Sustainable Fashion Brands Need to Come Down to Earth
It’s going to take more than beige jumpsuits to tackle the climate crisis
In the 2019 Global Fashion Agenda Pulse of The Fashion Industry report, only 7% of consumers said that sustainability was integral to their purchasing decision (Deeley, Khan, 2020). This is in comparison to the 75% of consumers who “view sustainability as extremely or very important” (globalfashionagenda.com, 2019). Two very similar statistics, two wildly different numbers. What’s going on?
In recent years, information about climate change and its causes and, thus, our duty as consumers to purchase mindfully has been filling our feeds. Exposés on the brands we’ve been shopping with for years, percentages and bar graphs, petitions and calls to action. We must stop buying into fast fashion right now! It seems like there is a general consensus on this fact, and people are, now more than ever, seeking alternatives.
But, no matter how well intentioned and informed we become, there will always be things more essential to us when buying clothes than sustainability. We know it’s important, but we also care about the things that make fashion fashion (cue Miranda Priestly montage). Gen Z cares more about brand identity than any generation before it. Millennials and Gen X care about (perceived) value for money. We all need clothes for a variety of activities, and we want to look good doing them. We want to express ourselves. Can you imagine if we all wore Reformation and Pact? The world would be a sea of beige and forest green. We need more than just basics!
If American Apparel wasn’t such a historical and monumental mess of a company, I would give it as an example, here, of a forward thinking sustainable fashion brand. Yes, they mainly have basics, but their demographic is younger, so they make some effort to compete with the trends and prices of their fast fashion competitors. It’s too bad the company isn’t profitable, and that, looking at their website, their products are now only available on Amazon. Yikes.
So to the the next company who wants to take a crack at sustainable fashion I say:
- Expand your demographic. We are not all super-chill lifestyle influencers who only need activewear because all they do is yoga all day, every day (and take mirror selfies to let us know that they are doing yoga all day, every day).
- Make clothes that people actually want to wear. The launch of a collection is one of the most exciting experiences in fashion- the moment you get to see the mind of the artist behind your favourite brand. Or, at least the mind of the artist that your favourite brand copied. Surely, since you’ve slowed down the process, that gives you the luxury of time for creativity that fast fashion brands don’t have?
- Be better engaged with social media. Make content that people want to share. Get people excited about your brand, collaborate with their favourite influencers and celebrities who’s morals align with your brand- or maybe they don’t. If you’re trying to change the world, you have to reach as many people as possible.
- Have a stronger brand identity. Come on- it’s business for fashion 101. Make your brand recognisable and make it stand out from the competition.
I understand there are logistical and environmental reasons why the sustainable fashion market looks the way it does. I also understand there are creative alternatives like shopping second hand and finding incredibly talented independent designers on Etsy and Instagram. But when I think about our sustainability goals, and the chasm we have to cross to reach them, I have to wonder what it is these companies are trying to achieve. As it stands, it feels uncomfortably close to just virtue-signalling. If your company’s focus is primarily on operating sustainably and paying your workers fairly (both essential missions, don’t get me wrong) but you’re not actually serving the consumers who have the power to make a difference, then how could you hope to compete with the fast fashion companies who already have their hands in the consumers’ pockets? The answer seems to be that they are not trying to.
It will be interesting to see which happens first: will new brands come into this space, or will fast fashion brands attempt to fill it themselves? The latter to me will forever feel disingenuous, just as their current half-baked sustainability initiatives are now. I think it would be really exciting to see a new cohort of fashion school graduates take on this challenge and succeed, and change the landscape of sustainable fashion.
The Business of Fashion. (2020). Can Anything Shake Consumers’ Addiction to Fast Fashion? [online] Available at: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/professional/fast-fashion-consumers-boohoo-asos-primark-investors-sustainability.
Globalfashionagenda.com. (2019). Pulse 2019. [online] Available at: https://globalfashionagenda.com/pulse-2019-update/#.
