Sustainability – the definition

Sustainable fashion is often referred to as a movement, the purpose of which is to foster change of fashion products and the fashion industry as a whole towards greater ecological integrity and social justice. Yes, it is not only about ecology.

Since the 1970s voices got stronger and stronger that emphasized the interdependence of the economic, social and natural environment, and understood sustainability in a way to cover all these three pillars in a way being balanced on the long term. Being balanced means that the use or utilization of each may not lead to any damage in the form of degradation (non-recoverable, harmful change).

Sustainable fashion

Sustainability is an issue in relation to the product though meaning not only the materials used, but the production process itself, in terms of the energy efficiency, waste, durability, of the outcome etc. It has its importance when it comes to the lifetime of products, which leads back to the amount of natural resources used and production process gone through. Once the product life-time is over, even though the intention is to lengthen to the extent possible, the reusability or recyclability comes into the focus. Sustainability may be measured by the number of the cycles a piece of natural resource can achieve, meaning how many times it my reappear in the aforementioned product cycle, or to which proportion can the already used elements )or the part of them) be considered as raw material (again) in the cycle.

When we translate the aforementioned logic to the world of fashion,: sustainable fashion can be defined as a system in which supply, production, and consumption of fashion products have been designed in a way that ensures environmental, social and economic sustainability. As the definition implies, it is more about strategies and practices in design, supply, production and consumption rather than the product itself.

Different brands, experts, even academic people, use different phrases to explain the different notions lying beneath the concept of sustainable fashion, such as eco-fashion, ethical-fashion, organic-fashion, green-fashion, vegan-fashion and so on. One my find it confusing, inconsistent, and also improper to see so many terms, but our opinion is it is better to be forgiving and associate it with the novelty novelty of the topic and the determination to do something meaningful – even though nit under the perfect labels.

In the first piece of this small series, we introduced SDress, an Italian fashion brand, that placed emphasis on its carbon footprint throughout the production and consumption phase and thus distinguishes itself as a sustainable.

Reuse of fashion items

In this second piece, we introduce another concept, which is getting more and more popular: the reuse of fashion clothes and accessories. Current Boutique has been founded in 2007 by Carmen Lopez, an expert in fashion. It was built with the notion that the modern woman’s busy life needs a revolving wardrobe that can keep up with the neverending schedule of parties, meetings and social events. Always on the hunt for designer pieces, that kept her fashionable, current and on trend. Current Boutique leveraged this huge opportunity to develop a community for fashion lovers based on sharing their pre-loved (sounds better than used, does not it?) designer pieces, and where women could bring their pieces and recycle them into new-to-them designer outfits. Be honest, do you have clothes in your closet that you wore only once and do not see the possibility to wear again? How many, exactly?

Current Boutique has been at the core of the fashion community for over 10 years. They are known for innovative events, which connect the area’s influencers with up-and-coming fashionistas and style-novices alike. Being a local stylist, a fashion-icon in your own mind, or have an established brand presence, they are ready to collaborate.

Instead of remaining a local initiation, the online shop and the established customer service around it helps to overcome the geographical distance and make participation possible for women almost all around the world.

What is coming next? 

Listening to announcements of former fashion icons and once industry level influencer experts to stop buying new clothes may be a kind of a confirmation of the adequacy of these initiations, such as the urge to rethink the whole ideology around fashion, not only the industry. If not the leaders, then the consumers will surely enforce it, anyway. This way or that.

What to expect? Surely more mindfulness and consciousness from the consumer side. One can say that the impact is so small that it may not change the tendencies. It may be right, although the change in the mindset will simply bring the routines forward. Once the routines are changing, the small impacts are added up. And that might make a difference. So we do not have any reason not to act. 

In order to be inspiring, please see out collection – in orange, which is one of the trend colors of the Autumn/Winter collections. 

Happy shopping.