ETHICAL FASHION

Ethical Fashion refers to how the clothing was made, embracing everything from how the cotton was grown to how the garment workers who made the clothes are treated and paid, their safety (no sweatshops, child labor, worker abuse, or slavery included).

Globalization means that materials and labor can be purchased in different parts of the world where costs are very low. Also, industrialized methods of growing cotton mean that fabrics can be presented instantly and cheap, plus in very large volumes. These savings are passed on to the customer, meaning that high street fashion is available at increasingly low prices, and much of it is regarded as disposable.

However, Ethical Fashionistas would argue that all this has a cost that we are not able to see on the price tag.  

                 

                 

Now ethical fashion creates many problems. some of them are mentioned below :

• One of the most important and serious issues is, there is a lot of exploitation of workers in the factories while they are making cheap products for the high street the workers not only include adults but also child labor who have had exploitation with them. the surrounding in which they work is in quite unhygienic, the food provided is not even worth looking at!

• The clothes produced are of low cost and quality making it pretty obvious that they are sold at cheap prices which makes the labor suffer as they are provided with a very small amount for their work. 

• Cotton provides much of the world's fabric but growing it uses 22.5% of the world's insecticides and 10% of the world's pesticides, chemicals that can be dangerous for the environment and harmful to the farmers who grow it. (Ethical Fashion Forum)

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  Also, chemicals like lead, nickel, chromium IV, aryl amines, phthalates, and formaldehyde are used in the textile industry for making the fabric soft and dye, these chemicals are harmful to one wears it as it gets transfers to the skin as well as to the environment throughout. 

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  Its low cost and disposable quality make it available to be disposed of easily at any point, much of it is destined for incinerators or landfill sites. The UK is the biggest disposer it throws I a million tonnes alone in a year !.

• Animals are farmed to supply ur for the fashion industry and industrialist find it very convincing for them to continue this, people to feel that their welfare is an important part of ethical fashion. 

Due to the exploitation of workers for a long time, few of the organizations have taken real initiative one of the organization is a: www.ethicalconsumer.org  since 1989 

They say "Collaboration is key.  Ethical brands tend to be smaller and so working together, even if our ethical values are not identical, is a fantastic way to spread the message and bring more consumers on board.  It’s fantastic to see new ethical market places popping up online so that customers have somewhere to get to know lots of brands at once. 

Growing the ethical market has to be the main objective.  That will benefit all of us and the makers and planet too.''

              
 Ethical apparel's sustainable approach, what one should focus on? 

Social:

Increasing the capacity and wellbeing of the people and communities behind fashion. Any fashion business depends on the people behind it. In a broader context, poverty and exploitation of the human workforce behind fashion affect the stability of the industry itself.

Environmental:

Minimizing the environmental impact of all business operations throughout the supply chain. Creating and acting upon opportunities to reduce environmental issues beyond the immediate operations- such as raising awareness, investing in, and supporting environmental initiatives.

Commercial:

Without a robust financial business model, none of the above can be achieved. Good intentions without an effective business structure can backfire. A sustainable approach includes quality products or services that meet market demands and are fairly marketed. The work of the Ethical Fashion Forum with businesses is built on these three pillars, and especially with smaller businesses, it includes elements of commercial and financial business support, in collaboration with partner organizations.

Criteria for ethical fashion:

The Ethical Fashion Forum has drawn up a set of 10 criteria for ethical fashion, to inform the fashion industry's official ethical fashion awards, the Re-fashion awards:

1.      Countering fast, cheap fashion and damaging patterns of fashion consumption

2.      Defending fair wages, working conditions, and workers' rights

3.      Supporting sustainable livelihoods

4.      Addressing toxic pesticide and chemical use

5.      Minimizing water use

6.      Recycling and addressing energy efficiency and waste

7.      Developing or promoting sustainability standards for fashion

8.      Resources, training, and/ or awareness-raising initiatives

9.      Animal rights.

For the production of ethical apparel, we should also focus on raw material production and sourcing. For instance, take a seemingly benign plant like cotton. Pretty harmless right? Well, cotton farming puts billions of dollars worth of pesticides into the air and groundwater each and every year. These chemicals have been proven to sicken and even kill farmers, especially in less-developed countries.

Here are some other ideas:

 

1.      Avoid the use of plastics

2.      Buy organic more often 

3.      Recycled or "upcycled" materials lessen the impact.

4.      Look for fair trade clothing and accessories.

5.      Weild sustainable fabrics like bamboo and hemp.

Over the very thought of ethical fashion is, one can't always stick to it. so for sustainable fabrics, we can use cycled up fabrics such as cotton and silk, provide the workers with wages and stuff they require for production in a very small amount.