In an effort to think and operate more like tech companies, fashion has embraced hackathons, once reserved for intensive digital prototyping by coders and software engineers. Now, the practice is becoming more targeted. In addition to Kering, LVMH, Prada Group and German online retailer Zalando have held hackathons centred on sustainability, as pressure surrounding the environmental impact of luxury fashion mounts.
Read moreCraftsmanship Quarterly | The Human Cost of Recycled Cotton →
Everyone in the fashion world wants to find a more sustainable, environmentally friendly way to make cotton clothes — or a benign (and comfy) alternative. Some are on the brink of succeeding. But almost no one understands these innovations’ social costs.
Read moreVox | Fashion has a misinformation problem. That’s bad for the environment. →
Whenever a fashion brand makes a commitment to offset its carbon emissions, it needs to explain why it matters. Whenever a journalist like me writes a story about, say, activists protesting London Fashion Week, I also need to tell you why you should care and should keep reading. After all, there are so many other worthy things that demand our attention these days. So consider the following harrowing, commonly repeated facts:
Eight to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions comes from the fashion industry, which is more than the aviation and maritime shipping industries combined.
The fashion industry produces and sells somewhere between 80 billion and 150 billion garments a year globally.
Nearly three-fifths of all clothing produced ends up in incinerators or landfills within years of being made.
It’s clear that the fashion industry is a big, stinking mess. But if you take a moment to ponder these facts, you realize that something is … off. An estimated range of 80 billion to 150 billion garments a year is ridiculously wide. The two most common estimates for fashion’s greenhouse gas emissions vary by a billion tons, a huge margin of error. And saying three-fifths of clothing will be trashed within “years” is a meaningless statement.
Vogue Business | Does Luxury Fashion Still Need Wholesale Showrooms? →
When Nicholas and Christopher Kunz launched Nicholas K in 2003, like most upscale brands, the sister-brother duo worked with showrooms to build up their wholesale business. For 11 years, as the label developed through gothic leather-and-silk draped dresses and undyed alpaca wrap sweaters, showrooms sold their product on the East and West coasts and occasionally pitched in on PR. But in 2014, the siblings realised it no longer worked for them.
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Vogue Business | Fashion’s growing interest in recycling clothing →
As fashion scrambles to manage the waste involved in its production processes, such initiatives offer brands good press and potential profit.
Read morePopular Science | How to dress to protect yourself from UV rays →
If you’re wary about sunscreen or you just want to compliment your strategy against UV rays, thinking about what you wear and when, could make a huge difference.
Read moreMartha Stewart Living | These Two Women Are on a Mission to Make the Fashion Industry More Sustainable →
(For print) Learn how to outfit yourself more mindfully, and support brands that are as eco-conscious as they are cool.
Read moreVogue Business | African-made luxury fashion is making a comeback →
In 2016, Suno shuttered after a decade of creating critically acclaimed collections in Africa. The next year, Maiyet, whose Nairobi artisans were once featured in a glossy New York spread, stopped making its own products and became an ethical-wear boutique in London. Edun, which Bono and his wife Ali Hewson founded in 2004, held on until last year when LVMH divested, and operations ceased in the US. It had suffered about $80 million in accumulated losses.
Read moreVox | Clothing You Don't Have to Wash, Explained →
It’s been a banner few years for people who hate doing laundry. A slew of brands has arrived promising that you can wear their products for days, weeks, or months straight without ever putting them in the wash.
Read moreNew York Magazine | Where to Donate Your Old Clothes in NYC →
If you’re trying to do the right thing, your best bet is to shop more sustainably. Buy fewer, better pieces of fashion, so that your future closet clean-outs yield fewer, better donations that people actually want. But in the meantime, if you’re trying to dispose of a garbage bag full of Forever 21 that you just Kondo’d, here are the best ways to do it.
Read moreVogue Business | Fashion’s long hunt for the perfect vegan leather →
Brands are shifting away from traditional leather alternatives like PVC, but an eco-friendly substitute that doesn’t involve animals is still some way off.
Read moreCraftsmanship Quarterly | Argentina’s Textile Crusader →
If you want an unusually cozy scarf or sweater made of natural fiber, merino wool or alpaca is the usual choice. But what about guanaco, the alpaca’s little-known cousin, which grows even finer fleece? For Adriana Marina, the guanaco’s time has come to be South America’s finest source for sustainable textiles.
Read moreVox | The Complicated Gender Politics of Going Zero Waste →
“Zero waste” isn’t just an influencer meme, it’s a movement whose practitioners share the serious goal of sending as little to landfill as possible. They studiously avoid the plastic packaging, disposable coffee cups, and paper towels that many of us never give a thought to before stuffing in the trash. They are experts in refusing, reusing, and recycling.
Read moreVox | No Online Shopping Company Can Figure Out How to Quit This One Plastic Bag →
In 2018, the healthy meal-kit service Sun Basket swapped out their recycled plastic box-liner material for Sealed Air TempGuard, a liner made of recycled paper sandwiched between two sheets of kraft paper. Fully curbside recyclable, even when wet, it allowed Sun Basket to reduce its box size by about 25 percent and reduce the carbon footprint of shipping, not to mention reduce the amount of plastic in their shipment. Customers were pleased. “Kudos to your packaging folks for coming up with this concept,” one couple wrote in.
Read moreVox | The Spare Button Represents All the Ways We Fail to Be Good Consumers →
In my snow day fantasy, I’m nestled under a blanket on the couch, my cat sleeping on top of the pile of mending. I’m digging through my box of spare buttons, picking out the correct one and serenely sewing it back onto my favorite sweater, pausing occasionally to sip from a hot mug of tea. So hygge, right?
Read moreQuartz | To Eat Ethically When Traveling, Leave Your Food Rules at Home →
A few months ago, my husband and I took a four-day tour of the mountainous Matagalpa region of Nicaragua. The itinerary, which was designed to immerse us in the local culture while benefiting the community, included almost no restaurant meals. Our Nicaraguan guide brought us to the homes of small-scale farmers, where home cooks would emerge from their dirt-floor kitchens, a plate in each hand filled with some variation of freshly made corn tortillas, plantains, rice, beans, salty white cheese, and chicken, with a side of fruit juice.
Read moreRacked | Will Shoppers Ever Really Care About Sustainability? →
Customers say they want brands to be more environmentally conscious — but eco-friendly marketing campaigns fall flat.
Read moreRefinery29 | Relax. Sustainable Fashion Is Easier Than You Think →
Nobody can seem to agree on how to dress sustainably.
Some people advocate for organic cotton and Fair Trade fashion, while others criticize how expensive those types of pieces are for most people. Some advocate for only buying vintage, but shouldn’t indie designers also be supported in their efforts to be eco-friendly? Certain experts cheer for the huge ripples that international brands send across the supply chain with seemingly small improvements, while others decry said small improvements as straight-up greenwashing.
Read moreRefinery29 | Faux Fur: Good For Ethics, Bad For The Planet? →
Anti-fur advocates have come a long way since the days of slinging red paint on the fluffy-clad fashion elite. Instead, they now count some key luxury fashion players as their advocates. In just the past nine months, Gucci, Michael Kors, Versace, and the entire Yoox Net-A-Porter universe, not to mention InStyle editor-in-chief Laura Brown, have all committed to being fur-free, many of whom have expressed a deep interest and dedication to sustainability. But brands aren’t exactly eschewing fur as an aesthetic choice, as some animal rights advocates would hope. Instead, they’re switching to lavish faux fur options — cue up Burberry’s giant happy rainbow cape.
Read moreInc. Magazine | The Future of Leather Is Growing in a New Jersey Lab--No Animals Needed →
Andras Forgacs started getting calls from the last group of people he imagined would be interested in his company--fashionistas.
It was 2011, and he had just stepped away from his leadership role at Organovo, a startup that 3-D-printed skin tissue for medical use. It turned out, the fashion executives told him, leather is a gnarly industry. Livestock create one-fifth of the world's greenhouse gases, and an estimated one-third of leather hides produced end up in landfills. The demand for leather goods was booming, yet there were shortage issues, and synthetic leather alternatives performed poorly.
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