Sustainability Pulse #18
Sustainability Trends & News Worth Exploring — December 20, 2021
How AI And Mass Customization Could Change The Fashion Industry
With more than 2.14 billion people being digital buyers (almost 30% of the world's population) and many companies offering extremely user-friendly shipping processes, our homes have turned into fitting rooms. We buy clothing online, we receive it and we try it on. If the expectation or fit isn't right, we send it back.
Seems easy, right? Yet even if most of the time returns are free, someone is still paying: our planet.
Change Your Style: Envisaging A Potential Model Framework For Fast Fashion Industry In Nigeria
Fashion is inherently time conscious, with many trendy styles fondly recollected by the period where such styles were in the limelight; two examples are the Boyfriend Blazers of the 2009s and the Spring Neo Neon trend of the 2012s. Globally, the fashion industry prevalently runs in four seasons a year: fall, winter, spring and summer. Designers/creators worked months ahead, planning each fashion season and making risky predictions on what the consumers desired to see/wear until the mid-20th century. This process essentially 'centralized power' to the designers, leaving consumers robotic, 'swallowing' whatever the designers put out for a particular season. During this era, fashion was elitist and inaccessible and had stringent rules that were mandatorily followed.
14 Global Brands Bringing Fashion and Sustainability Together
Walid, United Kingdom
Walid al Damirji structured his brand By Walid around a single principle: no waste. "It would be disrespectful otherwise," the designer says of the antique textiles like curtains, vintage clothing, and tapestries that he transforms into romantic blouses, jackets, and even homewares like pillows and quilts.
Mozh Mozh, Peru
Mozhdeh Matin launched her label in 2015, she explains, to "work with local artisans and preserve their techniques."
Maison ARTC, Morocco
Maison ARTC is the five-year-old brainchild of Israeli Moroccan designer Artsi Ifrach, who works as sustainably as he can from his Marrakech atelier, morphing together his vast collection of 19th-century antique clothing with local textiles, like handwoven handira blankets from the Atlas Mountains.
Fast and furious: Fashion cycle fueled by consumerism
These quickly made pieces are inevitably accompanied by cheap, easily disposable quality. Modern culture normalizes needing a wide array of clothes and the idea that "an outfit can never be worn more than once," but this works in concert with the fact that cheaply made clothes are rendered unwearable or untrendy very quickly. For example, online firm Rent the Runway estimated each American bought 68 new garments in 2018. To add to this consumption, according to children's charity Barnardo's, each new garment is only worn seven times on average.
Virgil Abloh: Founding father for a new generation of fashion
CEO of Off White, Creative Director of Louis Vuitton, husband, father and friend Virgil Abloh passed away Nov. 28 after a private battle with cancer. His influence on this generation of fashion will not be forgotten, and his commitment to supporting the Black community through fashion will be his legacy.
LA’s favorite flea market is a teen fashion paradise
What does a cool high schooler wear these days? For Gen Z, the defining style is that there isn’t one.
In the age of meticulously manufactured pop acts like NSYNC and tween sitcoms like Lizzie McGuire, the mall was a youth mecca.
Too underage for the club and too broke to dine at swanky restaurants a grade above Chili’s, for young people of the ’90s and aughts, the fluorescent lights and endless retail opportunities became an entry point into the worlds of romantic relationships and personal style. On weekends, the cement floors were a proverbial red carpet primed to show off logo-emblazoned Aeropostale polos, freshly bought Skechers, and other relics of the Y2K zeitgeist.
'I've Bankrupted My Family With My Online Shopping Addiction'
Most people think they have a shopping addiction. It's a big Black Friday blow-out or an irresponsible payday purchase and everyone seems to chastise themselves for being ‘out of control’. But out of control is deleting emails and texts, as if from a lover, to hide them from your husband. Out of control is contriving situations where your family need to leave the house, so you can bring in stashed garments from under car seats without being detected.
Discount detox: a year without fast fashion
Columnist Eleanor Antoniou reflects on her year banning herself from fast fashion, celebrating how it has made her style more creative as well as more ethical.
When lockdown first began in March 2020, online shopping on fast fashion sites became both a ray of hope and a mindless addiction. I spent hours scrolling endlessly through the tiny squares of clothes. It was a way to escape the pandemic and dream of the days when I could go out again, of the clothes I would wear once everything went back to normal. Many fast fashion brands began to offer free shipping without any minimum spend, and brands such as Urban Outfitters created a whole week of deals, with a new special discount each day.
Green Job Board
Consumer Business Intelligence Analyst -Rent The Runway
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Art Director - Rent The Runway
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Director, Sustainability Packaging - Clinique
Location: New York, NY
Human Resources Generalist (Remote)
VP of Sustainability-Avocado Green Brands
Brand Partnerships & Sales Manager (Media x Sustainability)
Location: Seattle-Remote
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