Hey, everyone! In an attempt to clear the air a little bit on the subject of sustainable fashion, here are 5 myths (there is so much more but I wanted to touch a bit on this group) that I think should be discussed. Fashion on its own is already daunting to some but adding another layer, like sustainability, on top of it can potentially scare people away from the whole concept. Yes, I believe that the topic of sustainability should be scary to drive home the fact that we as a society should change. Maybe because the topic makes you feel uncomfortable or it may seem too hard, the point is that we all need to step up and do our part in stopping this global garment and human rights crisis.
1. Sustainable fashion is for rich people.
Get this out of your head! There are many ways besides having a lot of money to be more sustainable. Sustainability is about making sure you can maintain what you have for as long as you can. When it serves its purpose, find something else for it to do. If there is no use for it do, then it is ok to dispose of it responsibly.
With sustainable brands, some strive to back up their claims by doing extensive research into how to produce less waste, vet factories to make sure they follow human rights laws, and clean manufacturing practices. The price should reflect the amount of time and effort to make sure that the people making the clothes are taken care of and that the resources used weren't unethically sourced. Also, quality is a major factor. When it comes to sustainability, you have the power to decide how you spend your resources to be more sustainable.
2. You cannot own any fast fashion items in your wardrobe.
This is not true. Yes, the goal is to have less fast fashion but sometimes, fast fashion is all that is available. Fast fashion is known for being a very wasteful business model. They go by what is trendy at the moment and then move on to the next trend, usually within one to two weeks. This means that there are 52 seasons in a fast fashion year. The reason why this is bad is that these fast fashion companies blow through resources, force garment factories to meet almost impossible deadlines, and overproduce what they can to get every dime they can. While this is happening, clothes from a previous season are either being thrown out because of poor quality due to rushed production or carelessly tossed because it is not it trend at the moment. This would be one of the reasons people advocate against fast fashion.
On the other hand, as I stated before, sometimes it is all the is available. It’s easy to say that people can just use thrifting or clothing swaps as a better alternative to fast fashion but when you think about accessibility, it’s another story. They are not a cure all! Thrift stores can do only so much with what is donated to them and may not have what you are looking for from lack of resources. Same thing with clothes swaps. If your friend group isn’t all the same size, it can be hard to get what you need. Fast fashion offers affordability and accessibility (how many times did I say this, lol). The goal should be to take care of your clothing while you still have them. I still have a lot of fast fashion clothing from when I worked retail and to this day still wear them regularly. When starting your sustainability journey, just remember it is ok to start small and work your way up.
3. Clothing that has a green tag on it means that it is sustainable.
If a brand has to overly advertise that their clothes are "green" and "good for the planet" and still have only 10% of sustainable material, it is not green; it’s greenwashing. Greenwashing is when a company tries to pass off a product as responsibly sourced and made but fails to provide any valuable information on how it was made, in what working conditions it was made, and with what materials it was made.
A red flag of greenwashing is when you have a company that says they are a sustainable company but the are no sustainability pages explaining the processes of production. And even if they did have a sustainability page is just filled with fluff and no substance of their practices. Just pretty words to "reassure" the customer instead of being transparent.
For a garment or any product that can be considered "green", it needs to have certification from well-known companies that help supply businesses with the right material or at least point them in the right direction. Here is a list of some credible symbols and sources to look for if you are interested in learning more. It’s best to dig up as much as you can on a companies practices to see if they are serious about the claims they make. A place I would
recommend starting at would be with Good On You and going from there.
4. Because it's a sustainable brand, garment workers were not exploited.
Unfortunately, this is untrue for many brands. We all remember the tragedy of the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 and the many others that followed. Many fast fashion brands, luxury brands, and shockingly, some sustainable brands exploit garment workers for their cheap labor. Even now during this global pandemic, there have been reports of garment workers’ pay being cut because companies did not what to pay for the orders that were meant to be sent out during the year of the pandemic.
Always check to see if the company has a sustainability page and also their social media to see what they truly care about when it comes to sustainability. One thing we as consumers can do is push the companies we like to make better choices when it comes to how our garments. The best way is to follow closely on social media, going through a brand checker, or emailing the company directly. No action is too little.
5. Donating your clothing to thrift stores or charity shops is better than just throwing it away. Yes and No.
Ok, yes. It is better to find another use for a garment than it is to throw it away. The key is to make sure that the garment or whatever you are donating is in good condition. But, because 25% of garments donated to thrift stores have to be thrown away due to the quality of the item with the rest to be exported to shady trade markets in impoverished countries or sent to be burned or thrown away into a landfill, only a small amount is put on the sales floor. It can be small things like smell, holes made by bugs, or even if items are still fashionable that will determine if it goes out to the sales floor or wherever it goes from there. I like I stated before, thrift stores are not a cure all.
It is so much better to mend a tear or fix a whole than it is to just throw it away. T-shirts make great shopping bags and cleaning rags. You can make denim shorts or a skirt out of your old jeans. You can use the leftover denim as spare fabric to fix a hole in future denim jeans or to make a fun design on existing jeans. Again, I know this may come as a small inconvenience, but I believe the damage and pollution that could ensue is something to be avoided.
With all this being said I hope that this post has cleared up some misconceptions or at least is a starting point for your personal research. I hope that the more aware people are of this crisis, the more people will want to take action. Everyone enters in at different levels and that shouldn’t be a deterrent. We all have our own individual goals that we should set and we should never compare our personal journey to another. Just remember, if you are just starting out it is ok to start small. If you have been a part of this movement for a while, offer information to as many people that are eager to hear!
Thank you for reading this post! If there are any comments or questions that you have, please feel free to ask me in the comments or email your questions to me at geobo.cs@gmai.com. I will try to get back to you at my earliest convenience!
What are some other sustainable fashion myths that you heard of that weren’t listed? Sound off in the comments below!
Sources used:
Good on You Rating
The Problem with Donating Your Clothes to Charity
Green Product Certification: 21 Symbols You Should Recognize
What Is Fast Fashion, Anyway?
How Clothing Swaps Could Help Save the World
Pay Up Fashion Brand Tracker
Pay Up Fashion The Problem