Before going into what exactly sustainable fashion is, it is important to clarify that we believe that creating 100% sustainable fashion is something that cannot be achieved. You could, in other words, say that sustainable fashion is a myth.
The reality is that when producing anything, there will be an impact. Resources need to be extracted or grown, infrastructure needs to be built, factories operated, and products need to be packaged and shipped to where they are sold. Now, this is an oversimplified summary of a very complex supply chain, but the point is that there are a lot of different components that determine how ‘sustainable’ a sustainable fashion product actually is. In reality, the only time a brand can claim to be 100% sustainable is when they don’t produce anything at all.
With this in mind, we like to describe the production of sustainable fashion as a never ending process of improvement across all stages of a product’s life cycle. For us, this means being proactive about continuously improving our product design, raw material production, manufacturing, transport, storage, and marketing, as well as the facilitation of extended use, reuse and recycling of our products and their components.
In our case, the process of creating more sustainable fashion is rooted in the development of circular fashion.
From an environmental perspective, the reason to buy sustainable fashion is to support brands that do their best to actively and continuously minimize any undesirable effect that their product’s life cycle might have on the environment.
This includes making sure that natural resources such as water, energy, land, soil, animals, plants, and biodiversity - to name a few - are used as carefully and efficiently as possible. Supporting a sustainable fashion brand also enables their efforts to use renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, at every stage of the supply chain, as well as making sure repair, remake, reuse, and recycling of products and their components are maximised. From a socio-economic standpoint, buying sustainable fashion means funding and facilitating the improvement of present working conditions for workers on the fields, in factories, transportation network, and stores, by upholding good ethics and best practices which are based on accredited, international codes of conducts.
However, it is important to note that every sustainable fashion brand is moving at their own pace, so make sure to ask them about their sustainability practices before buying their products, and don’t take the term ‘ sustainable fashion ‘ at face value, as it is a very complex one. ‘Sustainable’ has also become one of the fashion industry’s favourite buzzwords, often thrown around lightly, without proper facts to back up such claims. With that said, keep in mind that just because a product is marketed as sustainable or circular fashion, doesn’t mean it excels at all the aforementioned areas which determine how sustainable a product actually is. Unfortunately greenwashing, or ‘sustainable cherry picking’ as we like to call it, does happen.
The concept of Circular Fashion was first coined in 2014, making it a relatively new concept in the realm of sustainable fashion.
Inspired by the notion of circular economy, primarily the theories put forward on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation website at the time, Circular Fashion is an approach to clothing production in which waste and pollution are designed out, products are kept in use for as long as possible by repairing, reusing or recycling, and where natural systems are regenerated.
The current, linear approach of the fashion industry is the cause for insane amounts of textile waste, and the over consumption of natural resources. If this continues, natural systems will be depleted beyond a certain point, they are very difficult, maybe even impossible to repair. On a socio-economic level, we are continuously generating more and more complex waste which mostly impacts the communities who are least equipped to process, deal with, or dispose of it. That’s why circular fashion is the future, as it reduces the reliance on virgin natural resources, and turns waste into a valuable resource which can be reused over and over again.
We believe that circular fashion is currently the most advanced approach to sustainable fashion production. Sustainable fashion 2.0, if you will.
The reason you should consider buying circular fashion products is because they empower you to reduce your environmental impact as an individual, and empower brands like us to make a difference. Since it’s our goal to make circular fashion the industry standard, we decided to reward you for participating in the circular economy; you know, as an extra personal incentive, besides helping us save the planet. The Full Circle take-back program is modelled after the circular economic model, and gives you a 25% discount on a new Full Circle item in exchange for returning your old one when it’s at the end of its lifecycle. This way we can make sure to keep any circular fashion garments we produce out of landfill and bring back the majority of natural resources into the loop. In the process, we hope that circular fashion will help to redefine the relationship you have with the clothes you wear, and to look at your old clothes as a valuable resource, instead of disposable waste destined for the landfill.
