What are we celebrating?
The Sustainable Fashion Awards 23 closed the Milano Fashion Week. Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana arranged this award ceremony to celebrate the designers who stood out for their environmental commitment, ethical practices and social rights.
We should be happy with it, celebrate the winners and move to Paris! No?
Held at Teatro La Scala, the Sustainable Fashion Awards reminded us that although the fashion industry is polluting, the Italian supply chain is progressing towards a greener way of operating the fashion business.
In other words, this event is a counterpart of the Milano Fashion Week. But you find the same names you’ve seen on the runways over the week, just under a different umbrella – a green one. And put into words with those labels so familiar to marketing blurring into greenwashing.
Sustainable Fashion Awards & The elephant in the room
Perhaps industry players, business owners, and designers are developing a higher consciousness about green matters. And, perhaps, some changes could be relevant. However, we cannot understand how these changes can still work in attunement to a production pattern based on overproduction.
It’s one or the other! And since the two elements aren’t consistent, they cannot stand on one plate because they clash.
The fashion industry has one major issue: overproduction, the elephant in the room, which none dares to mention. But if we still have overproduction, there’s no sustainability. No effective change in production chains will be enough without interrupting the overproduction pattern.
Sustainable Fashion Awards 23 witnessed a progression in the fashion industry towards greener practices, elevating environmental consciousness. But, as Mr Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès creative director, said at Triennale: “Sustainability, that’s where we have a problem in fashion. We are making a change with low impact facilities and manufacturing practices. Perhaps in 15 or 20 years we’ll see the result and we’ll finally be sustainable.”
Unfortunately, according to climate scientists, we do not have that time. So, in the end, what are we celebrating now?