Sustainable Fashion Week on September 11, 2020 in NJ and Labor Trafficking Education
I attended one of the Sustainable Fashion Week Viewing Parties on September 11, 2020 in East Orange, New Jersey. I was thankful to be surrounded by eco-designers, models and fashionistas whom had sacrificed years to be where they are today. Many of them gave up the fast fashion industry which enslaves human beings: to toil without breaks and/or subjected to dangerous, possibly chemically induced working conditions.
Labor trafficked women, men and children may be abused and harassed, and/or wages and important documents withheld (passports and birth certificates) so that they are unable to leave (Unknown, Administration For Children & Families).
My personal opinion is that we need more economically stable fashion. We don’t need the next trendy thing but we need to reuse what we already have; being creative instead of wasteful of resources and taking advantage of peoples’ rights.
According to Business Insider, The fashion industry emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Here are the biggest ways it impacts the planet. (October 2019):
“…On average, people bought 60% more garments in 2014 than they did in 2000. Fashion production makes up 10% of humanity's carbon emissions, dries up water sources, and pollutes rivers and streams…
A lot of this clothing ends up in the dump. The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second…
In total, up to 85% of textiles go into landfills each year…
Washing clothes, meanwhile, releases 500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean each year — the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles…”
We need to make the personal decision to stop buying the next cheapest, trendy top, dress and/or pair of shorts at a corporate retail store and instead purchase clothing from thrift, vintage shops and/or fair trade brands. Buying from fair trade brands will be more expensive but it means that human beings are paid fairly and treated fairly. Plus, it means that we buy less over time rather than buying more all in one shopping spree because it’s cheap.
When we buy less from retail stores then they must change their strategy by learning from buyers what they want. For example, in 2019, Target decided to sell a small line of jeans that were made in a “fair trade factory” to align with the times. Does the language that they wrote on the jeans mean that the material of jeans are sourced responsibly? Or that the jeans are produced from economically sustainable fabric? No, what it means is that the factory supposedly paid their workers fairly per the country that they work in. (Wise, L., Stylewise Blog)
We have to be very careful even when buying fair trade clothing from big retail brands because everything is not as it appears. Stores will have us buy into the idea that we are helping the environment or creating jobs when in actuality we are creating more waste and paying for slave labor.
Please research the clothing brands that you buy from or better yet choose to buy second hand, vintage or fair trade! In the future, I will write a blog about fair trade brands:)
Here are some of the fashion designers and models that attended the event. Learn more about their work by visiting their pages:
House of Bav :Place for all things Sustainable. One of a kind, handmade, local and vintage items.
Born Again Vintage: Boutique in East Orange
B. Artise :Author, Designer of Born Again Vintage and Owner of House of Bav
Jay :Creative Artist and Model
Rhoda Malanka :Seamstress
Mystique :Entrepreneur, Published Stylist, Creative Director, Image Consultant…
Sources Cited:
McFall-Johnson, M. (2019) The fashion industry emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Here are the biggest ways it impacts the planet. Business Insider.
Unknown (2012). Fact Sheet: Labor Trafficking. Administration for Children and Families.
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/archive/otip/resource/fact-sheet-labor-trafficking-english
Wise, L. (2019) What’s the Deal with Target’s “Fair Trade” Denim? Leah Wise. https://stylewise-blog.com/whats-the-deal-with-targets-fair-trade-denim/
