SeriesPart 5: The fashion industry is emerging from its cocoon post-recession, a changed sector where consumers are more cautious, manufacturers are on their toes and designers are struggling to stay afloat doing business as usual. In this five-part series, we take a hard look at the fashion world, speaking with industry leaders, luminaries and experts. This week we ask: Can we predict the future of fashion?

Futuristic predictions of fashion are as varied as they are improbable. Will we all dress like we’re in Mad Max? Or will the evolution of fashion identity be more subtle, with the significant changes having more to do with technology and production? And no discussion of the future of fashion can ignore the issue of resources. Indeed, with nearly everyone I interviewed for this final chapter in our series, one word came up again and again: Water. (Roughly 20% of the earth’s water pollution comes from the fashion industry.)

The post The Post Recession Fashion Industry: Shut Up and Listen to The Future appeared first on EcoSalon.

SeriesPart 4: The fashion industry is emerging from its cocoon post-recession, a changed sector where consumers are more cautious, manufacturers are on their toes and designers are struggling to stay afloat doing business as usual. In this five-part series, we take a hard look at the fashion world, speaking with industry leaders, luminaries and experts. This week we ask: Did the recession birth new DIY designers tired of being branded with corporate logos?

In times of economic despair, there will always be a surge in the use of hands to quell the storm of financial uncertainty and to give meaning to otherwise challenging lives. During the Great Depression, people were advised to acquire “productive activities,” to make good use of idle time being out of work and to maintain solid work ethics that rewarded them with a sense of fulfillment and a feeling that they could still, in fact, be productive members of society.

Post recession, one has only to look at the number of DIY sites that have become popular and the micro trend of sewing and knitting groups to know that a cultural shift is happening. Within the confines of craft, there now lies an inherent rebelliousness that you usually only see in punk, indie music or street culture. Women working with their hands to teach others (or even alone in their own homes) are leading a movement against being branded, and taking how they dress themselves as a form of protest.

Juliana Sabinson, a freelance sewing teacher and artist, is one of those people.

Anne Wilson’s Local Industry

Sabinson says while her desire to create and teach the art of sewing is to promote empowerment. Her own story is inextricably linked to her dislike and distrust of contemporary clothing and the companies behind it.

“I try and think about all the socioeconomic systems behind my purchases and at a certain point buying clothes seemed no longer a sustainable option, not to mention the majority of it is so badly made,” says Sabinson. “So I make not only to fulfill a creative desire and to externally express myself, but also as a political act, a small and artistic protest against a largely unquestioned system.”

She’s not alone. Many people are coming out of the woodwork post-recession in protest that they are not a brand and refuse to be catered to as one. This rounded consciousness that applies to fashion, along with food and home, is burgeoning a sewing renaissance that professional women as well as homemakers are part of to take a stand against corporate forces that got us into the recession in the first place.

Sabinson says it’s not all rebellion, however. When people are sewing and using their hands they are not only building a level of muscle memory, they are quieting their brains and giving themselves a space in which to be a designer.

“They are designers simply because they’re creating,” says Sabinson, who teaches her students to first create in their heads then execute the design. She likens it to a “leap of faith,” which makes them feel at ease and able to think more creatively.

“For me, the most important goal in all my classes is to build one’s confidence and willingness to fail and start over.”

Though unemployment and economic uncertainty have helped fuel design growth, some say the economic downturn has in some ways been beneficial, because more consumers have turned to channeling the comforts of tradition.

Caroline Weaver, VP of North America Marketing for SVP Worldwide, the world’s largest sewing machine company and source of the SINGER®, HUSQVARNA VIKING® and PFAFF® sewing machine collections, says if you look at a brand like Singer’s 150-year history, during times of economic slowdown and depression, people will always gravitate towards hobbies and because of that, micro trends like sewing will flourish. In the case of the under-40 crowd, these sewers-cum-designers are just starting to realize that modern day sewing machines are not their grandmother’s gadgets.

“These machines are highly, highly automatic and that’s what’s appealing to the under 40 crowd. The machines make their own button holes, thread themselves, and provide constant tension. These are the machines with millions of lines of code. Nowadays, you’re not just paying for a sewing machine, you’re paying for a computer and having  a sewing mentor in your machine.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Anjali Athavaley reports that in the post-Project Runway world, sewing enthusiasts are finding the old-fashion craft comes with apps, Twitter and high-tech machines. This is a whole new generation used to smartphone technology and the simple push of a button to instantly gratify their every need for information.

BurdaStyle, an online social community using the web to bring the craft of sewing to a new generation of designers, hobbyists, DIYers and anyone looking to sew, is a popular part of this generation. BurdaStyle Creative Director and Editor Alison Kelly, who was also on Season 3 of Project Runway, says the current DIY movement was certainly proliferated by reality shows like Project Runway.

Alison Kelly, Season 3 of Project Runway

“Before them, I think fashion design was a mystery to many people, the face behind a fashion label often remained unknown (except of course by die hard fans), and now many fashion designers have become celebrities. It’s a wonderful thing, inspiring people to create, and these reality shows are so interesting because one can witness the creative process first-hand, while drama and competition fuel the fire,” says Kelly.

Nora Abousteit, co-founder of BurdaStyle, says when she and former partner Benedikta Karaisl von Karais – a fashion designer – came up with the BurdaStyle concept and thanks to what Fast Company calls “her love for interaction and innovative technology,” Nora reinvented an old Hubert Burda sewing magazine into an online icon in the sewing community.

BurdaStyle at Brooklyn’s Renegade Craft Fair

“We witnessed many people over the past four years that started sewing and now are proficient. It is so much fun to see when people improve their skills and take up harder challenges and simply produce more and better work,” says Abousteit.

In addition to budding designers worldwide utilizing the BurdaStyle community, lots of well-known designers have participated in their DIY community, including Wenlan Chia (Twinkle by Wenlan), Alabama Chanin, Samantha Pleet, and Mina Stone.

With over 530,ooo registered members, BurdaStyle is a growing force to be reckoned with.

While all women interviewed agree this post-recession “micro-trend” is all about a new and more aggressive DIY sewing community, they all also agree that it is empowering.

“Consumers are tired of living in a mass produced world,” says SVP Worldwide’s Weaver. “Women are deciding to put signs outside their homes that they do embroidery work for customizing team jerseys and hats to make extra money, our classes are filling up, we’re breaking sales records and people are just so inspired.”

Images: Kheel Center @ Cornell University, A Forest Frolic, Anne Wilson

The post The Post Recession Fashion Industry: Sewing Circle Rebellion appeared first on EcoSalon.

SeriesPart 3: The fashion industry is emerging from its cocoon post-recession, a changed sector where consumers are more cautious, manufacturers are on their toes and designers are struggling to stay afloat doing business as usual. In this five-part series, we take a hard look at the fashion world, speaking with industry leaders, luminaries and experts. This week we ask: Now more than ever, is eco-fashion inextricably linked to conscious connections with land and place?

We might attribute eco-fashion to ’60s youths, with their natural approach to style, but the official terminology came much later. The term “eco-fashion” came into the mainstream in the late ’90s, and 2005 was perhaps the most significant year. EcoSalon’s Louise Lagosi writes, “In 2005, it became a marketing tool which is why we suddenly knew about it. Capitalists needed to bank on a trend and this was something they couldn’t ignore. It became the tipping point for eco-fashion.”

While eco-fashion most certainly did become a focal point for all industry sectors circa 2005, if we take a look at why it has stuck, we might be surprised.

Textile Arts Center knitting group

A Consciousness We May Not Be Conscious Of

Owyn Ruck, General Manager of the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, says our green awareness has gone beyond being just “eco-friendly” to a deeper understanding of how things are made.

“Understanding not only reminds you of the impact of an object on the environment, but also allows for the true appreciation of the object. Things from our past are easily represented through physical objects, and by understanding more about the making, we pay more respect to our past – and thus ourselves and current environment,” says Ruck.

Permacouture Institute batch dyeing

Pioneering women have entered the sustainable scene, with many dropping the “eco” terminology altogether, introducing heritage craft with natural textiles and dyeing to further promote this awareness. These designers and entrepreneurs have taken our appreciation of what is eco to a new level, where natural materials are not only being used, but are being designed to biodegrade to leave virtually no footprint at all. But there’s something deeper yet at work – something bordering on the primitive.

Ruck says the growing desire to go past the surface of the eco label is a weighty subject.

“What does this even mean to the average person, who may know nothing about the production of the product? The more prevalent these words become, the more people want to understand them. People are not stupid,” says Ruck. “They want to understand what this movement is about, what do these words mean, why the large price tag on designers using natural and sustainable methods? Maybe it’s not to the point yet where the H&M’s of the world using such terms are ignored, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

She adds that education is key, as well as knowing the person or the story behind the brand.

A New Seasonality

Adie + George

Sasha Duerr, Founder and Co-Director of the Permacouture Institute in San Francisco, author of The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes and co-designer for Adie+George, is one of those pioneering women willing to educate and create in concert. Duerr says creating her line has been an experiment and a labor of love fusing natural textiles with a desire to test out a new seasonality.

Having just completed a full collection of Northern California artisan spun (fair trade), local and seasonal naturally-dyed knits, Adie + George hopes to broaden the topic of biodiversity for color, while also looking at connections to the physical source of materials. Duerr says she hopes her collection will ultimately finish in the compost pile after a very long and well-loved life to create more food, color and fiber for future fashion.

Adie + George co-designer, Permacouture Institute co-founder and author Sasha Duerr

She also asks us to consider something we’re not used to when it comes to fashion: seasonal colors based on what’s in season, as we do with food. Though she says it takes more care, thought, and common sense to understand the benefit of why we should use natural dyes, following what makes the most sense for nature is not always perfect, and it is not always commercial.

“Fashion seasonality in the industry is so far out of sync with actual seasons, that it is difficult to sync your samples to your production process with batch dyeing. So we choose some plant dyes that are always readily available in the urban environment (example: avocado pits). This created the mauves, grays, and pinks in our collection. For the other color [yellow], we derived a system to use two weed dye plants that bookend each other in wet and dry season so that we know if one is not available the other will be,” says Duerr.

Permacouture Institute

Can there be four seasons in fashion when designers are creating this way?

“I think there can absolutely be four local seasons of fashion in sync with what makes the most sense for nature and culture,” she says. “Refining the process is ongoing and creating a healthy and thriving life for ourselves as designers and human beings, also means saying ‘no’ to the insanity of how the industry currently functions on the expectations of  ‘fast fashion’ seasonality. Time after time, appreciating more with less is usually the most satisfying.”

Primitive Permaculture

Another design duo working closely with nature is designer John Patrick of John Patrick Organic, in collaboration with knitwear designer Amanda Henderson, for the A/W 2011 season. To document the story of the collection, Patrick collected video footage and provided visuals of his supply chain onto a Sourcemap to document the garments from fiber collection through manufacturing and production local to the Eastern United States. See the inspiring video here about the people behind his collection.

John Patrick Organic and Amanda Henderson’s A/W ’11 collection

The supply chain began with wool fibers sourced in upstate New York at Hudson Valley Sheep and Wool Company. After the wool was sorted and washed, it traveled to either a mill in Canton, Massachusetts, or directly to Queens, New York to be knit into hand crafted sweaters by Henderson. The fabric used in the collection was created at Draper Knitting in Massachusetts, then cut and sewn in NYC’s historic garment district and finally previewed and exhibited at New York Fashion Week in February 2011.

I asked Henderson if she thinks designers need to have a better connection to where they’re getting their materials. She believes it’s “a fundamental connection that greatly inspires the end result,” and adds that elements of story-telling and honor in fashion has been lost to the past and that perhaps we need to have more of it when considering clothing.

A John Patrick Organic knitting mill for the A/W ’11 knitwear collection

“Native Americans would worship the animals that brought to them necessities for survival. They adorned simple garments beautifully and meticulously in order to honor that animal and what was provided to that individual person and what it meant to them,” says Henderson. “That is the element of fashion I wish to resurrect, which is why this project with Organic meant so much to me. Why I felt that establishing a connection with my materials, and the story of those wools, was so important to both John and me.”

But with a hungry society enamored with fast fashion’s quick catering to trends and bargain basement pricing strategy, can this story really matter to the consumer? Do we as a society have the patience to hear it?

“Now is a perfect time for the consumer to cease spending on numerous new garments with short-lived spans, especially from designers who consider price over both human and clothing quality of life. Rather, to invest in few, very selective pieces, with great meaning to that person, at a higher material quality and technique level. Timeless clothing with hand-made history, and primal human meaning. After all, clothing has been around since the early beginnings of human existence, and can inspire a modern person to consider their roots. That ancestral element, to be passed through the generations,” says Henderson.

Fashioning Self In Relation To Environment

Abigail Doan, fashion writer for EcoSalon, textile artist and founder of Ecco Eco, says that while she is an “eternal optimist” regarding consumer’s connections to clothing, she isn’t so sure that we are closer to being significantly connected to what we wear as a result of a raised fashion consciousness.

Doan says cost and overall availability are things that still influence which items consumers select and incorporate into their wardrobes. Someone living a few hours from a major city is likely to either shop at a local mall, a local main street retailer, or hunt for bargains online when trying to locate new fashion acquisitions.

“This is why I feel that ‘conscious fashion’ also needs to incorporate ideas about fashioning self in relation to the environment as a complete approach to how clothes shopping relates to one’s ethical and environmental views,” says Doan. “Being connected to nature via our clothes must first come from an awareness that is generated by the individual in response to how to create or style an identity that reflects one’s awareness about conservation, materials, and craft.”

Doan, who grew up in a household where hand spinning and sheep shearing were regular activities, goes on to say, “From this platform one can build a wardrobe that reflects a connectedness that is meaningful and perhaps even sustainable.”

Abigail Doan photos

Designers will always have to make money and consumers will always want something new, but the psychology of fashion is changing.

Duerr-Fossel says it will all come down to our individual lifestyles – that this consciousness extends beyond fashion to many areas including food, transportation and even the way we love one another.

“It is an overall choice to do things that help the environment, in many aspects of your life, and when you start with one, it’s easier to keep going. Which we can see with this idea of homesteading very clearly. I think all these changes and movements feed off one another in a nice way that keeps our society changing to something more positive,” Duerr says.

Our hearts are set on it.

Image: sydigill, b3d, Dan Zen

The post The Post-Recession Fashion Industry: A Return to Nature appeared first on EcoSalon.

SeriesPart 2: The fashion industry is emerging from its cocoon post-recession, a changed sector where consumers are more cautious, manufacturers are on their toes and designers are struggling to stay afloat doing business as usual. In this five-part series, we take a hard look at the fashion world, speaking with industry leaders, luminaries and experts. This week we ask: Has the recession turned us into cheapskates so we can feel like fulfilled consumers?

Since 2007 they’ve popped up like dandelions: The discount clothing venues we love for all the hot bang we get for our hard-earned buck.

Gilt, My Habit, FashionStake, eBay Fashion, and now even discount eco-commerce sites like the recent launch of JP Selects and LovingEco tantalize us with a designer discount warehouse vibe that appeals to our need to shop. Recession? Heck no, we’re all the same when it comes to discounts whether wealthy or middle class, hoarders or sample salers who need to get more for less. If you think this concept is something new, just look back to post World War 2 consumer habits and you’ll see a direct link to the burgeoning of low-profit-margin strategies designed to attract price-conscious consumers.

The only thing that’s changed is the technology and marketing to hungry consumers and struggling designers.

NOW Showcase, 2011

Joslin Van Arsdale, owner of San Francisco’s Ecocitizen boutique, says sites like Gilt affect eco-commerce because they encourage the quick consumption of cheap, mass produced and disposable goods, and therefore skew the consumer’s perception of value.

“In the past a sample sale was last seasons leftovers. Today, designers who participate in Gilt sales are selling are specifically commissioned by the site and its buyers. Most of the items offered at flash sale sites, are past season designs, or popular designs reinterpreted into cheaper versions of  the original which enable companies like Gilt to maintain healthy margins while also offering  60-70% off.  This is similar to how Target and H&M do their designer collections, same name and design, just cheaper labor and lower quality fabrics,” says Arsdale.

If we think about low-pricing power in the classical sense of the term, we might look at the Wal-Mart volume model, with the idea that the more powerful you are (thousands of locations), the more you can drive your cost down. While we can understand that lower prices drives more sales in the short term, what about the integrity of the brand being sold? Do thoughtful designers really want to brand themselves as deep discounters offering bottom-barrel markdowns?

Designer Eliza Starbuck says it’s become a fear-based business for sustainable designers.

“It’s hard enough to be eco and fashion, an oxymoron in itself, but then having to go against the sustainable model and sell a whole lot of stuff seems pretty counter-intuitive,” says Starbuck.

Van Arsdale says sites like these are training shoppers to expect sales all the time and while in the short term this business model can be a great marketing opportunity for designers, in the long term, it erodes a brand’s perceived value.

“Judging from the success and proliferation of flash sites, it seems that the consumer is unaware that there is a difference in product and quality and mostly doesn’t care,” she says. “Shopping is evolving to a scale of extremes between the very cheap and the very expensive, with nothing in between, similar to what is happening to our middle class.”

But with a current valuation of some $400 million, Gilt Groupe appears to have more staying power than most fashion trends struggling to stay afloat in a traditional way. New York Magazine likens it to a safe haven for designers.

“Last year, as incomes tightened and the fashion industry was left with ruinous amounts of inventory, the company’s business model proved to be a counter-cyclical savior, sucking up goods that otherwise would have moldered,” says the magazine’s writer Andrew Rice, adding that some designers have found “Gilt’s model lucrative enough that they’ve decided to do away with their brick-and-mortar sample sales; others are now making clothes specifically for the site.”

As a result, more and more shops are turning to online sales only and closing brick and mortar venues.

Closed boutique on Newbury Street, Boston

We asked an eBay Fashion spokesperson, who insisted on anonymity, about traffic patterns since the company changed its selling model from what was already in the waste stream to recent high-profile collaborations with Alexander Wang and the CFDA. While they weren’t willing to release statistics at this time, they did respond with this statement:

“Fashion has a new home on eBay at fashion.ebay.com – a dedicated destination that delivers an enhanced shopping experience with new features and sales channels like Fashion Vault that make it easier than ever to explore, find and buy items based on favorite styles, brands and popular trends.”

No longer a hot spot solely for automotive enthusiasts – who in 2005 were eBay’s biggest audience –  eBay has evolved into a clothing and accessory mecca for all financial brackets. And sites like Gilt and eBay Fashion aren’t alone when it comes to selling luxe labels for less.

Trista Dedmon, consignment manager of Brooklyn’s best secret Eva Gentry, sells higher end designers that include Zero + Maria Cornejo, Helmut Lang, Alexander Wang, Marc Jacobs, Chloe, and Marni.

Dedmon says business has picked up with both customers and consigners each season since it opened about five years ago.

“There are definitely a wide variety of shoppers we cater to from the college students looking for affordable Alexander Wang to the established professional who wants to save on a mint condition Balenciaga piece,” she says.

Brooklyn’s Eva Gentry

When asked why, Dedmon says, “It is more than likely due to the current economic climate and everyone reassessing their values. If we become more conscious of our spending habits, this doesn’t necessarily mean our taste level changes. Customers still want designer level garments, but like to stay within their new found budget, which is where a store like ours comes in.”

As recently as 2008, stores like Eva Gentry were gaining popularity quickly, not only college students but with wealthy shoppers accustomed to pricey labels. USA Today writer Laura Petrecca wrote: “There have been many euphemistic labels applied to secondhand goods, including ‘gently used,’ ‘pre-owned’ and ‘like new.’ But in the current economy, they have a new and candid label: ‘hot sellers.’

In the same article, Petrecca notes that three-fourths of resale stores polled said they had higher sales in September and October than in the previous year, and according to the National Association of Resale & Thrift Shops, “The average sales increase was about 35%.”

So what of the plight of the sustainable boutique owner, the entrepreneur supporting conscious consumerism?

Mission Savvy’s brick and mortar store

Vegan boutique owner, Jennifer Miller, has her hands full with her shop, Mission Savvy. Miller has had to forge her way forward through the muck and mire of retail since she opened two years ago in the midst of the recession.

“People want to get more, pay less. Despite its goodwill, the price point on ethical fashion for the average consumer is a big turn off – and I’m in the market to turn people on. Better to purchase something from my store, support the ethical fashion industry, feel good about it with no guilt of over spending and therefore continue to return than not shop at my store at all,” Miller says.

She says her nontraditional approach to operating a boutique has her stocking ethical products but selling at a less than average mark up which is challenging – but it keeps her customers happy and coming back.

“We’re just not there yet as an economy and in commitment. Especially if you are far removed from the fashion industry and the appreciation of the art of it, so that leaves a lot of people spending lots of money on clothes with absolutely no purpose other than to buy something new that looks awesome,” says Miller.

“And as much as people do understand the concept of responsible consumerism, it still comes down to what money can buy and for a lot of us money does buy happiness. Spending too much money on very little is not as appealing as spending a little on a lot.”

The post The Post-Recession Fashion Industry: Discounted Sells appeared first on EcoSalon.

SeriesThe fashion industry is emerging from its cocoon post-recession, a changed sector where consumers are more cautious, manufacturers are on their toes and designers are struggling to stay afloat doing business as usual. In this five-part series, we take a hard look at the fashion world, speaking with industry leaders, luminaries and experts.

Journalist and author Lucy Siegle is an avid proponent for ethical lifestyle issues. In addition to writing a weekly ethical column in The Observer, she is a member of the Noi Collective, formed in 2009. Siegle, along with Livia Firth, Orsola de Castro, and Jocelyn Whipple, have combined their collective experiences to influence sustainable practices in the fashion industry, which include The Green Carpet Challenge and the Observer Ethical Awards.

Siegle’s recent expose: To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? is a look at the inhumane and environmentally devastating story behind the clothes we so casually buy and wear. We caught up with Siegle to talk about her new book as well as what she thought about the state of the fashion industry.

Here’s what she had to say.

You mentioned in your recent Observer column that women now buy four times the amount of clothes they did back in 1980. Why do you think that is?

Well the first point to make is that fast fashion hasn’t always existed and hasn’t always dominated the UK’s fashion landscape. That is the main driving force that has seen our wardrobes bulking up since 1980. In my book I actually begin by showing how fast fashion brought a sort of welcome injection of life (and to some degree pace), into the UK high street scene. Unfortunately it kept speeding up and became conflated with discount or value fashion.

As well as these factors, the following are to some extent intertwined and enable bulk buying: the dominance of celebrity culture over other forms of culture (we no longer want to know what A-listers wear in Cannes or on the Red Carpet but what they wear in their cars when going to a drive thru and this has spawned new categories of fashion apparel i.e. luxe loungewear), the speeding up of mainstream fashion media (the change from a monthly style bible such as Vogue to a weekly such as Grazia or Closer), the more explicit retail role of the fashion media – increasingly selling directly from the page, we’re starting to see the sponsorship of TV fashion shows by mainstream retailers, the emergence of the multiples (supermarkets), as fashion retailers and the consolidation of luxury houses into conglomerates. The emphasis across the industry is on multinationals flogging units of product. This has all had an effect on how we buy (in bulk and at speed).

We are so conditioned to shop and consume and buy more than we ever will need. What are some ways we can disconnect from our addiction?

As consumers I would argue that the first thing to do is to understand a little more about the model. So in To Die For, I try to reveal elements of these prevailing models that aren’t working. This includes the Global Assembly Line – a bit of a misnomer because it suggests that there is a more coherent structure behind mass produced fashion than is always the case! Millions of garment workers are set up to fail on this line and cannot meet their targets however hard they work. This leads to enforced overtime and workers being locked into factories and then there are horrific deaths in factory fires and on it continues.

Once you understand some of the flash points, I’m hoping people will be persuaded to look for some alternatives or search out better practices and want to shorten the distance between the producer and their wardrobe (this is how the Fairtrade model operates). People will understand that you may have to pay a little more in some circumstances but the trade off will be that you will ‘re-skill’ understanding how to assess quality and longevity. I also want to open the mainstream fashion consumer up to more creative ways of breathing life into a wardrobe – swapping, loaning, customising, refashioning and to a certain extent making your own.

In your book, you talk about “Wow Prices,” “Tantalizing Exclusivity,” and “Cheapskating,” all terms that reflect back to fast fashion and our incorrigible desire not to miss out on a bargain. Has fast fashion made us cheapskates?

When I use the term ‘Cheapskating’ I’m referring to a specific trend: spending in the region of £1000 on a handbag or single ‘it’ or ‘status’ accessory and bulking out the rest of the wardrobe with discount wardrobe fodder. This is something that the fashion media has really encouraged. I think it represents bad value on a number of levels and I would argue it leads to the degradation of the consumer. It is a commercially beneficial idea of how we should interpret trend that encourages us to embrace extremes but not to utilize any of our skills or intuitive understanding of style. So we shove the luxury handbag on a credit card (fast fashion’s rise has coincided with unprecedented levels of female debt even though it claims to save us money), and scratch around for the rest of our wardrobe. We diminish our own spending power.

You work often with Livia Firth, such as for the Green Carpet Challenge. Is it important for celebrity figures to wear sustainable clothing to further the message?

It’s the other way around, really. It’s important for designers who prioritize sustainability and ethics to get the chance to be seen on the big platforms and to get the press attention. You may or may not agree with celebrity culture, but the fact remains that the big red carpet events open doors for designers and design ideas. Interestingly that’s become more homogenized too. I was reading a piece by a celebrity stylist from LA who charted the real commercialization of the red carpet to Uma Thurman’s wearing of Prada in about 1995. Since then it tends to be big labels (luxury conglomerates) to the big stars. If anything it can be a little safe. Livia and I got the opportunity as her husband was nominated for a clutch of awards in 2010 and 2011 to try something different.

Vogue.com ran the blog for us and we just tried to raise the profile of sustainable style and throw some other designers into the mix. We found that a number of other actresses wanted to join in – they felt ethical fashion was really important and they loved some of the pieces. So we’ve been able to work with Elizabeth McGovern (Downtown Abbey) who loves Henrietta Ludgate and Amanda Seyfried, who worked with Karen Caldwell. Fashion is a big place, and the Green Carpet Challenge is a tiny corner, we’re not suggesting we’re solving the whole problem with this but many people connected with it. But it was also interesting (and heartening) that a lot of journalists picked the stories up and ran pieces on the dresses. I think they were pleased to find a new angle and they were surprised by the quality of some of the designers. The best kept secret about a lot of ‘sustainable brands’ is that they use designers and makers who are enormously skilled and can turn out pretty impressive pieces.

If you were to weed out only five retailers we could sustainably shop from, who would they be and why?

I am happier with retailers who are upfront. If they genuinely acknowledge there are problems in the overall supply chain over all but are committed to changing them I’m much more amenable, but I do like to see some evidence that this is the case!  In the book I single out Whistles for Jane Shepherdson’s approach and Ted Baker who are working with the Made supply chain inventory and metrics as two brands I feel have the capacity to change things on the high street and reinstate the middle market (which I think important).

But I want to make the point that it’s not just about a tick list for the high street or me providing a directory. Ask questions of stores (we’re beginning to), and make them work a bit harder for your fashion pound. Personal tolerances vary. I might not get upset about mulesling for example, another consumer might find it inconceivable that I would buy mulesed wool or that a retailer would stock it. I would like people to save up for a Pachacuti hat, put their fashion pound towards little known Veja sneakers (at similar price points to the major brands), wear a Traid remade jumper, go to a clothes swap, do one of those empowering and realistic sewing courses – you know they have titles like, “Trousers You Actually Want to Wear” or similar. But it’s not just about substituting one brand for another. It’s about reclaiming personal style before it’s too late and allowing your aesthetic to match your ethics. Right now, I don’t trust multinationals to do it. They are beholden to shareholders and therefore they just want to flog large units of product often irrespective of who made it and in what conditions and they want us to discard the product as quickly as possible. If they could persuade us all it was a lovely thing to wear single-use boiler suits, they probably would.

Image: Jason Hargrove for Nicole Bridger, Lucy Siegle photos

The post The Post-Recession Fashion Industry: An Interview With Lucy Siegle appeared first on EcoSalon.