sustainablefashionbrands Archives

Fashion experts vs sustainable brands

21 June, 2023 / Leave a Comment

Spring-Summer 24 fashion exhibitions

With Spring-Summer 24 selling season-opening, fashion experts are meeting sustainable brands. And so, we received invitations for panels and fashion events, aiming to facilitate the shift towards eco-conscious products. But the ultimate goal isn’t sustainability. It never is so.

Unfortunately, brands that have an idea of what sustainability is, aren’t understood by fashion buyers and showrooms. Indeed, both industry players had the same comments, which seems weird and leaves little hope for specific brands to find a market that would sustain their business in an evolved fashion panorama. But fundamentally, these comments say a lot about what sustainability represents in the fashion industry.

Fashion experts’ remarks on sustainable brands

We’ll guide you through some opinions we heard about these new brands:
1- Is this clothing collection sustainable?
2- This collection is too small. Why just a few pieces?
3- It’s expensive! Prices are too high. We want the same clothes at a much lower price.

Now the responses we would love to give, point after point and face to face, to the fashion experts:
To the very first question everyone asks when approaching a booth: is it sustainable?
What do you mean? Can’t you understand it from the size of the collection, style choice, quality and materials? Do you need a tag stating if a garment is eco-conscious?

The second one: your collection is too small!
Guess what! Capsule collections should be the way out from decades of racks packed with new items! The way out from overproduction! Isn’t a capsule collection more sustainable? It seems showrooms and buyers still need endless items, fabrics and colour options, which is the opposite of sustainable fashion.

Then comes the third request, which makes you understand these experts have no idea what they say: it’s expensive! We want this dress, but cheaper. Well, sustainable materials are expensive! And if that designer makes a specific dress in a much cheaper material, it wouldn’t make sense.

And so, the last request takes us back to the first: is it sustainable?
Why do you ask? What do you expect from sustainable brands if you ask for much cheaper materials?

Is sustainability the goal?

Dear fashion experts, buyers and showrooms, are you sure you want sustainable fashion brands? Do you know what sustainable means? It seems your ideas are confused, indeed. And perhaps those panel discussions have a different goal.

In fact, it sounds like your interest in sustainability stops at justifying your presence on the market.

Fashion experts vs sustainable brands Read More »

Sustainable fashion brands

What you need to know

Let’s face it: 90% of sustainable fashion brands would be sustainable for real if they stopped doing their collections.
Do you care about the planet? If you do, it must be clear that trillions of self-appointed “sustainable brands” that have oversaturated the market aren’t sustainable. Indeed, we came to this conclusion after years of visiting fashion exhibitions and showrooms, checking out lookbooks, and corporate and online communication.

Of course, sustainable practices must be embedded in the designing process and production chains. Most importantly, fashion degrowth must be planned to reduce the massive impact of the industry on the environment. But the point is that attention has shifted from clothing to too many words and much storytelling. And everything is about that: words and empty slogans. Why? Because these designers have nothing to say. Their design means nothing. Therefore, marketing gives these “sustainable brands” a reason to exist and an opportunity to do business.

Top brands vs sustainable brands

In the fashion universe, megabrands communication is all about sustainability. But we avoid listing all top brands’ sustainable activities we read daily because it gets embarrassing, if not unnerving. Then, we find designers and many new brands, who make a lot of noise talking about sustainable fashion, but in practice, they lose sight of their job. And what is their job? Making clothes, meaningful garments, and pieces worth buying in case people need something new.

Niche fashion #formodernhumans

But, in our fashion research, a tiny niche focused on its job has emerged. Here we can find those brands that offer intrinsic value in their design, beautiful pieces presented in a contemporary key. Also featuring refined details, quality fabrics and impeccable tailoring. Brands with a unique sense of style, a timeless aesthetic, edgy and always fashion forward, but absolutely far from mass production. Indeed, they let their design speak.
And so, without too many words, but through the value of their work, they show us sustainability almost achieved in practice.

In fact, designers part of the blah-blah-blah sustainable fashion brands bubble would better serve their cause and do a favour to the planet if they didn’t do their collections.