Now when you hear the word ethical fashion you probably think of something like a shirt made out of burlap with a tag on it that has a recycle sign. Ethical fashion is far beyond that. It is the focus of social and environmental sustainability throughout the fashion industry. I know what you are thinking “Why on earth is a fashion focused blog talking about this?” But why not? It is such an important issue that is so often overlooked. It is indeed fashion, not in the glamorous way, but in a way that is still significant. To me, I find ethical fashion extremely important, and it affects more than just us as consumers. There are many great documentaries that shed light on the problems that the fashion industry has with ethical fashion and one of the biggest problems is outsourcing. Yes, don’t get me wrong, we can not just end outsourcing in its entirety. We can however, become increasingly more aware of it. Outsourcing by definition is obtaining goods or some sort of service from a foreign supplier, especially in place of an internal source. Places like Bangladesh, Haiti, India, and China. They rely on us to outsource because it provides jobs for them. But, for what cost? These people are making $25 shirts that will be displayed in some department store, and only to be paid a fourth of that cost in poor working conditions. Now from this information I am not saying “Hey, let’s stop buying clothing from all of these places because they outsource.” Instead, I encourage everyone to look a bit differently at the process of what clothing goes through, and that in fact most of the clothes you see, and I am mostly talking about fast-fashion, were not made by machines. They were made by people like you, who have jobs, families, aspirations and goals but do not get a second look, nor do their working conditions.
The Netflix documentary is called “The True Cost.” There is also a great website that I am quite a fan of called http://fashionrevolution.org/ . I do not sponsor it in no means, but I am a supporter of it. It is a foundation where they stand by the words, “We believe that fashion can be made in a safe, clean and beautiful way. Where creativity, quality, environment and people are valued equally.”
Love,
Lola
xo
