Sustainable fashion

Photo: amazon

 

I love fashion. I love reading about its history, about designers and how they started, where they get their inspiration. I love reading blogs about street fashion and how technology has changed the way fashion is so accessible to all of us now.

 

What I haven't sought out is the story behind the clothes we so casually buy and wear and the not-so-pleasant story of how fashion arrives to us so quickly. That's why the next book I want to read is Lucy Siegle's "To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World?" Siegle writes about the human and environmental cost of fashion. She answers questions like how a $20 dress at H&M got to be that cheap, why is cashmere everywhere now, what it's like to work in a garment factory in India.
 

I heard about the book after reading a wonderful article on Livia Firth (Colin's wife), known as the queen of sustainable fashion, in London's Telegraph newspaper. Her company, Eco-Age, is a consulting business for companies trying to manage "ethics with aesthetics." Firth also uses her celebrity profile to promote sustainable fashion and has come up with the GCC - the Green Carpet Challenge. For example,  at the 2010 Golden Globes in 2010, Firth showed up in a repurposed Christiana Couture wedding dress. For the Paris premiere of The King's Speech in January 2011, she wore an outfit made from one of Colin's old suits. 

 

Livia Firth tries to follow a 30-wear rule, which she says was suggested by Siegle in her book.  If you can commit to wearing something 30 times, it's a huge move in the right direction. I guess it'll make you think next time you go to Target or Zara or wherever you shop. I know I have a lot of items in my closet I've worn at least 30 times. But I also know there's a few things in there that don't come close to being worn 30 times. I'm pretty good at weeding a piece of clothing out that I haven't worn in a long time, but I know I usually get rid of it before I've worn it 30 times, which is a problem.

 

I like that 30-wear rule. Gonna work on it.