6 Reasons Why Ethical Fashion Is Important
In a world filled with fast-changing trends and throwaway clothing, it's crucial to think about being ethical in the fashion industry. Ethical fashion has emerged to encourage people to think about what's important to them when they consume clothes. This journey involves thinking about ethics, making informed choices, and creating a better fashion industry. Ethical fashion challenges the idea that buying a lot of clothing is the only way to be happy and suggests becoming more thoughtful about what we buy. This blog article will focus on the importance of ethical fashion and how it can shape the industry to become more socially responsible.
1. Builds Style with Substance: Discover Your Ethical Framework
Ethical fashion has emerged as a counterpoint to promote a more conscientious approach to the fashion industry. We must examine our current ethical frameworks to understand how our moral stance contributes to fast fashion. Examine your values and beliefs to discern your ethical fashion framework and how it transfers to your style. Your aesthetic preference and fashion choices should ideally align with your moral principles. Sit down and reflect on how you think of fashion. Consider what is important to you when buying clothing, what it means to dress as yourself, and how you understand fast fashion. Journaling will bring you closer to your subconscious thoughts and ideals that have influenced your past purchases. Challenge to read books on ethics to learn how others consider what is good and bad. Ethical fashion implies the pursuit of “good fashion”, a journey subjective for everyone since there are no enforced universal standards we must follow.
As we become more aware of how we think of fashion, and ideally of ourselves, we can form a solid ethical framework we can use when shopping. You have control over how to take on ethical fashion but it does not mean excusing one issue over another. And we shouldn’t forget that ethical fashion is not just about our moral choices, but a matter of personal style. We can still be fashionable and discover how to be better versions of ourselves. Knowing what you hold true in your head and heart will take time and practice. Yet, to be a “good shopper”, also known as a conscious consumer, goes hand-in-hand with understanding our clothes source. Fashion brands often fail to provide details of how clothing came to be and where the only context is the “made in…” tag inside our clothing. Knowing where our clothing was made allows us to know the story of our clothing. Fast fashion brands even claim they don't know the full journey of their garments, detailing the lack of transparency in their practices and murky business practices. Transparency in the fashion industry is needed to shed light on fast fashion and to illuminate what aligns with our morals. We deserve to know if our clothing was made by children, polluted local rivers, and affected the health of its workers. Conscious choices allow us to understand our impact on the world. When fast fashion brands fail to provide information they perpetuate mindless consumerism at the expense of our morals and the planet's well-being.
2. Questions Unsustainable Industry Practices and Values
Ethical fashion decision-making and action are imperative, more than ever before. Fast fashion brands rely on the rapid production of cheap, rapidly produced trendy clothing to make a profit. By its very nature, fashion stems from a culture of disposability. Clothing items are designed to be worn for a brief period and then discarded, contributing to the growing issue of textile waste. This rapid production and consumption cycle strains the Earth's resources and leads to environmental degradation. These issues should call us to consider how we want to appear in the fashion industry. It is easy to support fast fashion because of the cheap prices, but its implications are serious. Ethical fashion brands can be an alternative to fast fashion, encouraging individuals to invest in higher-quality, durable pieces. However, ethical fashion is not just about buying ourselves into solutions. It should encourage us to question why industry practices are allowed. Big picture, systemic thinking is essential in understanding fast fashion. The average individual is not at fault for the issues the industry is facing. Fast fashion companies should be held accountable for bringing about broad-stroke changes. Yet, major fashion brands need to be faster to make serious improvements.
We need nothing less than systemic change to fast fashion. The structural root of fast fashion is corporate capitalism, to increase profit and decrease costs. The race to the bottom encourages brands to subcontract work to the cheapest place possible. Companies must be more ethical, to act under human rights and environmental stewardship. Simply waiting for solutions to arise by themselves from fast fashion brands is an unrealistic ideal to set for ourselves. It's important when fast fashion's rapid production and consumption rates of clothing are straining the Earth's resources, causing environmental degradation. Man-made clothing from synthetic fabrics is part of the problem, holding a significant carbon footprint. The emphasis on quick and cheap production also puts immense pressure on laborers, many of whom work in sweatshops for twelve-plus hours a day without adequate rights or safety measures. The real human cost of garment workers' blood and sweat from making fast fashion is a stark reminder of the ethical implications of supporting such practices.
3. Redefines Success: Ethical Fashion's Role in Happiness
Fast fashion stems from the prevailing narrative of consumer capitalism that urges us to buy the latest products to be happy. It is easy to fall into this myth when friends and family flaunt trends on social media and get-togethers. When we turn to ethical fashion, we are tackling mindless buying. Mindless buying is buying things with little or no thought of how they serve you beyond their aesthetic qualities. It flips the script, reevaluating systems, and consumer culture to move towards more sustainable and ethical alternatives. We have the power to deconstruct excessive consumption, ending a false myth that promises happiness and success. As a collective, we should work towards becoming more conscious, outside of material things. Take the time to ask the following questions to re-evaluate our society and what we accept in our lives:
Who does the fashion industry serve?
Who benefits from the profit made by fashion brands?
What does fashion mean to you?
Where are you happiest? What brings you fulfillment?
Critical examination of ourselves, and fast fashion brands are elements of finding solutions for the industry. Ethical fashion also serves as a forum for values that serve the planet's and people’s well-being. Humanitarian values coupled with inaction are also complicit in perpetuating fast fashion. Action is essential to ethical fashion to become a powerful agent of change. Everyone fighting for ethical fashion creates a collective shift towards furthering environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Challenge the status quo now by stepping up to responsibility and tackling norms to dive deeper into hard truths.
4. Explores the Politics of Style: The Anti-Boycott Legislation on Ethical Fashion
Fashion is a choice we can make. We can choose any store we want and look around for styles and trends we like. The only obstacle is having the means to pay for said garments. As fast fashion has emerged, low-income individuals have been able to participate in buying more clothing because of its lower price points. This democracy of fashion is essential to refuse fast fashion. However, there has been a move to boycott brands and products for their moral stance. Individuals boycotted Puma because they persistently endorsed the illegal occupation of Palestine, supporting the undermining of human rights. As Israel intensified military control over Gaza, many consumers across the United States started to boycott brands connected to Israel. In October 2023, U.S. legislation emerged to prevent U.S. citizens from boycotting. This IGO Anti-Boycott Act, advanced by Congressman Mike Lawler, introduced the measure against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement that targets Israel. The bill would expand a previous version of the act, which prohibits U.S. companies and citizens from participating in boycotts of countries “friendly to the United States” organized by foreign governments or providing information that could facilitate such boycotts.
These anti-boycott actions from U.S. politicians mean it’ll be hard to get rid of fast fashion. These sanctions would limit how we can take action on our moral views amid social issues, such as uplifting boycotts against brands. It illuminates how we need to be aware of people in power who want fast fashion to stay in place, whether for political or economic reasons. It's critical when the rate of fashion is destructive and unsustainable. We must adopt ethical fashion because “there is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness.” Consider boycotting fast fashion to reclaim your constitutional rights actively being stripped by politicians. When we stop shopping it will hurt the most powerful, pressuring them to work for the people, not against the people. Ethical fashion requires us to take action on our moral compass because we will stay complicit to forces that want to strip our decision-making process and choices at every level.
5. Goes Beyond Trends: Ethical Fashion's Role in Preserving Heritage and Artistry
Ethical fashion allows for a vibrant celebration of diversity, heritage, and traditional craftsmanship by preserving the cultural and artistic elements woven into clothing design. It would create a new global fashion landscape both aesthetically rich and socially responsible. Cultural elements in the fashion industry create a wealth of styles, patterns, and textiles that uplift traditional craftsmanship. Age-old techniques and artisanal skills passed down through generations have been lost with the expansion of fast fashion. By celebrating culture and art in fashion we also empower more local artisans across the globe who preserve traditional production methods through their collections. A tapestry of creativity and uniqueness would also flourish in the industry by moving away from standardized trends dictated by major fashion brands, often controlled by corporate executives in the Global North. A style that transcends geographic boundaries would further push authentic self-styling, where what we wear is more representative of the art and culture we want to uplift. Cultural appreciation would be easier to participate in, and where cultural appropriation would be harder to perpetuate.
Close your eyes and imagine a world where sensitive and respectful approaches to fashion design and production are used. This will only be possible through collaboration and engagement where mutual understanding and respect of different cultural and artistic expressions become standardized in business practices. True fashion is a vehicle for storytelling, but fast fashion is a myth of riddles and lies. It is up to us to lift greed and cheap materiality, or a tale of cultural roots. Will you honor the hands that crafted art to fit our bodies? Or will you justify fast fashion because it's cheap? Your fashion choices are heavily influenced by your ethical framework. However, ethical fashion is a way to meet your aesthetic wants and desires and move the industry towards a commitment to diversity, sustainability, and responsible consumerism.
6. Revolutionizes Fashion: Empowering Local Artisans, Redefining Ethics, and Cultivating Sustainable Communities
Ethical fashion allows us to re-envision what fashion can do for local communities through the money generated. Imagine a scenario where local tailors and seamstresses become integral members of our city or town, known by name and valued for their craftsmanship. In this vision, the production process would involve local hands. The new norm would be to appreciate their hard-earned skills. Yet, this vision is very different from the anonymity of mass-produced fast fashion items that lack a personal touch. Fast fashion heavily relies on outsourcing work to the Global South, perpetuating exploitative practices in the form of sweatshops and substandard working conditions. Sweatshops are factories that violate two or more labor laws by having poor working conditions, providing unfair wages and unreasonable hours, lacking worker benefits, and hiring child labor. Ethical fashion is important because it would champion solutions like fair wages, reasonable working hours, and improved working conditions for garment workers. Ideally, we would also close the gap between consumers and producers of clothing. Reducing pollution from fashion design, production, and shipping processes would require moving towards an industry fueled by connections with local fashion artisans. In this new fashion paradigm, we make ethical choices in fashion a lot easier. We would now know who made our clothing, and be able to uplift important cultures and artwork.
Fashion profit must benefit local communities for economic empowerment and sustainable development to emerge. Our current economic model is capitalism, where our country's trade and industries are controlled by private owners for profit. Fashion is a child of capitalism, and to create solutions, we must consider how to navigate profit-driven goals in the pursuit of localized efforts. Every community looks different and is made up of its own culture and customs. Use them in your favor to push towards ethical fashion. If these efforts prioritize sustainability, they will align with broader global movements fighting climate change and humanitarian issues. Fashion should and is a catalyst for change. Don’t wait for things to change on their own. Start by making your clothing, explore your culture, and consider what story you want your clothing to tell.
The shift towards ethical fashion is crucial for fostering a socially responsible and sustainable industry. This transformation involves aligning personal moral principles with fashion choices and demanding transparency in the industry, especially the ethical implications of supporting fast fashion. Yet, ethical fashion is important given the array of environmental and social issues, like textile waste, environmental degradation, and labor exploitation. We must not give in to the disposable nature of consumer capitalism, where we adopt a conscious approach to consumption by questioning societal norms. Turn to systemic change to hold fast fashion brands accountable and urge a collective shift towards environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Consider art and culture in your fashion actions and how to move towards diversity, sustainability, and responsible consumerism. Ultimately, shaping a more ethical and sustainable future in the fashion industry relies on the choices from our ethical frameworks that challenge the norms seen within our clothing.