Fashion & Ethics – A Brand New Partnership
Monday, August 2nd, 2010Here’s the important thing about myself and fashion : we do not click. We don’t get along well. You can not put me and fashion in the same sentence.
I wasn’t one who’d buy fashion magazines and indulge into ooohing and aaahing over the newest releases or lines of established and would be designers. I’d rather help myself with a John Grisham suspense thriller or a Jodi Picoult tear-jerker than go gaga over featured accessories that all look the same to me. You’d never see me reaching out for glossy magazines to check what Angelina Jolie wore during the Academy Awards or what Nicole Kidman donned during the Oscars. Whether they were hot property or not doesn’t interest me. Who and what motion picture bagged the Bests awards and whose speech was the most electrifying are what I am curious about.
But lately, it appears that we, that is, fashion and I, are slowly working things out. It commenced with three words, ethical is Fashionable. Yes, you read it right. Fashion’s new partner is indeed ethics. You don’t quite get it? Same here. I did have a tricky time understanding it too, the first time I saw it. How can fashion, a free spirit, ever hook up with a stern and stifling character, ethics. A really improbable pair, isn’t it?
a really interesting one, too. The ‘ethical is fashionable’ scheme is slowly gaining momentum. Some view this as a strategy still to gain popularity among clothing firms to impel themselves into the conventional fashion scene. Think fair competition and trade. Others believe that this is basically a drive towards a rather more reactive and responsible fashion industry, thinking less of what designers and outlets wish to produce and more of what the purchasers like and demand which hopefully will translate into less surplus and less production waste.
Whichever stand you choose to defend isn’t important. The more important thing to think about here is what is being done in the light of this campaign. The moral is trendy scheme is bringing products that used to be considered non marketable to full view. Take for instance crochets and knits and other hand-crafted goods which are pulling in millions of bucks.
What has happened to the claims that these are unprofitable? The point is kind of simple and it has , for some considerable time been looking at us : there’s a steady shift happening in the fashion industry. What used to be a restrictive and inclusive play ground for huge firms is beginning to become more accessible to smaller firms. Thanks to the more informed and more responsible patrons who’ve spotted that fashion is not just about having the newest and hottest item there is. Fashion is also about choice, intellectual ones. It includes : caring about beginning business ventures, giving them an opportunity to break in the rather monopolized industry and supporting firms who give back to their workers.
One of my favourite brands right now is Ginger and Smart Dress. A great example of an ethical brand.
Folks caring for folk. People caring for the environment. And folk looking good. When did fashion become this exciting! Moral is indeed trendy.
So go have a look at Ginger and Smart Dress and do your bit for ethical fashion.