Tuesday, January 3, 2012

What is Sustainable Fashion?

I'm really excited about tonight. I've been asked to be the guest speaker for Undress 101: Sustainable Fashion Network Night. It's such an honour to be asked to speak about something I'm so passionate about.
I'm excited that fashion is moving in this direction as we all become more knowledgable about what sustainable fashion actually is.
 Sustainable Fashion is: 
“ fashion that is designed to be environmentally and ethically friendly.” 
The United Nations defines sustainable as meeting the needs of the present generation with out compromising or sacrificing the ability of the future generations.
There are a lot of terms and words to describe sustainable fashion: green, eco, eco-luxe, organic, sustainable, slow, ethical and the list goes on. 
So what makes clothing environmentally and ethically sound?
I like to simply refer to the 3R’s

Reduce by consciously choosing to wear products that are made using 
environmentally friendly production practices and by selecting materials which 
do not negatively impact the planet at any stage of the process.
Tip: Look for clothing made out of Certified Organic Cotton, 
Hemp, Yak Wool, PET fibers and more. 
A Pot of Tea Under a Tree uses only the best of the stated fabrics.

Reuse by choosing to wear clothing items that are not bought NEW. 
Tip: Attending a clothes swap is a wonderful way to reuse clothing. 
We hold a six monthly clothes swap called Under a Tree Clothing Exchange. 

Recycle by making garments from previously existing objects. 
The Recycled Soda items in our collection are made out of PET woven with Hemp. 
PET is basically plastic bottles recycled down to a beautiful light -weight fiber.
Tip: make a tote bag from an old pair of jeans. 

I loved to know any other tips you might have for reusing and recycling clothing?

x Louise

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