If the same styling and look can be achieved by using sustainable materials, then i dont see why fashion as a whole cannot make a progression towards sustainability.

So, I know lots of designers and get great deals on clothes (lucky me) but the other part of my closet is vintage and consignment.
Thankfully, those clothes allow me to expand my closet and fill the voids for everyday wear, not everything needs to be new. Find a great seller on Ebay and you’ve got yourself a new store.

True, the shift in the eco fashion conscience will be a shift in how things are run. Understand, the designers are more than ready to offer their clothing at lower prices but they too battle manufacturing and dyeing dilemmas. Their time and work is also worth a lot to them and they have to make a living.

We all take our part of the eco-movement differently.
Where you maybe value organic foods more, I value the clothes and designers. What we both need to do is embrace all parts whole of the eco-movement?

It’s hard to do it all but we both do our best right?

Miguel, I believe the consumer does have a hand in how things are run to a degree and once the clothing industry has some recognizable consumer standards and opportunities to buy sustainable at different price points, eco-fashion will just be seen as a luxury.
Change will come, be sure of that.

Consumer demand for cheap cotton and sugar kept the slave trade in the US and all over the British Empire. Slavery wasn’t ended because people stopped buying the products. It ended because of political action (parliamentary action in the UK and the Civil War in the US).

Caitlin’s last blog post..Photo Friday: Narrowboats at King’s Cross

Miguel’s last blog post..Fashion Video:Bridal Fashion

My first problem is that I’m clumsy and despite my best efforts, I unfortunately often tear or stain my everyday clothing. I’m capable of taking care of my best clothes, but I don’t seem to be able to sustain that to everyday life. So I don’t want to spend too much on my everyday clothes. Yet I do know that this is where I can make the most difference as changing the stuff I buy and use all the time will have a bigger impact than buying a one-off investment piece.

The second problem is philosophical. I’ve put time into earning the money to buy clothing. It seems wasteful to me to spend too much money unless I’ll get a reasonable cost-per-wear return. Just like the materials and labour, my time is also a natural resource and shouldn’t be wasted. I’m prepared to spend more money to meet environmental standards – just like I buy organic food. But I’m not prepared to spend many times more money. I don’t normally buy designer clothing at all, eco or not, as beautiful as it might be.

I don’t know the answer but as I’m probably better off and less cost conscious than the average consumer, as well as more environmentally aware, I don’t think I’m alone with this problem. It’s fabulous to have eco fashion designers to lead the way and I hope that their example, and the desirability of their product, rubs off on the bottom end of the market.

Ultimately we need to remove the worst of the unsustainable stuff from the chain until we get to the point where everything is reasonably green. If market forces and consumer choice don’t get us there quickly enough, should lawmakers step in?

It’s not impossible to make more of the basic stuff greener. Marks & Spencer, a department store in the UK, has introduced organic cotton t-shirts into their range, which I seem to recall are only £2 more than the non-organic t-shirts. They did that before the recession though, so I don’t know how it’s going.