Ethical Fashion: Is It The Best Solution?

How Is Ethical Fashion Different?

In a basic sense, ethical clothing aims to decrease the adverse impacts of fashion on animals, people, and our planet, by producing items of clothing that involve ethical practices in design, labour and uses sustainable materials. Nobody should suffer just so you can look stylish.

Essentially, ethical fashion encourages you to be more conscious about what garments you wear and how it impacts other people. In this article, we'll dig deeper into what ethical fashion is — dive into its evolving definition and see it as a solution in a fast-paced global industry. Let's get to it!

The Ever-Evolving Definition

With a mission to produce mindful designs, conscious production, and disciplined distribution, ethical fashion effectively reduces the industry’s impact on animals, people, and the planet. With that being said, it means that the company is working alongside the supply chain to ensure that the entire process is making the world better for the future.

One of the main focuses of ethical fashion is social impact and it’s often thought to be the opposite of fast fashion. In fast fashion, companies underpay employees and practice poor ethics in the workforce all in the name of greed and profits. When we talk about the social impact in fashion, the #whomademyclothes movement by Fashion Revolution is a great antidote!

Since people are more aware and want to practice conscious and disciplined shopping, ethical clothing advocates really look for the messaging of the company to their consumers. Because of this, transparency is critical. Stating how, where, and who made their clothing makes a significant difference when comparing companies with other brands.

With that being said, companies can't really throw out words like "conscious" or "sustainable" without being transparent and giving the breakdown of their costs to consumers. This is because ethical fashion is honest work — you need to give justice from seed, garment, and to the whole fashion supply chain. Greenwashing is rife in the slow fashion industry.

Looking Beyond Transparency

In a sense, we leave it up to the consumer to define ethical fashion as ‘ethical’ means different things to different consumers. This heavily depends on their values and how much they believe a brand's commitment to transparency instead of fancy buzzwords, especially now that the fashion industry grows. Sadly, some brands irresponsibly use ethical terms to real consumers.

Besides safe working conditions and fair wages, sometimes you also need to think about what works for you. For some people, buying new garments isn't what floats their boat, and they find it more ideal and sustainable to buy secondhand clothing.

For some, ethical clothing made of vegan material is a priority, whereas others are patriotic and only buy Australian made clothing!

Ethical Fashion Is More Than Just Transparency - It's the Whole Message

When you're looking for ethical clothing, you need to dig deeper into what the company believes in and your values and if you can marry both beliefs. Understanding what ethical fashion is and being more conscious about what you buy and use is already a huge step in living a more honest and eco-friendly life.