Is Fashion Unsustainable?
The “Fashioned from Nature” V&A exhibit
I’ll never forget visiting the “Fashioned from Nature” exhibit at the V&A museum in London last year and thinking “Can it be done? Can we make fashion sustainable?” By definition, the fashion industry is all excess and extravagance; it’s about “pink is the new black” and “that’s so last season.” In reality, the concept of sustainability seems to go against everything the industry stands for: new, flashy and, ultimately, wasteful.
As I perused the displays of the exhibit, I read about all the ways members within the fashion community were striving to do better by the environment, but it didn’t seem like it would be enough. Yes, small efforts were already better than no efforts at all, but wouldn’t it prove to be a moot point if the rest of the industry didn’t get on board?
It’s been just over a year since I visited that V&A installment and only a week ago, I was assigned a story in my freelance writing position to draft an article about Berlin Fashion Week. If I’m being honest, I didn’t even know Berlin had a fashion week until then. But I readily accepted and got to work on researching it. What I found was that, instead of highlighting the next big sartorial moment or the most “out there” runway show, there had been a big push for sustainability. A Fashionsustain conference was held during the week to discuss “technology, sustainability and innovation” within the industry. I thought to myself “Could this be it - the big change we need?”
But then I remembered that I hadn’t been overly familiar with Berlin Fashion Week before I was assigned to it so, again, I accepted that sustainable fashion seemed a long way from where it had to be in order to gain global recognition. Well only yesterday, Business of Fashion released an article titled “How Copenhagen Became Fashion’s Sustainability Capital” and I finally started to feel like the pieces were shifting into place. Copenhagen Fashion Week may not hold the same weight as Paris Fashion Week or New York Fashion Week, but I had nonetheless heard of it, and that was already an improvement on the cluelessness I felt over Berlin (sorry Berliners!).
The BoF article reveals that Copenhagen is planning on taking a very polarizing approach to sustainability that will almost certainly have heads turning. As of today, a 3-year plan is being rolled out in order to cut emissions by 50% and reach a zero-waste goal. As if that doesn’t seem gobsmacking enough, event administrators are also calling for their showrunners to do the same. If a brand doesn’t strive to meet the sustainability requirements within that time frame, it can’t show its pieces at the event. Simple as that.
When asked about this radical change, the Copenhagen Fashion Week Chief Executive, Cecilie Thorsmark, stated “We’re going from being a traditional event to being a platform for advocacy.” While brands are no strangers to public admonishing of the types of excesses often seen within the industry, this is the first time an event has taken such a hard stance on the issue. But the decision ultimately couldn’t have come at a better time.
“We’re going from being a traditional event to being a platform for advocacy.”
With hundreds of thousands standing in solidarity around the world to fight climate change, these highbrow events can no longer maintain an air of ignorance when it comes to addressing their role in the crisis. Just a few weeks ago, Jane Fonda did an exclusive interview with Who What Wear discussing her participation in the Washington D.C. Fire Drill Friday protests against a climate catastrophe. She proclaimed that “I’m not going to shop anymore. I’m old enough to remember a time when shopping didn’t provide people an identity, but consumerism has become all-encompassing. We need to stop it.”
Jane Fonda being arrested at a Fire Drill Friday protest in Washington D.C.
And she hasn’t broken faith yet; she’s donned the same black sequin ensemble at more than one red carpet event to prove that it’s not impossible to reduce, reuse, and recycle within a multi-billion dollar industry. And if you’ve watched her at the D.C. protests over the last few months, you’d also know that her tiny silhouette is always marked by the same punchy red coat - a piece she promises will be “The last article of clothing that [she] will ever buy.”
It’s unclear how the fashion industry will evolve with the mounting pressures of being eco-friendly. It seems that, without the characteristic exuberance that has become synonymous with these upper-class brands, the entire field may very well cease to exist within the next few years. But, then again, so will our planet. I guess the real question is: Which is more important?
To learn more about the efforts that Copenhagen Fashion Week is making to solve the climate crisis, click here.