me Suppose, in theory, that sustainable fashion shouldn’t have just one look. After all, surely the whole point of prioritizing ethics over aesthetics is that clothing design should focus not just on how they look, but how they are made: the raw materials used, the industrial processes they are put through. , the people employed, the carbon footprint. of transportation. But actually, it has an aspect. Can’t take away the fashion aesthetic. Sustainable fashion also has style rules. Just different.
Some of this is simple practicalities. Sequins, which are mostly made from non-biodegradable fabrics, are banned for environmental reasons. If you embellish a T-shirt with decorative zippers or embellish it with beads or glued-on embellishments, you make it much more difficult for the fabric to be recycled or usefully reused. Therefore, streamlined design is favored. Textile dyeing is one of the most water-consuming elements of the clothing production cycle, so bright colors can be a red flag.
A lot of baggage has been added to our idea of what sustainable fashion looks like: chunky, nubby fabrics that feel more homey, less industrial than shiny ones, whether they are or not; bamboo, birds, waves, and other prints and patterns that celebrate nature; loose silhouettes, to avoid the semaphore of personal vanity; raw edges and textures to give up problematic levels of brightness.
But this is changing. With circularity now a cornerstone of major strategies towards sustainability, consumers and brands are looking at clothing through a new lens. Circularity is focusing attention on the longevity of a garment’s appeal and its value in the future resale market. This is a sea change for the value system of an industry that has historically worshiped heroes in new clothes, preferably with tags and wrapped in tissue paper, and has tended to dismiss as irrelevant to the fashion conversation any clothes that already has been used. .
A 10-year program for industrial change, for which the government has pledged to fund £80 million, focuses on “creating a world-leading circular fashion ecosystem in the UK”, according to the British Fashion Council (BFC ). At the Downing Street announcement of the plan, Stephanie Phair, president of the BFC, laid out a vision of “a city like Leeds, which has a rich history of manufacturing and textiles, while retaining its role as a key part of the fashion and textile industry, and an example of a circular city with reprocessing plants and energized streets with recovery schemes”.
Meanwhile, Love Island set the tone for a resell-driven summer by sponsoring eBay as a clothing supplier for the series, and Dr. Martens partnered with fashion app Depop to provide a sales platform for revamped footwear. With the resale market reportedly growing 11 times faster than traditional retail, according to a global report by Thredup, brands like Valentino and Gucci are looking to partner with customers who have pieces from past seasons in their wardrobes through of validated buyback schemes.
Circularity is far from being a magic bullet for the environmental problems of the fashion industry; Rental companies have faced criticism for the impact of transportation and cleaning when a dress is passed from one user to another every few days. But the most fundamental problem with circularity, from a sustainability point of view, is both its greatest flaw and its greatest advantage: namely, that circularity is not intended to stop fashion consumers from buying. Faced with the scale of the climate emergency, many activists believe that any policy that indulges our desire to buy fuels the problem. But others argue that by providing a scratch for the shopping itch, circularity offers a roadmap that consumers and brands can realistically be persuaded to follow.
While the environmental impact of fashion’s new approach to used clothing may be less than transparent, the impact on how we want to dress is clear. It is also radically different from the stereotypes that have persisted around ethical fashion. The most desirable clothes now are the ones that will still look desirable five years from now. That means dresses in black and white, rather than whatever the color of the season is.
In other words, the most radical statement you can make with your outfit is to point out that you haven’t chosen it based on the whim of the fashion moment, but with an eye toward its long and hard-working life, in your wardrobe or someone else’s.
This week the September issues of fashion magazines hit newsstands, with the big reveal of the season’s new look. The key pieces for next fall? White cotton shirts, tailored pantsuits, knitted jumper dresses, black biker boots, tan leather belts, and gold chain necklaces. Trends are so last season; timelessness is in fashion right now.
Having built a luxury empire not on trendsetting but on a consistent vision of timeless Manhattan style, Ralph Lauren is one of several established brands now at the forefront of fashion. Its preppy classics from the 1980s and proto-streetwear from the 1990s are beloved by Gen Z consumers who have made the brand one of the most sought after names in fashion. Devon Leahy, Ralph Lauren’s chief sustainability officer, recently told Vogue Business that “timeless design” was key to sustainability, because of its power to future-proof the desirability of the clothes it makes. Leahy sees an increase in circularity, which will likely include brands taking a percentage of resale profits in exchange for authentication, as an important step in separating the financial growth that companies still depend on from the large carbon footprint of producing clothes. new.
The most avant-garde fashion of the moment does not seem radical at all. The establishment classics are the new avant-garde, because the aspirational image most aligned with the zeitgeist is the one that does not follow a cycle of trends. From jeans and sturdy biker boots to striped cotton shirts and simple tailoring, from cotton sundresses to gabardine raincoats, the timeless is back on the bench. The new look? Old school classics, played on repeat.
Source: www.theguardian.com