moda sustainable. Produce more clothing than the market can absorb? It has been going on for a little over fifty years. In fact, previously there was no model that provided for the storage of goods. «At the beginning of the 20th century, tailoring moved on to mass production. Prêt-à-porter certainly contributed to the obsession with size and diets, having to get around the problem of individual measurements and establish random conventions». So argues Marta D. Riezu ne The right fashion. An invitation to dress ethically (Einaudi), in which there is a lot to learn about the dark world that often (fortunately, not always) lies behind many of the fashion impulse purchases. Giving birth to a real syndrome, oniomania, the impulse to buy unbridled.
Sustainable fashion
Result? The fashion sector (second industry for water consumption) owes 10 percent of carbon emissions and 20 percent of ocean pollution. Out of 75 million workers, less than 2 percent boast a salary worthy of survival. In short, if until a few decades ago we almost always knew who cut and sewed our clothes, today it is not only the consumer who often has no idea. 42 percent of companies do not know where (or by whom) they are manufactured, in a decidedly not very virtuous circle of infinite subcontracts. But something has begun to change.
New rules for sustainable fashion
Marina Spadafora, Ambassador of ethical fashion and national coordinator of Fashion Revolution Italy (largest fashion activism movement in the world, in our country since 2014), explains: «LThe European Union has finally published a strategy on textiles which will become law within two yearsfollowing requests from as many as 60 European NGOs: compared to food or cosmetics, fashion had unclear legislation. Eco-design will become mandatory, leading to the creation of garments made to be resistant and recyclable, setting rules for the percentages of reused material. The producer will then become responsible for the object in its end-of-life, sending it for recycling or disposal».
What was missing? Social sustainability. This is why the campaign was born Good Clothes, Fair Pay, which filed a new bill dedicated to the human supply chain. Spadafora specifies: «The idea is that if a brand wants to sell clothes in Europe, it must experience the dignified treatment offered to those who produced them. The control will be the responsibility of bodies responsible for talking to workers, who are too often silent. And in the factories that produce for several companies, an agreement must be stipulated between the brands».
The hub of circular luxury
The attention to this problem by large groups is increasingly high. As Riezu explains, only one garment out of every three is sold. And if about 20 percent of the clothes come out of the closet every year, something in the ways of offering and purchasing needs to change. Gucci, with the support of the Kering Group, has announced the start-up project of the first Tuscan hub for circular luxury in Italy, the Circular Hub: will dialogue with the structures of the Kering Group, starting from the production sites and the network of suppliers of materials and finished products of Gucci in Italy (over 700 direct and 3,500 subcontractors). Activities that will be extended to the other brands of the Group, to become a tool available to the entire sector.
The Kering MIL (Material Innovation Lab), then, chose to support S|STYLE Sustainable Style, platform of the Pitti Immagine show with a selection of brands committed to sustainable practices. «These brands are given the materials to create looks that are then exhibited at Pitti, and they will also be helped with internal training and editorial production. It is the first time that Kering supports emerging stylists, but above all external to the Group» specifies the journalist and curator Giorgia Cantarini, who selects them from all over the world.
«Hardly any brand is entirely sustainable. There are various ways of doing it, which for a young brand are also very expensive; for the big ones, on the contrary, the problem is not economic but the revision of an enormous mechanism that has already started». The system is bearing the first fruits: Cantarini confirms that the increased demand for sustainable fabrics, by lowering prices, will make garments more accessible.
Sustainable fashion: which brands?
Dhruv Kapoor Fall Winter 2023/2024. (Photo: ©Launchmetrics/spotlight )
«Among the names chosen at Pitti we have the knitwear created with recovered yarn by Cavia, or the responsible denim by Ksenia Schnaider: collections also made in Kiev with clothes found in the markets. Dhruv Kapoor instead creates tailored suits with street touches, many with original Indian embroideries, remnants of fabrics from previous seasons or traditional natural dyes. Names I personally follow? The indigo shoeswhere each part is made with sustainable elements, but also jackets and coats by Marfa Stenceprocessed only with ethical production (up to shipments)» reveals Cantarini.
From screen to reality
To get results, it is imperative that these stories are told. The impact of certain production methods on our ecosystem is at the heart of the docu-series junk. Full closetsco-produced by Sky and Will Media. Six episodes filmed in as many countries where the effect of the fashion system is nothing short of explosive.
This is confirmed by the expert and activist Matteo Ward, who traveled for Junk as conductor and co-author: «Without entering the world of investigation, there was an editorial project that honestly told the situationTouching certain realities first hand was a source of tears and laughter: you feel anger and shame for mankindlaughing with those who resist every day to survive. Would you ever think that 15 million clothes arrive in Ghana every week? They end up on the beaches, in the cities. A little boy explained it to me well: “Your scraps are the new colonizers”». Still: the destruction of 300 million trees in Indonesia gives way to rayon, to the detriment of native communities in the jungle and their ecosystem.
«It’s not immediate to connect a cheap T-shirt with a frightened animal. But this way of producing affects their increasingly precarious habitat» concludes Ward. “The reality is that we can’t change what we don’t see. But when many of us are aware, we will be able to ask the institutions for concrete changes. And we will also be willing to review our way of life».
iO Woman © REPRODUCTION RESERVED