JetUNsetter

Sustainable fashion is such a great idea, right? Why then don’t we all adopt it and it takes such an effort to penetrate our minds and wardrobes?

Sustainable fashion has trapped itself into a vicious cycle: re-cycle or up-cycle. To be eco conscious you need to be cheap. Dirty. Thrift. But wait a minute. We also want to be shiny, fresh, beautiful.

Sustainable fashion has trapped itself into a conflict: good girls don’t care for beauty. Well you bet they do. These days we don’t dress to just protect ourselves from extreme weather, or cover up to conform to societal norms. We dress to express and impress. Our clothes are statements: of status, personality, taste and wealth. We also crave that wow effect that comes with “oh you look nice today”. You cannot get that effect without something new on you.

Sustainable fashion is right to believe that if we become less egoistical, self centered and less narcissistic we will care less to impress other humans we share the planet with now and focus on what sort of planet humans to come will live in. Well, if we were less egoistical and narcissistic we would have a hell less problems to worry about to begin with: wars would not start, corporate drama would not exist, pollution would be at check, crime even might have dropped! As it happens, in such scenario with less criminals around and happier people, yes indeed we would dress more sustainably too.

Sustainable fashion is in denial of truth in the end. In denial of human nature. In denial of the whys and hows we dress. So the narrative buy a silk expensive dress and keep it forever simply does not cut it. Keep using the same leather bag your grandma carried at work does not do the trick. Even so, no one would buy the leather bag from the colleague who got the promotion two years ago when you didn’t and now is selling that bag because they god a new job and can afford another more expensive one! You would hate yourself carrying that bag, right?

So what can we do? Cause keep filling the landfill with our narcissism will soon get us in a gloomy state without beaches, coffee, ski resorts and the rest of the stuff we fancy so much …

Ban polyester clothes! They harm the planet, smell bad, are bad for our skin and look cheap. I know, I know, and what will poor people wear when an organic cotton T-shirt comes at 100 (chose any western currency here, it will work). Well, we can of course do something to not have poor people! Dah dah!! Who would have of that?

Even before we solve the poverty issue still, let’s clarify organic cotton clothes prices have sky rocketed as they are link to status. We are not buying the material and manhours it took to put it together, we are buying the exclusivity effect.

Ban polyester. Yes, we will have less but better clothes each and if you ban polyester but fast fashion is doomed to eclipse and Mother Nature will thank us.

There are so many billion dollar industries out there, making money out of our feelings, right? (Social media, any marketing campaign, fast fashion etc etc). Sustainable fashion taps into our intellect, tries to convince us to do the right thing using logic and reason and arguments. Fashion has nothing to do with reason, never did. Ever. Fashion was born out of mere, raw emotionality and instincts. Let sustainable fashion be a fashion and then it will save the world.

Please help me make sense of this one too…