ENCORE: Sustainable Fashion
Hello, hello! I’m back with a bonus episode for season one while you wait for season two to release this summer!
How often do you think about the clothing you buy? Where it comes from, where it was made, what it’s made from? When you think about all of the other things in the world to care about, why should fashion be one of them? That’s what we’re exploring in this episode…
Product Recommendations
Market45 – ethical fashion marketplace
Factory45 – sustainable fashion brands to support
Episodes Mentioned
Listen to the CLOTHING episode here.
Source List:
SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe on iTunes here.
Subscribe on Spotify here.
Subscribe on Google Podcasts here.
Transcript
Hello, hello! I’m back with a bonus episode for season one while you wait for season two to release this summer!
How often do you think about the clothing you buy? Where it comes from, where it was made, what it’s made from? When you think about all of the other things in the world to care about, why should fashion be one of them? That’s what we’re exploring in this episode…
One of the first episodes of season one was about CLOTHING. I specifically talked about shopping second-hand and suggested thrift stores both online and brick and mortar. If you missed that episode on used clothing, make sure to check it out.
But there’s another side of the coin when it comes to clothing and it’s sustainable and ethical fashion — in other words, clothing that is made from environmentally-friendly materials and ethically manufactured in factories that pay their workers a fair and living wage.
Because, unfortunately, when it comes to the fashion industry — neither of those things are a guarantee. In fact, it’s more likely than not that the clothing is made petroleum-derived polyester and was sewn in factories in the developing world where safety standards and fair wages are not top of mind, to say the least.
If quote unquote “clean clothing” isn’t something you’ve thought much about, then you’re not alone. I understand why it’s so much easier to grab another black t-shirt at Target than it is to seek out the sustainable fashion brand selling a black t-shirt at 3x the price because it’s made from organic cotton by people who are paid fairly to sew it.
In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that I was a bargain-bin, fast fashion junkie myself. In college, I was notorious among my friends for going to Forever21 or H&M on a Friday afternoon after classes, buying a dress or shirt for less than 10 dollars, wearing it that night and then never wearing it again.
When fast fashion is that cheap, it becomes as disposable as a cup of coffee.
So what was my catalyst for change?
In 2011, I set out to start a fashion brand. The idea was to create a versatile travel garment that could be worn a bunch of different ways and be easily thrown in a backpack to take on adventures around the world.
Seemed straightforward enough — sketch out the idea, take it to a manufacturer and they’ll just make it for us, right?
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In the year and a half my then-cofounder and I spent looking for a factory to create our idea, we also started researching the fashion industry.
And we learned that it’s riddled with issues. From dye runoff going into public drinking systems, to modern day slavery, to fatal factory collapses, to massive amounts of waste, to microplastics in the ocean, the traditional fashion industry is one of the major polluters of the planet and one of the main contributors to climate change.
So, we decided: if we were going to start a fashion brand then we were going to do it the right way from the start — putting planet + people first.
After months and months of dead-ends and feeling like we’d never be able to start our brand the way we wanted to, we finally got a break. We ended up sourcing 100% recycled fabric that didn’t need to be dyed, organic cotton notions and trims, real renewable wooden buttons, 100% recycled packaging and we found a factory in North Carolina that paid its workers above minimum wage. Our entire supply chain was set up within a 50 mile radius, which is basically unheard of in a fashion industry that is known for shipping thousands of miles overseas.
We went on to raise over $60,000 in pre-orders of our signature piece, we went on a sustainable fashion tour or the Pacific Northwest to talk to people about the detrimental effects of fast fashion, we were featured in the New York Times, tweeted by the Wall Street Journal — it was this huge whirlwind of success in early entrepreneurship.
But what I realized through that experience is that it should be easier to start fashion brands that are sustainably and ethically made from the beginning. Not as a way to backpedal because slave labor has been found in your supply chain or because your fabrics are damaging local water systems.
There was a greater conversation that needed to happen to shift the fashion industry and it was my belief that by helping to launch new sustainable fashion brands, they would help to pave the way in creating that dialogue for consumers — while at the same time, putting pressure on the bigger brands to clean up their acts.
Since 2014, I’ve helped entrepreneurs all over the globe, from Sweden to New York to Dubai to Australia, launch independent fashion and accessories brands that are made from sustainable materials in ethical factories.
These entrepreneurs are the ones spreading the word about why you should care about the clothes you buy. They’re collectively shaping a new future for the fashion industry and helping consumers understand the difference in fabrics, craftsmanship, product end-life, inclusivity and more. I’ll share links to check out some of these brands in the show notes at cleanlivingpodcast.com/sustainablefashion
And while yes, the price of a sustainably-made black t-shirt is more expensive than a black t-shirt from Target, the sustainably-made black tee is likely going to be more durable, timeless and longer lasting which ultimately means the cost per wear is actually lower than the Target tee.
We simply can’t care about creating a more sustainable world without caring about the impact of our own wardrobes. It’s one of the most impactful purchasing decisions you can make.
If you’d like to get involved in being part of the sustainable fashion solution, beyond your impact as a shopper, applications to Factory45 are opening on May 6th. Factory45 is the online business school for fashion entrepreneurs and I work with people, just like you, to launch their own brands in a way that’s sustainably and ethically made. You can learn more about Factory45 at factory45.co
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Clean Living Podcast — I’m your host Shannon Lohr. If you know someone who has an idea for a fashion brand but has been stuck at a dead-end or isn’t exactly sure where to get started, please send them this episode or a link to Factory45. I’d love to help them. Here’s to creating a cleaner, more sustainable world for all of us.
