Concept - AtmosFear: Polluted air, contaminated water, and tainted food stir up a storm of consumer doubt and uncertainty.
An issue that has been prominent recently that has been influencing business decisions related to fashion is sustainability. More and more companies and consumers are recognizing the harmful effects the fashion industry has on the environment and thus companies are finding better, alternative ways to produce.
The article I read for my previous assignment had a report from 2017 that told us how the fashion industry was using 26.4 trillion gallons of water, 98M tons of oil per year, and half a million microfibers from clothing are leaking into our oceans each year (“Fashion Forward”, 2019).
To lessen this harmful impact the fashion industry has made on the environment, companies are finding ways to use plant based textiles, such as extracting cellulose from rinds of juiced oranges and creating clothing items that are similar to silk (“Fashion Forward”, 2019). Another way companies are influencing consumers to reduce their clothing waste is through promotions that recycle clothes. An example of these types of promotions is Madewell’s “Blue Jeans Go Green” program, when you bring in an old pair of jeans to any of their stores you receive $20 off your next pair of jeans. Madewell is partners with Habitat for Humanity in this program, and after donating your jeans they turn them into housing insulation. Through this recycling program, there have been 615,991 jeans donated and 307 tons of waste saved from landfills.
I think that the technology behind make plant based textiles for clothing is still in its early stages, but I think they are on to something good that would be popular in the future. However, with all the fast fashion that has been going on recently due to all the trends coming and going, companies finding ways that encourage the consumer to recycle their old clothes that they do not want and giving them a discount is a brilliant idea. I think that the ways they are finding to recycle old clothes into something useful is extremely valuable, as much of our clothes end up in landfills. According to Newsweek, 84% of all unwanted clothing ends up in landfills, and stores finding a way to encourage customers to bring their unwanted clothes in to recycle could dramatically drop the percent that end up in landfills (Wicker, 2016).
I think that the future holds promising things for the fashion industry and the environment with the technology being used to find ways to make clothing more sustainable and companies coming up with promotions to encourage consumers to recycle their clothing. I think indicators to look out for would be the runway and how high fashion is influencing the trend towards sustainability. Also, see how smaller stores are advertising their clothes to be “recycled” or “plant based,” and then lastly watch out for more stores advertising their promotions for people to bring in unwanted clothing to recycle and reuse in other forms.
References
Fashion Forward: How Tech Is Targeting Waste & Pollution In The $2.4T Fashion Industry. (2019, June 4). CBInsights. Retrieved from https://www.cbinsights.com/research/fashion-sustainable-technology/
Wicker, Alden. (2016, September 1). Fast Fashion Is Creating An Environmental Crisis. Newsweek. Retrieved from https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-waste-crisis-494824.html
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