Amid the climate crisis, the fast fashion has industry has inevitably found itself in the crosshairs for its lightning-fast seasonal turnaround and disproportionate impact on the environment. During our first Open Office on fashion and its future, a few members of the MAEKAN community and the team shared their thoughts.
The Community’s Take
⚖️ Jeremy L. weighs the importance of consistency in brand messaging when it comes to fashion in general and overtly sustainable fashion:
“I just think there isn't necessarily anything wrong with wanting to have a form of self-expression through clothing. And if that means buying certain things in moderation, I think that's reasonable. But I don't buy when brands tout a sustainability model when they're constantly floating new seasons.
And I, that's why I kind of appreciate what Noah's doing and admitting outright in their promotion that, you know, we are not a sustainable brand, but here's our transparency in terms of like where we make the clothes.”
👜 Aladar L. shares how the interpretation and approach to sustainability can start with us at the social circle level:
I think it very much so falls into your friend circle. My buddy, we've been passing the same visvim bag back and forth. He bought it second-hand and he used it. He passed it to me. And chances are when I'm done, I want to pass it to someone else.
But it's a behavior that's just normalized in our friends circle group, right? Like I think part of it is education and nobody feels shame. In fact, everyone feels that type of behavior is, for the lack of better words, "cool." Like, it's very cool when we do it and we're just like, "this is nice 'cause it feels good."
🐣 James M. considers the chicken-and-egg issue of consumer or political will creating lasting impact on fast fashion markets:
“The debate at the end of the day is like, can we rely on them (political candidates) or is voting with our buying power the more important thing that we can try? But then you have too many people that might not necessarily have the same belief system, whether it's government or their buying power.
And if, if people continue to buy cheap, then it might not necessarily change anything. A lot of it boils down to dollars and cents on the manufacturing side. You see a kind of every day and people are more willing to save a little bit to get their customer the purchase versus like charge a little bit more and have kind of feel like maybe they're missing out on customers, you know?”
For the team's take on fast fashion and sustainability, read the rest of this Save Point on MAEKAN.com.
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