EU Commission: a plan against greenwashing

27 March, 2023

Can non-mandatory rules fight greenwashing?

On March 22nd, the EU Commission released a plan against greenwashing claims. But these new rules leave some leeway that will probably generate more confusion. 

Environmental claims aren’t reliable!

Over the last five years, we started digging deep into sustainable matters. And how tricky it is for people to understand which label is sustainable or not. That is because of greenwashing: the process of brands and companies deceiving consumers to believe they are green when they are not. Obviously, brands release fake green claims to sell more. Indeed, the sustainability business is flourishing! And perhaps, those who believe in fairy tales are happy with it!

The plan to fight greenwashing

These are the data:
53% of green claims are vague, misleading or unfounded information.
40% of claims have no supporting evidence.
1/2 Half of all green labels offer weak or non-existent verification.
There are 230 sustainability labels and 100 green energy labels in the EU, with vastly different levels of transparency.

Hence, the new criteria want to make green claims reliable across the EU, protecting consumers from greenwashing. Also, contribute to creating a circular economy based on reuse, repair, and recycling.

Expected impacts

“With certain consumers purchasing products that will be truly better for the environment, it is estimated that the impacts on the environment will be highly positive.”

Now the above statement may sound like greenwashing, too! In fact, the only “better for the environment” is a drastic reduction of new products and not more eco-products!

The controversial point

“However, it remains a decision of companies to include (or not) environmental claims in their voluntary commercial communications. This means that the companies can control their costs by determining the scope of the claim (if any) considering its expected return on investment. In short, the costs of substantiation are of a voluntary nature to companies as they are part of one’s marketing strategy and therefore credible estimations of the overall cost for the Union market are difficult.”

Therefore, rules aren’t mandatory for companies. Indeed, businesses have been given leeway on how to provide their evidence. Likewise, governments will be able to decline the guidelines when they transpose them into national legislation. 

In conclusion, without unified regulations, the EU plan to fight greenwashing won’t stop greenwashing!

The White Shirt

24 March, 2023

Revisiting a timeless garment for a minimal lifestyle

Today we introduce a timeless garment: The White Shirt by Good Neighbors Shirts.

This Japanese shirt brand creates timeless pieces with an edgy touch. Its design code is innovative and conceived for a minimal lifestyle. Indeed, it provides stylish and comfortable details, but the image is quite understated. Also, born as a unisex brand, it talks to those who feel free to express their personality through style but do not care about gendered labels.

Discover The White Shirt

About the design
This shirt comes in two versions: a button-down or a mao collar. The silhouette is wide, with a comfortable fit. One front open pocket and one slip pocket on the right side for your cell phone or wallet. A contrasting rubber band along the back adds a point of graphic design. It is detachable, and you can wear it as a belt or as you like. Also, the hem design makes it look well untucked.
Takase shell button front closure. These shell buttons are the byproduct of the food manufacturing process, which would be otherwise wasted. Therefore they are considered sustainable.

The White Shirt
The White Shirt by Good Neighbors Shirts

About the material
100% cotton.

About the colour
The base is white with an orange or blue detachable rubber band.

Laundry
Wash by hand. Easy care product.

Styling tips
Shirts are seasonless. So, you can wear The White Shirt throughout the year by mixing it with seasonal pieces to make it suitable for a specific occasion. Also, the white colour is a true classic, easy to mix and match in limitless styling options. In springtime, try it underneath a cotton vest or a blazer. Unbuttoned and untucked above a tank top for your casual style. But don’t forget to take it with you to the beach!

International Shipping available!
We are based in Milano but ship our niche fashion selection #formodernhumans everywhere.

How to order:

Drop us an email or WhatsApp for any further information. Also, you can book your private shopping experience – physical or via video call. We’d love to help!

The climate time bomb

24 March, 2023

Economic growth, decoupling & fashion industry

The latest IPCC report, AR6 – Sixth Assessment Report, is a survival guide for humanity to defuse the climate time bomb.

“Scientists from the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), urged for immediate action that can be taken now, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change.”

The study – “Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report” – calls for urgent climate action to secure a liveable future for all. 
Antonio Guterres declared that the climate-time bomb is ticking, but we have the knowledge and resources to tackle the climate crisis. Only drastic action can avert irrevocable damage to the world. If we act now, we can ensure a livable planet for the future. 

The solution proposed by the IPCC is “climate resilient development,” which involves integrating measures to adapt to climate change with actions to reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions in ways that provide wider benefits.

In supporting sustainable development, the discussion is about the decoupling of production and emissions. 

Decoupling – what happens in the fashion industry?

Recently Kering Group launched a climate change adaptation strategy that uses a science-based framework. So, the group set the goal to cut emissions across their supply chain by 40% by 2035. In other words, Kering will keep growing while cutting climate impact.

But here is the point! Can developed countries achieve economic growth decoupled from environmental pressures?

The economist Timothée Parrique replies to that question by debunking this theory.
We quote the closing lines (but we suggest you read the full article here).

So, “the jury has reached a verdict,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres during the release of the report. For me, the AR6 is the last nail on the coffin of the green growth hypothesis, which I consider to be a broken promise, one of the “empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unliveable world,” as Guterres says. 
What if we could time travel to Galileo’s trial today? Which voice would we give credence to? I think the situation concerning decoupling is dramatically similar. Give a few years (hopefully less) for the smoke to disappear, and we’ll soon realise that, just like the Sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth, the continued pursuit of economic growth in rich nations is not compatible with a stable climate.”   

Timothée Parrique

The climate time bomb is ticking, but green growth is not the answer. Though a reduction of consumption may seem utopic, we are afraid it will be too late when we will realise that was our way out!

Fashion waste recycling

24 March, 2023

An urgent issue every fashion designer must confront

March 18th was Global Recycling Day, highlighting the challenge of waste recycling, which is deeply connected to the fashion industry. As a matter of fact, recycling is crucial for a circular economy and circular fashion too.

These international days aim to raise awareness on important matters. Unfortunately, we celebrate something but tend to forget the issue the day after.

Fashion industry & waste

As widely highlighted in our previous posts, the fashion industry is part of the waste problem. According to Earth.org, of the 100 billion garments produced each year, 92 million tons end up in landfills. To give a prompt idea, this means that the equivalent of a rubbish truck full of clothes ends up in landfill sites every second.

Waste colonialism

Waste is a global issue. In fact, that is the byproduct of our economic system – capitalism. A structure based on overproduction and exploitation. However, the civilised global north found a way to get rid of it. Because we don’t want to see our garbage. Also, in front of problems, we prefer to close our eyes.
So, how does the global north get rid of waste? By dumping the problem in the global south! In case you missed the news, please, read what happens in the Atacama desert in Chile. Or in Ghana, Africa.
As we can see, Northern countries, the rich and civilised ones, are still perpetuating colonialism. Specifically, waste colonialism.

Recycling waste

“Global Recycling Foundation” promotes the idea of considering waste as an opportunity:

“Every year, the Earth yields billions of tons of natural resources and at some point, in the not too distant future, it will run out.
That’s why we must think again about what we throw away – seeing not waste, but opportunity.”

Waste recycling in fashion industry

First, in order to reduce waste, we need to consume less, much less! But also, we must find solutions for the tons of discarded clothing already shipped to Africa and Chile.

Most importantly, we expect every fashion designer and every company to do their bit and hold themselves accountable. Recycling and upcycling must become part of the plan for the fashion industry. Now!

There’s no time to waste!

The Military Pants

17 March, 2023 / Leave a Comment

Genderless fashion #formodernhumans

Among the new arrivals for the Spring-Summer 23, today we introduce The Military Pants by Meagratia.

These trousers are unisex and timeless. Also, the quality and seams are excellent. Although conceived for the Spring/Summer season, you will wear them for a large part of the year.

Meagratia is a cool Japanese brand whose designer, Takafumi Sekine, has a very personal vision of fashion design. Specifically, he reinterprets vintage garments creating a contemporary style for modern humans. His sense of elegance is subtle and never excessive. Indeed, his clothes are so rich in details but wearable.

Discover The Military Pants

About the design
The inspiration comes from the Italian army motorcycle vintage pants. These wide-leg trousers feature many details: a waist belt with a slanted front button fastening. Also, a drawstring waist with a satin cord allows you to adjust the fit to your size. Another beautiful design point is a button along the ankle. Indeed, by changing the position of it, you will be able to wear the trousers in two different ways, changing the silhouette completely.
Two side slip pockets and two buttoned back pockets.

The Military Pants
The Military Pants by Meagratia

About the material
100% cotton with an elegant image.

About the colour
Khaki: a timeless basic nuance you can easily match with many other colours.

Laundry
Wash by hand. Easy care product.

Styling tips
The Military Pants are a versatile and easy-to-match item. Indeed, they work from casual to more elegant outfits. You can pair them with a blazer for your workwear and office outfit. Also, with a beautiful top for an evening occasion. Or an untucked shirt for your weekend style.
In every situation, your style will be unique!

International Shipping available!
We are based in Milano but ship our niche fashion selection #formodernhumans everywhere.

How to order:

Drop us an email or WhatsApp for any further information. Also, you can book your private shopping experience – physical or via video call. We’d love to help!

Retail and sustainability

15 March, 2023

How Italian consumers view sustainability

Today, Fashion Network shared a survey released during the second edition of the “Retail & sustainability” event. A meeting arranged by Mind-Milano Innovation District.

This survey scans Italian consumers and their views towards sustainability.

The survey

According to it, Italian consumers are more conscious towards environmental issues. One out of three (32%) is more careful to waste. Also, 30% believe it is crucial to limit pollution sources. Most importantly, 58,6% think companies are important players, together with citizens and government, in order to reach UN 23 goals.

According to the people interviewed, they say there is a mismatch between the active role companies should have and what they are actually doing. Specifically, 57,8% of consumers think that fashion and clothing companies are “little or not at all committed to the issue.”

In other words, Italian consumers say brands are not doing enough for sustainability.

But on the other hand, sustainability doesn’t have a fundamental role in the purchasing decision. Indeed, 65,9% of the interviewees consider multiple factors or not at all these aspects (14,7%).

However, in general, the price of these products or services is deemed higher compared to less sustainable alternatives.

Our viewpoint retail and sustainability

We see two problems here:
As a matter of fact, brands and retailers are not doing enough. Because it is difficult, it is time-consuming. Most of all, they wouldn’t make money as they did so far. Why should they make this effort? Of course, business and consciousness do not play well in a capitalistic view!
But also, consumers still purchase a lot of fast fashion or poor-quality garments.

Why aren’t consumers consistent with their expectations?

As a retailer, apart from our niche customers, the only request we hear is: “how much is it?” Because people do not care about quality. No one cares about “buy less, buy better.” They only want “cheap and buy more!”
Furthermore, social media are complicit in the ongoing diffusion of misleading practices. For instance, many brands with hordes of followers sell shoes for 50€, passing them off as made in Italy! Or cheap clothing with a price tag too low to be sustainable with eco-friendly tags. Do we believe in fairy tales?

So, we really would love to hear from consumers, from you!
As consumers, Italian, European or wherever you come from – what do you expect from retailers? And you, on your side, what are you willing to do for sustainability?

Drop us an email or comment here below!

How do we make consistent choices?

14 March, 2023

FW23 niche fashion buying

As a niche boutique, how do we make consistent choices? Actions in accordance with our values, ideas, and lifestyle for modern humans. So, with the thoughts posted here or shared with our community when we chat with you.

The culture we believe in is not about the perfection of an ideal world. Because it is obvious that we cannot be 100% sustainable, no one can keep that promise! But, with our selection, we are doing something radically different. And consistency is crucial for trust. So, we need to pay attention to what we select.

For a more sustainable approach to fashion buying, our key message is being selective.

Step 1: what is the reason for a fashion brand to exist?

Creativity – expressed in good design and through skilled craftsmanship. These are fundamental elements for a fashion brand. But, many “sustainable” brands – other than picking eco-friendly materials to make their garments aren’t delivering any special designs. Therefore, we don’t need them.
On the other hand, contemporary brands must find the perfect balance between design and sustainability. One is not possible without the other anymore.

Step 2: how do we select brands?

• Avoid juggernauts: big brands aren’t making any change. Some can offer a refined design, but they are still involved in the overproduction pattern, exploiting people and the planet. The world cannot sustain this system anymore!
• Forget brands who cannot understand that the reality has changed, so they must shift how they operate the business. Adapting to evolved needs.
• Auto-proclaimed sustainable labels are not for us: first, there’s no control. Second, we don’t need more marketing and less design! Brands without a soul can avoid overcrowding an already saturated market.

Our consistent choices: less but better

We learned to search for smaller companies whose designer’s touch and vision are tangible in their unique and meaningful garments. Indeed, they focus on design, and sustainability comes along. They have something to say. Even though it’s not a matter of popularity for us. Moreover, these brands are not mass-produced. Skilled artisans make their garments or accessories, so productions are limited.

How do we make consistent choices?

We operate a careful, accurate, and thoughtful selection searching for value expressed in good design, quality and limited pieces. That’s how fashion can match sustainable standards.

Meagratia brings new inspiration

11 March, 2023

A focus on unique contemporary fashion for you

Meagratia brings new inspiration for the Spring/ Summer season.

We have just received the new collection from Japan! And we are so much satisfied with the unique designs the clothes show. And the high quality, too.

Unique fashion and sustainability

The Spring/ Summer 23 collection offers special garments that will make you stand out but, at the same time, are wearable too. The image is modern, the lines are new, and the colours and details are beautifully assembled. Also, the quality fabrics and the accurate tailoring combine tradition and innovation. Most importantly, the brand is not mass-produced. And that is what we need for sustainable fashion.

Enjoy the Meagratia Spring/ Summer 2023 collection from Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo!

Meagratia inspiration: our SS23 selection

A belted wide-leg khaki pants reveal a slanted front button fastening. Also, it features a button along the ankle, which allows wearing the trousers in two different ways, changing the silhouette. Then, a splendid knit vest combining three colours – white, green and light blue – with a tassel trimming along the hemline. And a white cotton maxi shirt, or shirt dress, decorated with tassels along the back and wrist. Plus a beige net poncho to enrich your outfits.

One last note: who said genderless fashion is dead? Indeed, we happened to read this comment during the Milano Fashion Week 23. This statement had a raise-eyebrows effect on us. Sadly, it is not uncommon to see people who work in the fashion field, who even write about fashion, having a limited vision of style. C’mon! It is not Alessandro Michele who invented genderless!

Saying genderless fashion is dead means having no idea of what genderless is. Genderless means freedom! Specifically, it’s the freedom to pick the clothes you like from whichever category they belong to.

So, Meagratia brings new inspiration for the Spring/ Summer season #formodernhumans
But we can’t wait to create some stylish (genderless) outfits for you!

Drop us an email or WhatsApp to know more!

Fall/ Winter 23 fashion shows: one striking commonality

8 March, 2023 / Leave a Comment

Is it still about hundreds of outfits at each fashion show?

Fall/ Winter 23 fashion shows moved from New York, London, Milano, and Paris; now waiting for Tokyo.

All the brands showed their new collections in different towns. But there is something that connects each brand, one striking commonality: hundreds of new outfits at every fashion show. Every single season, the fashion narrative repeats itself. Undeterred.

Fall/ Winter 23 trends

Hyper-feminine or androgynous style. Well-defined silhouettes, knit dresses, and maxi coats. Black & white, mixed with vibrant colours: red, yellow, green. And touches of gold, too. Also, precious embroideries enriched the garments.

Above all, designers tried to imbue a sense of timelessness in their clothes. Which, from a sustainable perspective, makes sense. And a distinctive quality as if they needed to reposition in their higher market segment, sweeping up the confusion that made everything look the same.

So, quality and timelessness. But is it enough to trace a significant shift? It seems brands keep on celebrating the power of their corporations-owned businesses. Are they satisfied? Or can they see the big picture?

Always from that same sustainable perspective, since all Maisons have people in charge of sustainable practices, why do brands show so many pieces?

Do we still need hundreds of outfits to understand a collection?

Fashion & sustainability

Given the state of our planet, which is full to the brim of garbage, any kind of it, including tons of fashion waste polluting lands and waters, perhaps it was time to make a real change.

Hundreds of new outfits every season would be sustainable as trillions of new electric cars produced to replace the existing ones. A joke! If we follow this reasoning, the logic of green capitalism, we fail.

Other than just making new clothes, modern fashion design should have an evolved purpose: a commitment towards sustainability. Unsurprisingly, there was no trace of it from the Fall/ Winter 23 fashion shows.

In fact, there’s no understanding and no real interest in supporting sustainability.

Notes on the Paris Fashion Week 2023

6 March, 2023 / Leave a Comment

An air of restoration, not evolution

The Paris Fashion Week 2023 showed precise, constructed tailoring and well-defined silhouettes. Perhaps brands aimed to provide a tangible sense of quality to reclaim their meaning. Or re-establish a higher positioning in an overproduction industry that left people baffled and unable to understand the difference between luxury to low brands.

Of course, if you were not interested in the star parade, avoiding the tedious crawling before, during and after the shows seemed impossible. Now, that is the goal. Unfortunately, no chance to talk about clothes, just clothes, without necessarily talking about the faces.

Paris fashion Week 23: some highlights

All about silhouettes and dark atmosphere at Dior and Saint Laurent: I line at Dior – very vintage. The 80s-inspired triangle shape with big hyper-constructed shoulders at Saint Laurent.
Balmain: sculptural designs with bows and pearls everywhere.
Chloé: less poor nomadic, still bohemian but more refined. Such a great inspiration, the painter Artemisia Gentileschi! The medieval theme has resulted in wearable clothes – more for real life than for Instagram. Here, we want to underline what the designer, Gabriela Hearst, said: “I like it that nothing is gimmicky. They’re not clothes for Instagram: I’m tired of working for Zuckerberg all the time – like, where’s my check?”

Can you see the negative impact of social media on fashion? Now, designers make their clothes for Instagram, not for real life.

Givenchy: tailored black gowns with some touch of colours.
Balenciaga: for a brand that staked everything on marketing rather than clothes, this show seemed like an attempt to clean its image after a catastrophic communication campaign. 
Miyake: weaving rhythm, shape, slowness and movement. Beautiful!
Yohji Yamamoto: always a world apart, with a touch of colour this time!
Valentino: a 90s reminiscence for a black tie elegance with coloured maxi coats.

A lot of basics, that doesn’t mean banal. More wearable clothes, in general.
But do we still need hundreds of outfits to understand a collection? Aren’t 30 or 40 enough? 

However, rather than just referring to what we liked or not, we want to share two general thoughts about Paris Fashion Week 2023, reasoning we can extend to the whole fashion month.

Fashion journalism & fashion weeks

If you turn to fashion journalists expecting honest feedback and review about the collections, forget it. Indeed, fashion journalists do not express their viewpoints. They simply report the designers’ ideas and talk about celebrities, but they do not add any professional perspective. No pondering, which you may agree or disagree with, but still would generate a discussion, sharing some value. What they do looks like a report cut out for Instagram. So, everything seems flat.

In a hyper-consumerist and wasteful field as the fashion industry, the mission now is to do something different. Following the rules of what the fashion industry has done so far, and still commenting on the status quo, will lead to nothing valuable. In the end, the status quo is what designers showed.