Today, most of the new clothes available to us.
come from the fast fashion industry,
which is one of the most destructive
industries currently on earth.
But the good news is
there are great alternatives.
Today, my friend Kamea Chayne
is going to share her top tips for
a sustainable and ethical wardrobe.
So, if you like to dress fashionably,
or if you simply wear clothes at all,
then this video is definitely for you.
Here she is.
Hey, it is Kamea Chayne here.
I am the curator at the directory consciousfashion.co
and I am also the host of Green Dreamer Podcast,
which Rob has actually been a repeat guest on
because he is incredible, as we know,
and I am always learning so much from him.
I am really grateful to have this opportunity
to take you through 10 of my favorite
sustainable fashion tips.
They do go from what is the
easiest and most accessible,
to what may require
more thought and more research.
You can kind of go through them
and see what stands out to you most
or what resonates most with you
that may work best for you and go from there.
The first thing that we can do
is to simply make the most use
of everything we already have.
There is this idea that sustainable fashion is unattainable.
It is too expensive.
It is unaffordable.
Well, we do not have to buy
anything at all from sustainable
fashion brands or eco fashion brands
in order to participate in sustainable fashion
or to be more eco-conscious with our wardrobe
because one of the best things we can do
is to just make the most use
of everything that we already have.
For me personally, I have had this scarf right here,
ever since I was in high school.
So it has been a while now.
Because it has been with me for quite some time,
I have gone through a lot of different
memories and experiences with this scarf.
So even though it was not actually that expensive
or there was not anything special
about it when I first got it.
I was not even eco-conscious,
or considered myself a conscious consumer
way back then, but because it has been
with me through so many experiences,
I feel like it has really enriched the sentimental value
and sense of meaning that I get from wearing this.
You might be able to relate with things
that you have had for a long time.
It really makes that item more meaningful
and more vauable to you.
That is the first thing.
Check the backs of your wardrobes,
the backs of your drawers,
to see what you already own.
Make the most use of it.
Also, you know, often times we end up
buying new things that look a lot like
things we already have.
Just taking inventory of what we already own
every so often, can help us to avoid doing that.
The second thing we can do is to borrow
clothes from our friends and family members
or to rent clothing.
Of course, if you are so lucky to have
friends and family members
that have a similar clothing and shoe size as you,
then that is definitely a great option.
Browse through their closets to see
if there is anything that you can borrow
for any events that you have coming up.
The other option is to rent clothing,
especially for things like special occasion,
or attending friends' weddings and stuff like that.
These are items of clothing that we might
otherwise only wear once or twice
if we were to buy them,
so it is more affordable
and we would be able to get even more
expressive with our fashion choices by
renting different items for different special
occasions that we attend.
Also, if you have little ones in your family
who are growing really quickly
in the stage in their lives,
I believe there are also clothing rental
subscription services now for children
because they grow so quickly
and grow out of their sizes so quickly
that it will ensure that you do not necessarily
have to ,buy or own these items of clothing
but it can make sure that these items of clothing
are being recirculated among different families,
so that they can be maximized in their use.
My third tip is to make the most use
of things that are not necessarily
in our closets already,
but already exist out there.
This includes swapping items with our friends,
or buying used clothing,
or also buying new clothing
that are made with waste fabrics.
There is also this misconception that if
you were to participate in sustainable fashion,
then you have to be super minimalistic,
and try to wear the same things
every single day or something like that,
and that it can limit your ability to be
super expressive with your fashion choices.
That is actually not true at all,
especially if you participate in the used economy,
where you can still have a lot of different
styles of clothes and still circulate,
or buy and consign, buy and consign.
You can still go through that cycle,
especially if you do it locally,
with local thrift shops.
You can still be super expressive
and have a lot of fun with your fashion choices
without having it be wasteful, materials-wise,
and not breaking your bank.
Because of course, shopping second hand
will definitely be cheaper than if
we were to buy new.
That is the third tip that I have.
It is to shop second hand
to support the circular economy
or swap with your friends,
or buy new clothes that are made
with surplus or waste fabrics.
The fourth thing that we can do is
when we are buying new clothes,
of course, to go for quality over quantity.
That is kind of a given.
When we are buying new, prioritize
low impact, natural, and biodegradable fibers.
Once you dive into this, there is really
a lot of nuance that goes into it.
But I would say, to start, you can look
for things like organic cotton, linen, hemp, tensile, lyocell,
and if you do wear wool, to ensure
you know where it comes from,
to ensure the company behind it
has really ethical practices
and has transparency,
or even some certifications,
which we will go into later.
But those are just some things that you can look for
when you are just starting out.
The fifth thing is having a wardrobe
of 100% natural fibers is not always possible,
especially if you do yoga,
or you are a swimmer,
or you are an athlete, or you go skiing,
or you live in a really cold place,
and things like that where you do need
the performance properties of synthetic fibers.
In these scenarios, definitely prioritize second hand.
But also, if you are buying new,
you can also look for recycled fibers.
So now a days, there are a lot of swim suits,
or athletic wear, or yoga wear that
are made of things like nylon, polyester, and so forth.
But they are actually recycled nylon,
or recycled polyester, or things like that.
So if you are buying new clothes
that need to have these special performance properties,
then definitely look for recycled fibers
as opposed to virgin microplastic fibers.
My sixth tip is to look for certifications.
There are numerous out there.
You can look at what sort of certification
the companies have or the products have
and then just do a quick search for what they mean.
Just to give you a quick idea of some
that are more notable in the fashion space,
I have my notes here so I don't forget the key ones.
There is the OEKO-TEX 100 standard certification
which denotes non-toxic.
There is the GOTS Organic for organic cotton.
There is B Corp, which is pretty well known.
It is more general to certify companies
that are transparent and have eco
and ethical practices in general,
or are conscious about their practices.
There is the ZQ Certification that certifies ethical wool.
There is Cradle to Cradle
that really looks at minimizing waste.
There is Bluesign Verified which verifies
eco conscious manufacturing practices.
And then, of course, there is Fair Trade Certification
which denotes ethical labor.
They pay the artisans and garment workers
a fair and living wage.
So yeah, look for certifications where you can.
My seventh tip is to support artisan made
clothing that really help to preserve
cultural diversity, as well as traditional craftsmanship.
Once we get into this category of clothing,
they can tend to be more expensive,
due to the nature of it being handmade,
as opposed to mass produced in a factory
using primarily machines that can
just things out really quickly.
With this, because it is more expensive,
we are likely to not be able to buy things
as quickly, which again, forces us
to slow down our consumption.
At the same time, a lot of artisans
already are using natural materials
that are readily available in their local region,
which helps us to ensure that we are not
contributing to over-extraction,
because their slower pace of
making these items also means
that they are able to use what is readily available,
and respect that slower, biological
cycle of the things that are growing in their region.
My eighth tip...
This is one that I have been
personally getting into these days,
and I am really excited about.
... is not just priortizing clothes
made with organic, natural fibers
that are a low impact,
but also prioritizing natural fibers
that are dyed using natural plant dyes.
Right now, the majority of our clothes
are being dyed using synthetic dyes.
Some are certified non-toxic synthetic dyes,
but a lot are also Azo dyes,
which is a whole family of dyes
that include known carcinogenic
or neurotoxic chemicals in them.
Something that we can do to support
the soil to soil circularity, meaning that
our clothes, at the end of their lives,
can return to the soil safely,
without being toxic to the soil microbiology,
is to ensure that clothes are not treated
with things like formaldehyde
or they are not dyed using
a concoction of chemical dyes.
For example, I have this and
this one right here, this is dyed...
I actually forget what plant it
was dyed using, but this is actually
a fully organic and hemp blend jacket.
It is like a crop top.
I have been loving wearing this.
It is dyed using plant dyes.
I also have these lounge pants that I wear
all the time when I am at home
This is actually colored cotton.
It was not dyed at all because the cotton
that was grown is a variety that naturally
has a light brown tinge to it.
That is something we forget as well.
We think of cotton as only being white,
when in reality, there used to be,
and there still is, but in small amounts,
cotton of a variety of colors,
like blue, green, I believe even red,
and certainly different shades of brown as well.
This is all really exciting to look into.
You know, prioritizing color grown fibers,
as well as natural plant dyes.
Number nine is to diversify.
This is one that is more difficult
for us to work on right now,
especially individually
just due to the limited options
that we have out there.
But, I say this because if you think about how
yes, we know organic cotton, for example
to be a relatively more eco friendly option,
but imagine if everybody were to
buy only organic cotton clothing.
What that would end up doing is
we would have to convert
a lot of diverse localized eco-regions
and take out the biodiversity there
to plant monocultures of organic cotton
in order to meet the increasing demands
of organic cotton all over the globe.
Diversification is really important
so that we can support biodiversity
in different places.
There are a lot of lesser known fibers
that have not really been mass produced
that a lot of people have not heard of
or do not know a lot about.
Some examples are Ramie.
I do not know if I am saying that correctly,
but it is spelled R-A-M-I-E.
There is nettle, or there is lotus fiber,
banana fiber, or pineapple leaf fiber,
so there are all of these different sorts
of natural fibers that are localized
to different regions.
We can start to learn about
and support wherever we can.
Usually artisan made clothes might
have more of these options, as opposed
to mainstream, mass produced,
even eco-fashion brands, for example.
So this is something to keep in the back of our minds,
how we can help to diversify
the fibers that are used within fashion.
Finally, my tenth tip is to support
localized regenerative textile systems.
This is definitely the hardest one,
I would say, out of everything that I just mentioned,
because of the lack of localized
textile systems that we have right now.
But I really recommend Fibershed,
the nonprofit that is spearheading
this movement in creating localized
textile systems around the globe.
You should definitely go check them out
and learn more directly from them
at fibershed.org.
Basically, what this is about, is right now,
even a lot of eco fashion brands
have globalized supply chains
where their organic cotton might
come from India and then that
might be sent to another country
to be made and then sent all over
all over the place, so just think about,
in food, we talk about food miles.
It is the same thing with clothes as well.
There are your fashion miles
of how far all of these raw
materials had to travel back and forth
in order to then end up at the store,
and then end up with the consumer.
The idea and the goal of localized
and regenerative textile systems
is for us to really regionalize
where our clothes are grown and made,
so that we can minimize those fashion miles.
Then, on the regenerative side,
if we are able to regenerate
healthy soils through carbon
farming and regenarative practices,
that can actually help us to sequester carbon.
So ideally, when you combine the two
of localizing and having regenerative
agriculture involved in this process,
we can actually do good by purchasing new,
regeneratively made clothes,
because we would be helping to
sequester more carbon
than was emitted throughout this
production process.
So that is certainly the most difficult
because it is not so widely
available right now,
but something that is being developed
and spearheaded by Fibershed.
It is super exciting.
Rebecca Burgess is the founder and director.
She wrote a book on this.
It is called Fiber Shed.
Definitely, I recommend checking
that out as well.
It is very inspiring to see the future
of what could be for fashion
and what that would look like
when we can actually be doing good
with fashion, rather than just trying to do less bad.
These are my 10 tips on how we
can be more eco friendly
and regenerative with our fashion choices.
I will try to have some additional
resources linked in the description,
so certainly, you can do
more research on your own
and learn more from here on out.
But I hope this has been helpful.
Thank you so much for hearing me out.
I hope that you got a lot out of this video.
If you did, that you will impliment
some of these tips into your life.
Make sure to subscribe to Kamea's
Green Dreamer Podcast, as well as
subscribe to her here on Youtube,
and follow her on Instagram.
The links are in the description.
Make sure to subscribe to this channel as well,
for many more great videos to come.
I love you all very much.
I will see you again real soon.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community