When we talk about sustainable fashion, “organic fabrics”, “upcycling” or “second-hand garments” surely come to mind.
And it's not just small sustainable fashion brands or SMEs that use them anymore. But also fast fashion brands. Or at least, this is how they show on the labels of their garments with a seal that many of the times they are created by their own graphic design department, by adding green leaves, simulating Mother Nature, they are already super sustainable and take care of the planet.
However, to be, have and create a sustainable fashion brand, the actions to take into account go beyond the fabrics we decide to use. And as we scale our businesses, the bottlenecks and challenges will become larger and larger.
Fashion, like other industries, has a production system that is made up of steps. And each step has its importance to achieve a fully circular value chain. It is of no use that we decide to use only organic linen to make our collections, if we are going to waste 40% of our fabric creating the seasonal collection, and paying less than 1 dollar a day to workers and garment makers in India who have to work more than 12 hours a day, with their babies by their side and supporting their family of 3 or more members.
When we talk about sustainability, and if you are a consumer who knows and supports sustainable fashion, you know that it focuses on three fundamental pillars: Environmental, social and economic.
For this reason, to be more critical, by using sustainable fabrics we would be covering the environmental part, or perhaps the social part, if our focus and objective were to protect the health of babies' skin with toxic-free fabrics. But what about the economic part? The decent livelihood of the families that are part of our staff? Their health, their rights, their growth and continuous training? The textile waste we generate in each cutting process? The samples we make to verify the fittings of the garments? The transportation we use for each phase of our value chain. Where are they? Where do we reflect them and make them visible to our clients?
This is why we can never define ourselves or label ourselves as 100% sustainable. Because it is a utopia, so far, ideal but nothing real. However, we cannot forget that the planet has set a giant timer for us, and that there are several non-profit organizations at a global level such as the UN that has presented us with an Agenda of objectives for 2030 from which to propose our next steps and of which we only have 6 years left to tighten our belts and tighten.