“Fashion is more powerful than any tyrant”
Canadian Press | Eco-friendly designs seek to leave green imprint on fashion industry
TORONTO - It may not be easy going the green route in the fashion world, but advocates for eco-friendly designs are forging ahead with efforts to build awareness and help take the niche business mainstream.
A studio space in Toronto's historic Distillery District is home to what's being billed as the city's first eco fashion showroom. Designers from Halifax, Montreal and Toronto are among those currently featured, with sustainable creations spanning the vast spectrum of style.
Fair-trade footwear with recycled tire soles and vests fashioned from secondhand clothes are showcased along with jewelry, organic cotton skirts, and wraps and scarves made from Tencel, a biodegradable fabric.
The new showroom is spearheaded by the members-based Canadian organization Fashion Takes Action, which seeks to make a positive social and environmental impact on the style industry.
"Though eco is a defining factor for them, they do consider themselves first and foremost designers," said Fashion Takes Action founder Kelly Drennan. "It's always about the style and the progressiveness and innovation ... in some ways more than it is about the fabric or their eco story. And that's an added bonus.
"Sustainable clothing shouldn't look any different. It's the story behind the garment where you actually discover that it's sustainable," she added.
"To the naked eye, just looking at it, it's no longer that burlap sack of 10 years ago and hippie frocks — (they're) actually stylish, quality garments."
While people are now seeking out ethical products, Lara Bazant says there weren't many fellow ethical and eco-jewellers when she started her business, Bazant Unique Adornments.
The Toronto-based Bazant, who has been designing for 20 years, creates handcrafted pieces from beads and silver sourced through fair trade or recycled from older pieces.
"I really had to make sure the esthetic of the pieces, the design of the pieces, were eye-catching, so that's what led people to it, and the eco-ethical aspect of it was the bonus," she said.
"It's always been the most important thing to me. But for my customers, whether or not it's the number 1 thing for them, that's their choice."
Myriam Laroche, founder of Vancouver's Eco Fashion Week, said the concept of green fashion doesn't rest solely with products, and that there needs to be a rethink of the way clothes are marketed and sold.
"If you go to your store and we wrap the organic cotton T-shirt in three papers plus a sticker plus a box plus more paper plus a bag, you're not eco," she said. "It's about attitude, it's about behaviour, it's about packaging, it's about sustainability."
Laroche said she created Eco Fashion Week in part to generate discussion on how to make more educated decisions surrounding shopping for and creating clothes. She's also made a concerted effort to change her own habits.
"I was shopping big stores and big brands back in the day. Ten years ago (buying an) $800 purse for me wasn't a problem," she admitted. "Now I'm happy to find that unique piece at Value Village from the '70s."
Efforts to widen awareness of sustainable fashion isn't restricted to the grassroots.
In January, the United Nations announced a partnership with Nordic Initiative Clean & Ethical (NICE), a project under the Nordic Fashion Association. The collaboration involves the launch of an initiative specific to the fashion industry focused on funding sustainable solutions to social and environmental challenges.
The new UN Global Compact and NICE Fashion Code is slated to launch in May in Copenhagen at the world's largest summit on sustainability in fashion.
Drennan says such collaborative, cross-sector efforts will work toward affecting change — but a behavioural shift is also key.
"We're programmed to shop a lot ... but we're also programmed to look for deals. And a lot of the problem with cheap clothes is that they weren't made in a fair environment, so the people who were making those clothes just weren't paid fairly or treated fairly," she said.
"The toxic chemicals and the footprint that goes with that garment from water and energy and waste and chemicals ... it's just polluting the Earth and really hurting the people that are making our clothes."
Michelle Kulyk, department head of the fashion design and merchandising program at the Centre for Arts and Technology in Halifax, sought to partner with Atlantic Eco Expo to have her students put on a small fashion show.
After the expo folded, Kulyk and her students forged ahead last fall with the show and a retail trunk sale featuring homegrown sustainable designers.
Despite a strong runway showcase and support for vendors, Kulyk said they had poor ticket sales, lacking the budget for resources to help draw more people to the door — something she believes would have been different had they had corporate sponsorship support.
Kulyk previously worked in manufacturing in the eco-friendly industry and also owned an ethically sourced retail and clothing store in Nova Scotia, and knows firsthand of the challenges within the business.
"Just because you build it does not mean people will come, and just because you design clothes does not necessarily mean people will buy," she said. "I had a store. I no longer have that store, and there's a reason I no longer have that store.
"When times are tough, people may not necessarily always choose the most sustainable path, and it's unfortunate because textiles are a huge part of our consumption habits. So clearly, we'd like to see people support sustainable textiles."
Kulyk believes people are starting to look toward consuming less but buying more wisely, which may include supporting local and domestic manufacturing.
"Two hundred years ago, silhouettes changed within decades — not within weeks. Now silhouettes and fashions and trends are changing so quickly," she said. "I think if we can slow that down we will ... buy perhaps less, but buy better."
For those supportive of the eco style philosophy but lacking in funds, Drennan says buying vintage and secondhand are great alternatives — saving clothes from landfills and giving unused garments new life.
They also promote the idea of cost-per-wear or investment dressing: buying fewer, less trendy pieces of higher quality.
"When you do the math you can actually see the cost-per-wear of a garment, and that's something I think we need to be thinking about more when we're shopping," Drennan said.
"True fashionistas that love to shop really need to ... slow down our consumption, invest in our wardrobe, buy quality-made clothing, whether that's locally made or whether it's overseas fairly made. And that's how that average person will be able to afford to support this."
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Online:
Bazant:www.bazant.ca
Centre for Arts and Technology: http://www.digitalartschool.com
Eco Fashion Week: http://www.ecofashion-week.com
Fashion Takes Action: www.fashiontakesaction.com
© The Canadian Press, 2012