Sustainable shopping is on the rise and is looking to be the next big thing in the fashion industry.
As a fashion producer or consumer, sustainability is about making considered purchases and thinking about the volume of what is being consumed.
Alice Leadbetter, marketing executive for the sustainable business Glass Onion, says that ‘sustainability is being environmentally conscious and being environmentally aware’.
Ms Leadbetter loves vintage clothes and aims to change the misconceptions of shopping sustainably. Often people associate sustainability with high prices when this is not the case.
Shopping sustainably simply means being aware of the clothes you buy and the impact of your actions on the environment. She recommends that people think of alternatives before buying new clothes, for example re-work your current clothes, buy second hand or try to repair clothes you were going to discard.
Green Story Incorporated statistics show that if every person bought one item of second-hand clothing, rather than new, it would save 204 million kg of clothing waste, 24 billion gallons of water and 5.7 billion pounds of CO2 emissions.
At Glass Onion sustainability is part of their DNA, being a vintage fashion company is a natural element of the clothes sold.
The company’s re-work factory changes and re-invents around 10,000 garments a week into completely different items so garments don’t become one of the 13 million items of clothing that go UK landfills every week.
Sheffield University student Hannah Reeve often shops at Glass Onion, and said the sustainable aspect definitely is a bonus. She said: “They’re helping the environment and it’s more ethically sourced than fast fashion while also reducing waste.”
There are many options for people to think about when shopping that can in turn help the environment.
Willow Townend, 19, said she likes clothes that are environmentally friendly. The University student said: “I like sustainable clothes because it stops as much water going to landfills or ending up in the ocean, and quite frequently sustainable clothing brands also have better work conditions so people are paid a fair wage”.
Although they may be more expensive to begin with, Miss Townend said they last longer so it’s an all-round win!
Within the fashion industry, sustainability is sure to expand further with awareness and interest in it growing. Sustainable shopping is easier than people think and can prevent mass amounts of waste and further detriment to the environment.