling older clothing and defending a fair wage and working conditions for workers. While many people consider slow fashion to be more time consuming and not focused on speed, their key focus works on opposing fast fashion, in order to provide less of an impact to our surrounding environment through slowing down our consumption of fashion, focusing clearly on the quality of our clothing we receive over quantity.

H&M; Tackling The Fast Fashion Crisis

While we know of many fast fashion companies within the fashion industry to be quick and easy, yet highly unsustainable, H&M expresses these issues surrounding our constant need for new clothing and styles. Unlike many other high street brands, H&M stands out for their “conscious” sustainable fashion line, encouraging consumers like you and I to return and recycle clothing to encourage a more sustainable fashion industry. They offer a recycling service, working to prevent unwanted clothes going into landfill, tackling clothing from not only their brand, but other brands, ranging from any condition of the clothing all across various H&M stores. Once clothing is handed in to H&M in a bag at the desk, customers can expect a £5 voucher in return, resulting in their clothing being reused, reworn and recycled with 0% of the clothing donated gone to landfill. Clothing that can be worn again are marketed as second-hand goods, unwearable clothing are converted into new products and clothing that cannot be reused is recycled into textile fibres in order to make new materials and products including insulation for cars. Unfortunately, not so many customers know of this project, resulting in clothing going to waste and landfill.

As consumers within fast fashion, we tend to forget the serious consequences resulting in our fashion industry, where having access to projects such as H&M’s allows us to have the latest trends while remaining sustainable. Just as H&M encourages their customers, we can reuse and revive old clothing. Although many of us are encouraged to purchase new popular clothing within high end stores, by reusing older clothing allows us to bring back older trends and relive past memories entwined within our clothes. Unfortunately, many consumers in today's society do not feel comfortable staying away from old trends and would rather stay up to date and fashionable. However, we do not have to send old products away to landfill. Many less fortunate people would benefit from your old clothing, maybe even love them. Why waste so much clothing when others could get better use from within these pieces. By donating and sending unwanted clothing to charity not only saves our environment but help to make someone feel more satisfied with their purchase.

Stella McCartney; Her Take On Sustainability

Unlike many fashion designers, Stella McCartney encourages change by challenging and pushing boundaries in order to create luxurious products within her collections. By using carefully sourced materials, her products reflect how fashion can be sustainable yet beautiful and modern. She incorporates sustainability within each collection she releases, leading on from cashmere knitwear collections made from re-engineered cashmere, viscose fabric source from forest fibres to help protect ancient forests and subtracting fur and leather use. Since she is a vegetarian, leather, skin, fur and feathers are not included within her branding, where key issues surrounding animal welfare for our own enjoyment is key to her brand. Similar to this, wool is selected specifically from animal welfare farms to encourage further sustainability within her brand. Furthermore, her uses of organic materials, alongside reductions of metal consumption and recycled synthetic fibres all play strong factors to why her brand has become one of the most sustainable fashion brands to date.

While stella McCartney’s style is modern and chic, her simplistic form of fashion encourages wearable clothing in order to allow clothing to be used multiple times, rather than being thrown away after one use. To further express her passions and views around sustainable fashion, stella “ firmly believes that her job and what she studied for her whole life is to be a fashion designer — not some sort of environmentalist or political campaigner. If people come to her brand and don’t have a clue of what the product is made out of and just want the product, well, that’s okay. She wants people to come to her because they desire the designs. At the end of the day, that’s when she’s doing her job successfully and in a stealth manner”.

While encouraging her customers to shop more ethically and environmentally friendly, getting her thoughts across to the public may not always be easy. However, combatting the appalling way that our planet has changed over time has become a passionate issue within Stellas brand. In order to encourage future generations and brands to become more sustainable, her collaboration with Adidas has become the most sustainable so far. She incorporates plastic waste found within fishing nets, transformed into high-performance workout clothing, where 75% of each plastic piece is created from rubbish. In order to enhance her ideas and audiences views surrounding waste clothing in the fashion industry, having collaborations within popular high street brands of fast fashion emphasises the impact we have implemented within our surrounding environment.

H&M VS Stella McCartney; The Fight For Justice

When shopping for clothing, it doesn't go unnoticed that within today's generation, having the latest trends and clothing makes up a high percentage of today’s waste from the fashion industry. Brands just like H&M and Stella McCartney all support sustainability strongly and believe in the impacts we as individuals have put on our planet. To encourage change within their audiences thought processes when purchasing clothing, Stella constantly pushes boundaries within fashion, where H&M are doing the same by making people more aware of sustainable ways to wear clothing. While both shed a light into our impact of fast fashion, H&M can clearly get their message across more than Stella does. However, it is clear that both brands want to encourage consumers to purchase more ethically and sustainably, where forming the ‘Make Fashion Circular’ initiative in order to eliminate waste and pollution and ensure materials are reused, tackling sustainability, in order to improve the industry’s impact on our planet to find less than one percent of clothing to be recycled.