What is sustainable fashion?

The shocking fact is that the fashion industry is the tenth most polluting industry in the world and is a huge contributor to land-fill waste and freshwater consumption. Sustainable fashion can tackle both human and environmental damage by changing the way clothes are made and sold.

Sustainable fashion vs fast fashion?

Fast fashion creates cheap, mass-produced clothing items that are modelled on high-end fashion trends or celebrity style influencers, such as Kylie Jenner, who has a strong influence on the fashion industry. Trends are continually changing and they’re changing rapidly. With things constantly going in and out of style, fast fashion brands have to always stay on top of trends to keep up with the industry and consumers. The show ‘Breaking Fashion’, followed fast fashion company ‘In The Style’ to see how they worked. The team at In The Style recreated a bodysuit worn by Kylie Jenner on Instagram. Their aim was to be the first company to debut this particular knock-off item and, amazingly, they were able to launch their cheap copy for sale on their website within one week! This turnaround time is typical of the industry and why we use the term fast fashion. Despite being known as a fast fashion brand, In The Style claim to be a sustainable fast fashion brand and actively promote their clothing as being of good quality to be worn more than once.

At the other end of the scale is Shein, a cheap, fast-fashion brand located in China, whose parent company, ‘Shenzhen Globalgrow E-Commerce Co. Ltd’, is home to many fast fashion brands such as Romwe and Zaful. All of these brands sell very low-quality items at extremely low prices, adding around 500 new items per day to their store, which is an extreme amount. Their success is due to keeping up with latest trends and tailoring their adverts to promote these new clothing trends with very low prices, appealing to a wide audience.

Fast Fashion items are typically low quality, made with the cheapest fabrics to be worn only a few times before they are discarded. It is this waste and the environmental impact of fast fashion that sustainable fashion aims to reduce.

There is a great importance to sustainable and ethical fashion. The clothing industry has a negative impact on these main areas; climate change, water pollution, air pollution, resources depletion, animal suffering, food insecurity, habitat destruction and human rights abuses. It is a major consumer of water and a massive amount of fresh water is being used for the dyeing of fabrics and the finishing process for clothes. For a tonne of fabric to be dyed it takes over 200 tonnes of water, which is an insane amount of water. In many of the countries where clothing is produced, a lot of untreated, toxic water from the factories is directly discharged into rivers and lakes. These chemicals are extremely harmful to aquatic life and people who have limited access to a clean water supply nearby. The contamination continues into the oceans, causing damage on a global scale.

What can we do about it?

We can allow ourselves to choose clothes which are made in countries with stricter environmental regulations, avoiding the damaging water pollution when the waste water is being disposed of properly and also by choosing organic and natural fabrics that do not require chemicals to be used during manufacture.

Choose Ethical Brands

We can research where we buy and to shop at places that are sustainable and ethical. The brand ‘House of Sunny’ prides itself on being a sustainable brand. They are what is now becoming known as a ‘slow fashion’ brand which means that they only produce two seasonal collections a year and by doing this it allows them to ethically source their fabrics and the manufacturing methods. They have recently chosen to avoid print placement which means there is a lot less waste of fabric due to the particular print placement which is usually needed to create certain clothing items. To be an ethical brand, they take extra precautions to examine their suppliers to make sure that no unfair or unsafe labour goes into the making of their clothes.

Another example of a sustainable brand is ‘Lucy & Yak’ who, when moving back to the UK, sold vintage clothing from their van. They then went onto selling on Depop, and then wanted to take it further by travelling to Asia in the hope of finding a small business to work with, eventually finding a supplier in India. They now hire around 30 employees, both in the UK and India, where they pay them what is called a ‘living wage’, which is paid voluntarily. The current UK living wage is £9.50 per hour outside of London and this rate is now paid by nearly 7,000 UK employers. This amount ensures that the employee can have a decent standard of living.

If we focus more on looking for sustainable fashion brands, we are not only helping the environment, but we are helping these brands to grow. There will always be a fast fashion industry which is rapidly growing due to the large market for it, but if we support ethical and sustainable brands we can help to lessen the impact of fast fashion. 

Photographs courtesy of www.houseofsunny.co.uk

Rosanna Jones is a fairly new photographer and mixed media artist based in London, she only graduated in 2016 with a BA (hons) in Fashion Photography. This does not take away from the portfolio she has already built for herself with the likes of Gucci Beauty where she created social media content for the launch of Gucci Memoire perfume. She has also had features in Elle and other magazines and worked with various brands showing off her unique photography style. Her trademark aesthetic is painting over, ripping up, burning and ultimately destroying her images that she has taken both in the studio and location. She hand destroys all of her images herself to change the outcome and make it a more tactile image. Her work is a mix of photography and art in the way that she combines different media into her images. 

Photographs 2 and 3 have both been taken from a series of hers titled “Girls” which is one of my favourite series of hers. In this collection of images, she has taken a variety of images of girls and destroyed them in all individually different ways. She has taken very basic portraits and combined them with other images of the same model. She then destroys them in different ways such as painting on them and burning them. The images are both taken in a studio setting with neutral coloured backgrounds, the colours are specifically chosen which compliments the models skin tone. The model is well lit but there are no obvious over-powering highlights and shadows, but the models face is clear and the focal point.

My favourite style of her photographs is where there are multiple portraits of the same model in different cut out shapes, like image two in the block, the shapes are cut out in a way to show the profile of the model. Specific parts of the image are cut out to show the other model through the image in a very specific way to show the contours of the face. I also really like another style in this series where she uses paint to give a different effect to the portrait. The paint is painted directly on top of a printed version of the portrait, she uses paint strokes, in the colours of the image, brushing them towards the edge of the models which create the illusion of the model fading out into the paint. Using paint in abstract portrait photography is quite common, artists using paint in different ways such as defacing the models or using vibrant colours to accentuate the photograph.

Another one of my favourite series of her work is the photography that she did for Gucci Beauty. In a stop motion video, she used her collage style to ‘tell a story of identity’ using different images taken of the model and moving the physical copies of the images to create the stop motion by ripping. In this image, Rosanna Jones uses a burning technique to burn through the physical copy of the image and underneath the eyes is a distorted image of the same models eyes. 

All photographs courtesy of www.rosannajones.co.uk

Being one the biggest style influences at the moment, Harry Styles is taking on breaking gender norms in clothing more than anyone. Being the first solo male in 128 years of US Vogue’s history to make the cover of the prestigious, iconic style magazine, he made a massive statement in marking his debut by wearing a dress from Gucci’s Fall 2020 collection, he says he ‘finds himself looking at women’s clothes, thinking they’re amazing’.

Over the past seven years he has worked closely with stylist Harry Lambert who has helped him along his fashion journey. In 2015, he wore his first most extravagant suit during his time in One Direction, which now happens to be known as his worst outfit yet. Despite this, his love of extravagant clothes, especially suits, has continued through his solo career.

His style, especially in 2019 and 2020, has been very influential to all genders due to the fluidity in the way he dresses. He believes that clothes have no gender and should be able to be worn by everyone. He wants to remove the barrier between what is seen as being ‘normal’ clothes for men and clothes for women and believes that clothes should be for everyone. Only a few brave people have crossed this line to such a degree before and they too have been criticised for their outlandish style. David Bowie was one of the pioneers of androgynous dressing, defying toxic masculinity with high heels and catsuits and having a major influence on fashion. Prince followed suit in the 80’s with his outrageous outfits, including feather boas, lace trousers, ruffles and pink satin. Both were known as boundary-breaking for their refusal to conform to the norm of ‘manly’ dressing. No doubt they would have been an inspiration to a lot of men including Harry Styles.

A lot of his styles became more experimental during his first world tour, where he wore a lot of flamboyant outfits during his 60 shows across the globe. A lot of the time styling custom Gucci outfits, wearing what are seemingly feminine colours and styles. His wardrobe includes many custom items from Gucci, who, for Fall 2020, have a theme of toxic masculinity, with cropped jumpers, floral prints and Mary Jane shoes, which all reject the masculine stereotypes on the catwalk.

Though seen as controversial by some, the dubbed ‘fem men’ are growing increasingly more popular than the stereotypical masculine men. There are some who will always be outraged by this kind of self-expression, with comments that is ‘the steady of feminisation of our men… bring back manly men’. 

There should be no barriers to what people want to wear and it is good that it is being brought to attention by the likes of celebrities who, by being an example to their followers are inspiring people to dress whatever way they want, without being scared of facing a backlash, which will be there no matter what. No one should feel afraid to express themselves in clothing whatever way they choose, there is no right or wrong way to fashion at all and, in the words of Harry Styles, “You can never be overdressed. There’s no such thing”. 

Photograph courtesy of Vogue US 2020 photographed by Tyler Mitchell.

Clueless is still, 25 years on, one of the most iconic movies of all time and definitely the most stylish, iconic movie of the 90s. The wardrobe for the movie has stood the test of time and the fashion from the film is still very influential today, with many of the trends from the 90s coming back in style now, such as oversized jackets, strappy slip dresses and sheer tops.

In the movie, each of the characters has a different style which matches their personality and is in keeping with the theme of the movie. The main character is Cher Horowitz, played by actress Alicia Silverstone. Cher’s fashion-sense plays a major part in the storyline and in one of the first scenes she is showing off a computer app that she uses to put together her outfits. In this particular scene she chooses one of the most well-known outfits from the movie, a yellow plaid skirt and matching blazer. This outfit is worn as a statement piece throughout the film, with the energetic, bold colour defining Cher’s character as a confident, strong and stylish personality. A black and white version of the suit is also worn by Cher’s best friend, Dionne. This more subtle colour doesn’t overshadow Cher’s bold choice and highlights the difference in their personalities, with Dionne being confident and independent. The plaid pattern can be associated with a school uniform, and the style of the blazer and tennis skirt are typical of a girls’ uniform. Tennis skirts are becoming really popular now and are being worn in a way that would be totally in keeping with the style in Clueless, a very chic, school style.

Cher is very sweet and her character has an innocence about it, she is very much a ‘daddy’s girl’, which can be seen in her outfit choices. All of her outfits are very modest, there are no low-cut tops or extremely short skirts in her collection, this portrays her innocence as a character, which is in contrast to her best friend Dionne’s character, which is very much strong-willed and independent. Dionne’s clothing is slightly more “out there” and she also uses bold colours, such as her hats which make a statement. However, her clothes don’t overshadow the leading character’s.

The most iconic dress from the movie is the simple, white, Calvin Klein dress that Cher wore to the dance. In the scene where Cher is ready to leave for the dance, her father sees her outfit and says,
“Cher, what are you wearing?”
“A dress!”
“Says who?”
“Calvin Klein!”

The dress was so popular that the designer, Francisco Costa, recreated it back in 2010, having obtained the original pattern from storage in Italy. This shows the timeless style of the movie, that such an item can be so sought-after 15 years after its release.

The male characters are also all individually, stylishly dressed. Christian’s fashion sense is a throwback to the original Rat Pack style. He has a very classic look and is easily the best dressed male in the movie. His most popular outfit is the semi-high waisted slacks and tight-fitting t-shirt which is very Matrix style and this style has come back with a bang seeing more and more men wearing these style outfits. 

Harris Reed is an English-American designer who has dressed the likes of Ezra Miller and Harry Styles, worked for and modelled for Gucci in both runway and in Gucci’s first gender- neutral fragrance campaign, all before graduating from Central Saint Martins!

Capturing the attention of the likes of Alessandro Michele and Solange led to Reed being featured in a lot of high-profile press and being interviewed for various magazines including Vogue and GQ.

Reed’s collaboration with Harry Styles took part during the singer’s first world tour where he wore a very gender-bending wardrobe, including the infamous shirt that was worn by Styles in different colours in different cities. The shirt was brought back in a “dead stock” collection, using fabrics from different collections, including material that was used to create an outfit that Styles wore during his Vogue cover shoot. Using dead stock to create fashion pieces makes for a sustainable item of clothing, ensuring less waste of fabric.

When working with Gucci during the campaign for the Mémoire d’une Odeur fragrance, the ethereal campaign was interpreted by Reed as a fully inclusive campaign. Reed was hand- picked for the campaign by the fragrance’s creator, Alessandro Michele, who has mentored the young protege during his apprenticeship at Gucci, wanted everyone involved to stand for inclusivity.

Reed saw the powerful impact of fashion from a very young age, when going to school they would try to dress out there and would have people stare for wearing pink shirts and bows. They believe that breaking down gender boundaries is very important and that the clothes you wear can have a massive influence on people. It is hard to believe that people today still have such a big problem with what people choose to wear. Men wearing dresses and certain colours has the power to shock some people even in the 21st century. In the 1700’s, King Louis XV of France started the trend of men wearing high heels, he liked the idea of being able to tower over women and would parade around in heavily decorated heels. Today high-heeled shoes are seen as being designed to be worn by women and it is found strange that men would want to wear them as a “normal” fashion item.

Reed is a rising star in designing gender-fluid fashion, their graduate collection was released in May of this year but, due to the pandemic, the normal graduate show was cancelled and, because of this, Reed was photographed in their collection by a friend and illustrator, Lukas Palumbo, hand-painted intricate sets that were to be used as a backdrop for Reed when being photographed in the garments. The backgrounds fit in with the theme of their graduate collection which was influenced heavily around Henry Paget, who was the fifth Marquess of Anglesey in the late 19th Century. Reed found an article about Paget, when searching through archives and really liked how extreme he was with everything and it represented the extremes that Reed wanted to go to with their collection. The collection also included a lot of 70s references throughout, with the use of eccentric patterns, heavily-patterned flared trousers and velvet fabrics.

They see gender-fluid fashion as something that can be worn by anyone and everyone in whatever way and whatever occasion they like, they compare it with the shirt that they made for Harry Styles as something that could be worn by the star during a concert performance and rock the style, whereas Reed would be comfortable wearing it just to pop to the supermarket! It is also not about something being either too feminine or too masculine, it is just clothing and something to be worn by anyone.

At the age of 24, Harris Reed is already one of the foremost, current fashion influencers and they have made a massive impact on how gender-fluid fashion is perceived. Their contribution will hopefully mean that gender-fluid fashion will become more mainstream and people won’t be criticised for wearing whatever they want.

Photographs courtesy of Another Man by Peter Carter and Glamour.

During an age where social media is so commonplace, even high-end designers are turning to Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms to gather the most likes, retweets and shares for their collections to leave an impression.

During their SS16 collection, Dolce & Gabbana included a fun take on selfies during their runway show. Whilst going down the runway in Milan, models took selfies, which were then projected onto screens in the venue. They used hashtags, which brands are using more and more, by creating a collective of their work under their own hashtag, which can then be used on Instagram, for example, where the brand may be using influencers to promote their pieces. The selfies being taken on the runway were fun and they showed a positive aspect of the selfie culture. Though selfies are by no means a new thing, in 2015 they were just beginning to grow in popularity. Dolce & Gabbana used these selfies for the models to show off themselves and also the designer’s clothes they were wearing, and it seemed a fitting way to promote the collection whilst doing something fun and new, something that hadn’t been done before. However, in contrast, the darker side of the selfie culture is that it can be toxic and be a negative influence in today’s culture. During their SS21 collection, Burberry hosted a live stream, which had the likes of Bella Hadid and singer Rosalia to present it. The show was filmed in an open forest in England where the models walked seemingly aimlessly around, whilst being restricted to the areas by men in very formal suits, all whilst the models are robotically taking selfies and looking very serious. This shows how two brands have used selfies and how they are portrayed in social media in two very different ways - Dolce & Gabbana making it seem fun and bright, whereas Burberry used the concept of it being performative, as though it is something more sinister that we are pre-programmed to do.

In 2018, the most popular brand, according to trending data from Google, was Fashion Nova, which had never held a fashion show and relied completely on social media and celebrities to spread the word about the brand. They invest heavily in social media influencers, specifically on Instagram, to promote their brand. They use high-profile celebrities like the famous rapper, Cardi B, who swears by their clothes and promotes their name during interviews. High-end brands have more recently been using these tactics, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.

More brands are beginning to use social media to advertise their products and collections. Previously, it wasn’t seen as something that high-end brands used due to this medium being more the domain of mainstream brands but, during these unprecedented times, more luxury brands are realising the benefits of reaching a wider audience and market with digital marketing via social media. During the pandemic, when fashion brands were not able to show their collections at physical fashion shows, they have turned to social media as a way of introducing their brand to a different demographic and probably a younger market, one that is more digitally aware than the previous generation of buyers.

Balenciaga has an interesting strategy when it comes to their Instagram account, sharing a range of bizarre photographs to their 11.5 million followers. The account posts an array of random photos, ranging from people’s feet to pictures of people wearing their clothes in unusual and strange ways. Due to this strange use of Instagram the brand gets a lot of traffic through their account. This is a clever way to use social media by involving ordinary people, rather than paid, promotional, celebrity images, and the posts gain lots of interest and traffic to Balenciaga’s Instagram as anyone has the chance to get their own photo on there.

Another platform which has grown significantly in the past year is TikTok (previously music.ly) which is a social media site used purely for hosting short videos. The app currently has 800 million active users worldwide, as of 2020, and appeals mostly to teens and the under-25 age group. However, more luxury brands such as Celine and Fendi have taken to the app to promote their collections in short 15 second videos. Brands such as Christian Dior have invited TikTok stars, including Leonie Hall and Brittany Xavier, to their live streams of catwalk shows. The stars have promoted their outfits and the show on their profiles.

Social media is a growing presence and the mass appeal of Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok and other apps means that even very high-end, luxury brands are realising the importance of reaching their audience by these means.  

Photograph courtesy of Dolce & Gabanna.