Diana Vreeland dubbed the 1960’s “Youthquake” after Mary Quant’s youth driven fashion that literally tore down the walls of established design and upended retail. That was a different kind of revolution from the one happening today, but then, as now, it was about disrupting the status quo and being young and sexy. Fashion continues to be the mouthpiece of our generation, giving us a voice for our rebel yell against racism, abuse of women, the refugee crisis and global warming. Heavy topics that only fashion can make fun, light, and dare we say, gorgeous and if you want more, you need to know about Fashion Revolution at the forefront of this new activism. You’ll find tons of information on their website. It’s an organization of fashion activists that host events on college campuses across the country and whose ambassadors are a passionate community that organizes events for a week, every April across the globe showing people how, why and when they can be more sustainable. Last years event saw 2 million people engage with their events digitally and 66,000 people attend 1000 of their events in person not counting an additional 740 events at schools and universities. That’s a movement.
What started as a whisper five years ago is rapidly gaining buzz. Fashion Revolution’s #Imadeyourclothes campaign dreamed up by founders Carry Somers and Orsola de Castro resulted in 533 million impressions on posts in April 2017 alone an increase of 250% from 2016. The campaign lets consumers connect with the human face of the clothes they buy with the idea that knowing who sews your jeans builds the kind of empathy that leads to behavior changes that lead to lasting, real and permanent change.
If Earth is a washing machine for our clothing cast-offs, then it is drowning in sudz. Landfill has increased 50% since the start of fast fashion 25+ years ago. Each year, according to the film Future is the Next Black, enough water to fill half the Mediterranean Sea is used just to dye clothes and that’s no considering water used to grow cotton, feed sheep or air pollution from transporting goods. How has something so beautiful that gives so much pleasure become such a dark stain on our legacy? Is it because we have a society that makes people feel ashamed for wearing the same thing over and over? Throughout history, wealth has been seen as the ability to wear beautiful clothes all the time and wealth is often power. No wonder so many aspire to it through clothes. However, the good news is that people are starting to see luxury as a reflection of what they do and the legacy they leave behind, not just how they look in the mirror. As staunch supporter of sustainability, Emma Watson is known for her statement “I want to know that (fashion) is not leaving a negative mark…Fashion is something that touches us every single day…I want to look good and feel good and do good, and that to me, is a luxury.” Organizations like Wear 30 are attempting to help consumers to think more deeply about their purchases by encouraging them to ask before they buy “will I wear this 30 times?”
During Fashion Revolution weeks, the organizations ambassadors pull together some of the biggest names in the sustainable fashion industry. The Truth Beyond Textiles event put on by Julie Brown of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Fashion Incubator SF in San Francisco attracted people like Sally Vreiseis Fox of Fox Fibers who has been engineering cotton to grow in colors, thus eliminating the need for the dying process. She wore a beautiful brown cotton dress made without dye. You’d never have guessed. She also grows cotton in soft, beautiful greens and blues. Jamie Bainbridge, VP of product development at Bolt Threads was one of the panelists. Jamie previously helped Nike with their sustainable endeavors and before that worked with Nau Clothing. Bolt threads which has attracted celebrity designers like Stella McCartney (who is on their board) is making leather from funghi and silk fabric from yeast proteins. It’s the kind of innovation that hints at a sexy future we can all feel good about and good in.
Every movement is like the “little train that could” and sustainability is still laboring up the hill and gaining momentum but there are signs it may soon reach “peak” mass and become the norm rather than the outsider. Fashion Revolution is one of the organizations having the most visible impact. The number of companies, people and organizations that are now involved with sustainable endeavors is exciting. I reached out to Executive Director of Fashion Revolution USA, Lauren Fay and in one hour, she rattled off about 50 names. The subject of sustainability is a big one and because of that companies and organizations are approaching disruption from a variety of directions. Consumers are most familiar with recycling approaches like using plastic bottles from the ocean or encouraging people to turn in their clothes to be recycled but lesser known even more interesting approaches are being taken by smaller companies like 19th Amendment and Fame and Partners who are going the “made to order” route to avoid the waste that occurs with large-scale production and supports the growing idea that “quality” is better than “quantity. Others are using knitwear and other techniques for zero waste. Companies like Patagonia are offering DIY sewing stations to show people how to repair their clothes. Others are focused on protecting workers. The LA Garment Workers Association helps illegal immigrants who are often abused and Free the Slaves is a productive NGO out of Washington, D.C. Clothing companies like Everlane and People Tree are pioneering transparency as a way to educate people. With so much going on, sustainability is starting to feel like a way to be one of the stylish cool kids.
And yet…sustainability is still something on the fringes of the majority of people’s daily consciousness, indicating that there is still a part to this puzzle missing. Some think sustainability needs a rebranding, as Annie Leonard of Greenpeace USA recently said at a zero-waste event, “we need to show people that activists are vibrant, fun, bonded, passionate people, not off-the-beaten-track closet hippies.” An image that most people have of people in sustainability – rainbow colored hemp wearing hippies to be exact. It’s caused pioneers of sustainability to be viewed as outsiders rather than the passionate and connected and often extremely stylish community of people that they are. Many of us, I am sure wish we had that kind of clarity of purpose in our lives or claim to be doing something that both makes us look and feel good. People like Christina Dean of The Redress Award, is a key example of someone helping to rebrand sustainability as fun.Stella McCartney was recently quoted in Vogue as saying “sustainability can be sexy.” Other high-profile people like pro-surfer Kelly Slater, and editor-in-chief of Marie Claire Italia, Antonella, Antonelli are lending their high visibility voices to this movement but we need more and Fashion Revolution is working on it.
We are Fashion Revolution. We are designers, producers, makers, workers and consumers. We are academics, writers, business leaders, brands, retailers, trade unions and policymakers. We are the industry and the public. We are world citizens. We are a movement and a community. We are you.
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