Slow Fashion

$50 for a tee?! You’re joking right?

We all know about organic food and produce. But organic fashion or slow fashion is still playing catch up.

Retail giants turn around the latest fashion trends in a matter of weeks and offer them en masse to consumers who are able to purchase them at low prices, often incentivising them to purchase more than they need as a result. This sort of fast fashion is constantly drawing on natural resources. In turn, depleting fossil fuels (used in the the manufacturing process), diminishing fresh water reservoirs for crop irrigation and increasing man-made chemical compounds like genetically modified seed and pesticides/herbicides that are increasingly part of “nature” now.

We are all guilty of making fast fashion choices. We walk into high street shops and buy on-trend, cheap clothes that we would probably be shocked at if we knew their life cycle. The fact is that when you buy fast fashion, you may be paying less at the register but someone, somewhere is picking up the rest of the tab. Maybe a child picking cotton with bare hands, exposing themselves to harmful chemicals. Maybe a worker getting paid sh*t wages in a sweatshop to sew garments. Maybe a day’s wage for what we pay for a coffee. And our environment is paying too. Waterways are being polluted with chemicals from factory run-offs with knock-on effects for various ecosystems.

Slow fashion, on the other hand, is creating fashion for quality and longevity. It focuses on slower production turnaround times, lessening the impact on our environment and fairer wages for workers in the supply chain. You pay more for slow fashion but there are no hidden costs.

The heavy wheels of the fashion industry can be slow to move. But if we start thinking about where our clothes come from, if we start thinking of how to make our clothes last longer (darning holes, spot cleaning rather than washing machine use), we can start to make a change. And maybe even make slow fashion mainstream again.

Do your own research. Be informed so that your choices can be.

By Tania Nallathamby

Founder : EarthHeroes

Tees with a Social Consciousness



Tania Nallathamby is founder or EarthHeroes, a Melbourne business specialising in certified organic cotton tee shirts with a social consciousness vibe.http://www.earthheroes.com.au

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