Can big brands catch up on sustainable fashion? | Guardian Sustainable Business. Imagine a pair of trousers you could throw on the compost. After years of use, they could decompose among the eggshells and tea bags to leave behind nothing but some fertile soil to help grow new raw materials. It takes the circular economy to a whole new level. This is the idea behind F-ABRIC, a range of materials developed by Swiss company Freitag. Until recently, Freitag’s only line of business was making bags out of old truck tarpaulins. While natural fibres like cotton will compost over time, synthetic fibres like polyester won’t, and natural fibres are often blended with synthetic. Looking for sustainable workwear for its 150-strong workforce, Freitag’s owners were disappointed by the fabrics on offer, so they developed their own.
The company now has a range of sustainably produced and compostable material made in Europe, from broken twill to make trousers, to a jersey fabric for t-shirts. Freitag is not the only company looking to microorganisms for inspiration. H&M on Conscious Materials. Fabric of Change Seeks Innovations for a Sustainable Apparel... -- ZUG, Switzerland and WASHINGTON, D.C., September 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Cotton and textile worker Photo credit: International Labour Organization (PRNewsFoto/C&A Foundation) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cotton and textile worker Photo credit: International Labour Organization (PRNewsFoto/C&A Foundation) ZUG, Switzerland and WASHINGTON, D.C., September 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, C&A Foundation and Ashoka Changemakers launched Fabric of Change: Innovating for a Sustainable Apparel Industry, an online challenge that seeks innovations for building a fair and sustainable apparel industry. (Photo: ) While there is a growing concern within the fashion industry for sustainability and the working conditions of garment laborers, large-scale change has been slow to take hold.
"We need to transform the way the apparel industry works," said Leslie Johnston, Executive Director of C&A Foundation. The Changemakers Challenge will crowdsource solutions from around the world. About C&A Foundation. 100 Examples of Ethical Fashion. By: Malika Renee Butss - Published: Jun 4, 2015 These examples of ethical fashion prove that fashion can be cruelty-free. 100% sweatshop-free and environmentally safe, these fashion pieces allow the consumer to feel good while looking good. The North Circular is a supermodel-founded company specializing in stylish knitwear while the 'Forgotten Shirts' brand creates causal t-shirts for a good cause.
Jewelry is also included in this range of fashion. Ethical engagement rings by Ingle & Rhode allow brides to promote conflict-free fashion while planning their big day. Following this initiative, the socially responsible Alkemie accessories are also ethically sourced and boast a bold and crafty aesthetic. Ethical fashion is also seen in the high fashion world with brands like the Social Studio putting its designs on the L’Oreal Melbourne runways. Fashion future: Eco-couture, smart clothes and sustainability.
Trend forecast analyst Harleen Sabharwal offers insights on why we're on the verge of the 'slow fashion era' People will own fewer but high-quality clothes Think metallic...think alien...think techno-chic! Fashion needs to do better than this to adapt to the shift brought about by climate change, resource scarcity, rise in population, economic conditions and ever-evolving consumer behaviour. The need of the hour is 'Sustainable Fashion'. For the fashion industry to be sustainable economically, it must be sustainable both socially and environmentally. The scenario with nine billion dwellers on Earth by 2025 is rapidly changing and we're becoming a cocooned commune.
With food, water shortage, extreme climate changes, we will need smart well-being clothing to monitor our health and the climate. The evolution of fashion is the marriage between 'smart clothing' and 'eco-fashion' for the future. Pure Waste Textiles - Sustainable Fashion Evolution - Nordic Style Magazine. Sustainability is more than just avoiding waste, it is about creating from it, this is the premise behind Pure Waste Textiles a young Green Company from Helsinki, Finland founded in 2013. Pure Waste creates its fabrics in its own factory recently opened in India and they are at the forefront of the Sustainable Evolution as they produce textiles out of 100% recycled materials, yes over 100,000 products made of 100% recycled materials up to date.
The Helsinki based textile company is pushing boundaries on what being green is, they are not compromising quality as their fabric made out of recycled materials can easily compete with virgin textiles in quality. Hannes and Anders Bengs along with partners Lauri Köngäs-Eskandari and Jukka Pesola have not only started a sustainable phenomenon in the Finnish fashion scene but have made waves in the tech industry as they make merchandise for tech giants such as Supercell, Rovio and F-Secure. Detox: How People Power is Cleaning Up Fashion. Does ‘Made in’ matter? Fashion meets renewable energy – clothes that charge your smartphone | Sustainable-business.
When you think about how fashion will work alongside technology in the future, it might be hard to break from science-fiction-heavy ideas. However, fashionably using solar, wind and even kinetic energy to charge devices, keep us connected and even donate our energy to non-profits is being explored by a number of design houses. Solar textiles Meg Grant, of Solar Fiber, says she and co-collaborators Aniela Hoitink, Marina Toeters, Ralf Jacobs, and Professor Derek Schlettwein from Giessen University are already pushing the textile boundaries in terms of solar fibres.
"If you look around you, textiles cover so many surfaces, so why not give them a 'super power' that can take advantage of this, like solar energy harvesting," says Grant. The idea behind Solar Fiber is a flexible photovoltaic fibre that converts sunlight energy into electrical energy via a yarn that can be worked into all sorts of fabrics. Kinetic energy Energy harvesting The sustainable fashion hub is funded by H&M. How can the fashion industry become more sustainable? How can fashion develop more women leaders? Where do your old clothes go? 11 February 2015Last updated at 10:01 ET By Lucy Rodgers BBC News Every year, thousands of us across the UK donate our used clothing to charity - many in the belief that it will be given to those in need or sold in High Street charity shops to raise funds. But a new book has revealed that most of what we hand over actually ends up getting shipped abroad - part of a £2.8bn ($4.3bn) second-hand garment trade that spans the globe.
We investigate the journey of our cast-offs and begin to follow one set of garments from donation to their eventual destination. Continue reading the main story How charity clothing donations end up traded abroad. Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story UK consumers ditch more than a million tonnes of clothing every year. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote There's a moment of magic where a gift turns into a commodity” End QuoteDr Andrew BrooksKing's College London Continue reading the main story. Wearable pineapple fibres could prove sustainable alternative to leather | Business. At weddings and formal events in the Philippines, men can often be seen wearing the Barong Tagalog, a thin and transparent embroidered garment worn over a shirt. One of the more surprising materials used in its manufacture are fibres from pineapple leaves – and long strands of the leaves could soon also be used to make a host of other products, from trainers and clothes to bags and car upholstery.
Called Piñatex - piña is Spanish for pineapple - the new material was created by Carmen Hijosa, who worked as a consultant in the Philippines leather goods industry in the 1990s. She was unimpressed with the standard of goods produced and started to look for alternatives. It was the strength and the fineness of the pineapple leaf fibres used in the Barong Tagalog that first alerted her that there was another option: “I was looking for an alternative to leather. That was the beginning of my thinking. ‘What is going to be in these beautiful bags that is not leather?’ ,” the Spanish designer said. Does ‘Made in’ matter? Fashion Week hits New York, but what about the industry's toll on workers and the environment? | The B Team partner zone. A few years ago I was sitting at a meeting discussing the state of “ethical fashion” with a group of very influential fashionistas.
One of them scornfully commented, scrunching up her Botox-injected face, “Oh, but this saving the planet thing is so worthy.” It was as if, on Planet Fashion, “worthy” meant dull. Today, “worthy” is the new “decadent”, and we’re beginning to reimagine aspirational fashion in a completely new way, taking into consideration garment workers and environmental issues throughout the supply chain. We still want to look good, but we are also looking for a sense of meaningfulness that goes beyond our mirror. The power of a carefully chosen, sustainably made garment has never been more relevant. This isn’t to say that saving the planet and having a social conscience are new concepts: they were alive and well last century, culminating in the 1960s peace and love ethos.
Fashion was a major part of that movement’s aesthetic and messaging. Blue jeans and beyond. How can fashion develop more women leaders?