It’s our planet.
The planet is undeniably a scary concept, it’s the provider of all our natural resources to create anything we could possibly imagine. We must work in harmony with mother nature as we are simply intoxicating our only home by disregarding the major social and environmental implications we have put onto the world. There is no one else to blame for the drastic increase of carbon emission we see today but the textile industry. After many gradual warnings coming in our direction, the only way to stop and make this change is for us to come together and re-evaluate the linear process fashion has stuck to for so many years. The damage done is showing signs of being irreversible therefore a new circular economy is the only counter approach that could start making the change that this industry so desperately needs. This new idea promotes reparation and reduction of waste to keep the clothes we love for longer. It stresses that recycling is the final step, when nothing more can be done to extend the longevity of our personal items, only then should they be put towards creating something new or thrown away. The constant need to buy and throw away as a consumer is stuck in a never-ending loop leading to major increases of landfill where our items ‘sit for hundreds of years disintegrating while releasing harmful gases’ (LeBlanc 2017).
This is why sustainability within fashion must be looked at holistically, from the beginning steps such as fabric production, to the end goal of transporting goods to be sold. All elements should be measured against the impact they have on our planet, as every year the rate at which production happens keeps increasing, as well as the costs and rubbish left behind. Ultimately, hitting a crucial point in time due to companies’ ignorance to how much they are overshooting when the industry needs a whole reset of what it means to be a part of fashion. It should be in support of everyone not breaking down resources that one day may not even be renewable. That’s why one of the United Nations SDG’s is concentrated solely on ‘Responsible consumption and production’, drawing attention to the need for all brands to make a change in their production process universally or nothing will change. ‘Consumption of non-renewable resources in the textile industry is estimated as 98 million tons per year’ (S.S. Muthu,2022). Hence, appreciation goes towards the brands that are conscious of these serious times and already making that first step to a better future. There is a responsibility that comes with being a creative, which is to let your designs comply with these expectations of being green, the planet needs it.
Refrence list:
S.S Muthu (2022) ‘Sustainable Approaches in Textiles and Fashion : Circular Economy and Microplastic Pollution’. Available at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/reader.action?docID=6950983
Connie Ulasewicz (2018) Bloomsbury Fashion Central, To Re-use or Not. Available at: