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Massive brands are offering new styles and releasing new lines every week at a rapid pace. However, fast and cheap fashion comes at a high environmental cost. Almost 85% of fast-fashion items end up in a landfill within a year.
Luckily, slow fashion is slowly becoming more popular, and the idea of sustainability and eco-friendliness is an increasingly growing trend in the fashion industry, made to counter the harmful impact of fast fashion.
What exactly is slow fashion?
Slow fashion puts an emphasis on multiple things, but most importantly, on ensuring that the process by which clothes are made doesn’t harm the Earth. Many brands are implementing sustainable practices in their production processes.
This means:
Using sustainable materials
Sustainable materials are organic, such as natural cotton, linen, and bamboo. Their production doesn’t require the use of fossil fuels like polyester or nylon.
In slow fashion, materials are often repurposed and recycled.
Making sure the working conditions are fair for all workers included in the process
Slow fashion protects the workers as well. Besides fair wages and humane working conditions, slow fashion also ensures the workers aren’t coming in contact with harmful chemicals that can risk their health.
Producing fewer collections
Unlike fast fashion, slow fashion ensures that clothes last a long time; thus, it’s produced in smaller collections. The designs are often timeless and don’t follow every current trend there is.
Here are our top tips to easily implement the slow fashion trend into your wardrobe.
Consciously choose brands
When you first start reading about slow fashion, you may be overwhelmed with information and find it hard to choose where to start shopping.
Take some time to research different companies. You can always find some that fit your style and are sustainable. Giving support to sustainable fashion brands encourages other companies to change their practices too.
Don’t overwash
Washing machines use an excessive amount of energy and also produce a large amount of carbon dioxide. While washing your clothes is unavoidable, there are practices that you can implement to minimize your impact.
Make sure that your machine is full before turning it on to avoid half-loads that use the same amount of energy and waste water.
If you have to take your clothes to be dry cleaned, explore alternative methods as well. Wet cleaning is one of the alternatives, and it’s recognized by the EPA as one of the most environmentally friendly options. You can find companies that offer this, like this one for green cleaning in Chicago, that also use zero petrochemicals in their process.
Read the labels
When you go shopping, make sure that you know how to read the material labels. A good brand will be transparent, and you’ll find it easy to differentiate between harmful and good materials. A rule of thumb is – if you can’t pronounce it, it’s probably made with chemicals, and you should avoid it
Avoid harmful laundry detergent
Once you have the clothes in your wardrobe, it’s essential to take good care of them so that they can last you a long time. Avoid using harsh chemicals on your clothing, as it pollutes the water and will damage your clothes more quickly. Luckily, there are many natural brands to choose from that will still keep
your clothes fresh and smelling nice.
Visit your local thrift shops from time to time. You can find unique or vintage items for a lower price than retail, and you will also ensure that the item gets a new life. There are online platforms for second-hand shopping, too, so give it a try.
