Cover picture by Alina Balanescu
Designer: Gabriela Babos
In the fashion industry, we take water, sunlight, soil, and plants (cotton, linen, etc.) and offer a production cycle that contributes to pollution and global warming. This process is becoming more and more aware of many people involved in the creative processes of different industries.
We know the benefits of advances in technology, which are many. The most mentioned benefit is the fact that the information reaches more and more quickly those who look for it. However, what impact could this have on fashion? The answer is simple, styles and trends are so easy to find on the internet that fast fashion is in full swing. Before, it was not about an industry asking to react so quickly to the phenomena that appeared in society, to be transformed into clothes ready to be marketed (or to be thrown away, because trends are on the rise of rapid change). The later decades of the twentieth century were decades of materialism, the well-known ‘rat-race’ of the 80s and 90s had an impact on the fashion industry but also on the fast-food industry.
So the fast-food industry is not that different from fast fashion. Both have a kind of convenience, but also ignorance about the environment and the health of the human body. Neither of the two industries has long-term projected principles but is limited to a short period of time, being encouraged by low prices and a reduction in waiting time.
In fast fashion, there is no risk-taking or creativity, everything is under control because clothing models are inspired or stolen directly from big brands, which are already successful. It all revolves around trends that are sometimes so harmful and so fleeting.
The fashion industry, in the journey to communicate beauty and extravagance, but also social and material status is, unfortunately, one of the causes of pollution and, implicitly, climate change. Because climate change is such a dynamic process that affects atmospheric temperatures and carbon levels, fashion actors need to look back at the whole picture to rethink what fashion actually means and decide how long it will be. about capitalism. Rethinking the fashion system can begin with educating the buyer, so that he receives with open arms the methods of recycling and reuse of clothes, thus ending problems related to ethics, consumption, and responsibility.
As Kate Fletcher affirms in her book, Sustainable Fashion, and Textiles, we cannot return to fashion as it was, because the root of the problem is consumption addiction. She also says that we should give a voice to the nature of society and culture in our design to build a user-centered industry, a heterogeneous and intuitive industry. The answer rests in slow fashion, which constantly challenges us to improve connections with clothing and manufacturers, as a reaction against consumer society.
Consumption cannot be understood until we understand its meaning: a satisfaction of human needs, but also a way of reconciling identity in a social context, through which individuals discover and show characteristics of their personality. Vicious consumption is thus a pressure of constant rethinking of identity, a phenomenon activated by trends.
For a better future for fashion, it must be understood that the real problem is not sustainability, but diversity, which constantly provokes an emotional response in the user, while recognizing that fashion is a very important part of the culture and our society, which deserves to change its approaches, so as to generate a balance between resources, economy, but also to give people the freedom to find their own clothing style.