Sustainable fashion is a way to minimize the environmental impact of the fashion industry. Sustainable fashion means that brands try to lessen their footprint this can be done by implementing eco-friendly materials which is the main focus and the easiest way for brands to say that they are sustainable which can also be called greenwashing but that is for another blog post.
99 % of all sustainable brands try to use mainly eco-friendly fabrics but not exclusive they can still use any other none sustainable fabrics as they see fit as long as they have some eco-friendly fabrics among their mix.
Sustainable fashion also includes labor practices which can include overseas certified production methods and standards or like what we do here at Malaika New York simply produce in the USA to ensure that those standards are upheld. We can easily go to the factory and talk with the sewer and see that our clothes are produced under fair labor practices and that our clothes aren't sub-contracted to other uncertified companies where the conditions don't apply. For companies that do choose to manufacture overseas, the waste & CO2 are big polluters too. For each season they create they have to send samples back and forth to get the final garment approved for production. A sample will be shipped back and forth at least 6-7 times so imagine a company that produces a collection of 50 pieces every season! Again that is also one of the main reasons that we produce locally. Not only that but we make our samples which again lessen our impact on the environment (CO2 outlet).
Sustainable fashion also includes something called zero waste fashion. Zero waste fashion is the extreme version of sustainable fashion.
The main focus of zero waste fashion companies is to either make products from waste or create products that have no to very little waste. The waste part is where we put our main focus because we see it as the biggest constraint on the environment but we are also committed to using sustainable materials.
The fashion industry standard waste 30% for each garment created and that includes sustainable fashion companies that only focus on eco-friendly materials.
