Dive into Sustainable Fashion

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It's a random evening, and you just finished a day of work/study. You feel tired, so you sit on your cozy couch and open your social media account to see your followed celebrities or influencers' new posts. Thanks to targeted social media ads with your favourite celebrities, you are tempted to click the link in their bio and eventually purchase a new outfit or the latest pair of shoes.

However, you are not even aware that you are buying more new clothes and using them less.

Why should you care?

Do you know that the average piece of clothing is worn 36% fewer times now than it was 15 years ago? This is most extreme in Western countries, such as the US, but some Asian countries, such as China and Korea, are catching up.

Most clothes that enter the supply chain end up in landfills. On average, Americans throw away 81 lbs of textiles each year. This accounts for 26 billion pounds of textile waste in the US alone. In 2020, less than 30% of post-consumer textile waste was collected for recycling, the rest 70% attributed to pollution. The fashion industry is responsible for 10 % of annual global carbon emissions, more than international flights and maritime shipping combined. At this pace, the fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions will surge more than 50 % by 2030.

We really should think about how much our wardrobes cost the environment while talking about solutions to climate change and human rights. It is time to consider making your choice of outfit sustainable.

What is sustainable fashion?

Sustainable fashion is one of the trendy topics on social media, and you’ve probably heard or used the term at some point, but what does it mean? The definition of sustainable is defined as “capable of being sustained.” Therefore, sustainable fashion refers to clothing designed, manufactured, distributed, and used in environmentally friendly ways and can last for a long time. In contrast, fast fashion is intentionally designed to be consumed quickly at low prices, leading shoppers to view outfits as disposable. Almost all fast fashion brands have more than 50 seasonal collections, while traditional fashion brands only have 4 seasonal collections a year.

What will be brought to the stage?

This blog site is for everyone who wants to know more about sustainable fashion. For future blogs, we will bring you exciting things regarding the updated trends/news in the industry, a deep dive on sustainable material used in clothing, and affordable, sustainable fashion brands.

About Author

Ashley is the co-founder of Sustainable Threads and a third-year commerce student at Queen's University, Ontario. She became passionate about sustainable fashion and inflammatory eating in recent years.