Today’s guest blog is from Amber Rochette, part of the Partnerships team at Sustainable Fashion Week, non-profit project raising awareness of the environmental and social issues faced by the fashion industry.
We all wear clothes; they are an important part of our lives and expression of identity for most people.
We all share the same planet, the very planet that is in the midst of a climate crisis. It is safe to say that everyone on the planet knowingly, or unknowingly, interacts with the global fashion industry.
However, the issues with the fashion industry are not exclusive to the developing countries that many fashion brands exploit for cheap labour and manufacturing. Although overseas issues such as the depletion of natural resources and destruction of communities cannot be ignored, there are so many issues that are locally relevant too.
Every piece of clothing carries a carbon price tag with it, and as soon as it falls into our laps we need to do as much as we can to stop this from increasing. Many things we do with our clothes, from returning items, over-washing, over-drying, and disposing can have a huge detriment to the earth’s integrity. Returning an item will double the greenhouse gas emissions and plastic waste, over-washing can waste water and pollute our waterways with microplastics, over-drying can waste energy and damage our clothes, forcing us to throw them out, and more often than not when we throw our clothes, they end up on landfill.
These issues are so locally relevant to us all, from our waterways to our waste – we all contribute. We therefore need to collectively change our relationship with clothing for the better, so that we can continue to express our identity and enjoy wearing our clothing for the longer-term, without harming the planet we live on or the communities involved in producing fashion.
What is Sustainable Fashion Week and how can I get involved?
In September Sustainable Fashion Week will host a week long programme of creative and community activity celebrating and promoting a sustainable fashion future – SFW 2021.
Sustainable Fashion Week is calling on you, whoever or wherever you are, to get involved with SFW 2021. You can do this by hosting a little event within your community to connect with your friends, family and those around you and help them feel empowered to make positive changes in their fashion habits. We want to move away from the very linear fashion business model that we are all so used to, but we don’t want sustainable fashion to be aspirational – it should feel relevant and accessible to everyone.
We’ll all be choosing different ways of engaging with it. SFW 2021 will be the first fashion week of its kind where the focus is on inspiring, empowering and upskilling the community. It will be a week of workshops, talks, discussions, skills sharing and more, aimed at engaging the community on the importance of sustainability in fashion, including the wider social and environmental impacts of the industry and the need for change.
When is Sustainable Fashion Week?
The event will take place from 11-19 September 2021.
We are building the programme around the four themes of regenerate, rewear, repurpose and reconnect. Our ‘SFW Hub’ will be held in the MShed on 11 and 12 September. There we’ll have a number of panel discussions, live workshops
and a buzzing sustainable fashion marketplace.
The rest of our programme will be made up of community-led mini events and workshops – hosted by people like YOU! You can be part of our event, and part of this growing movement for change.
We all wear clothing every day and we all share the same future. Sustainability in fashion is relevant to everyone, and we want to take a stand for the kind of fashion industry you want to see.
Please get in touch with us to find out more about how to get involved! Email us at
hello@sustainablefashionweek.uk
