Discrimination in Sustainable Fashion
With brands like Reformation, Everlane, and Pact gaining more popularity every day, the conversation about sustainability has grown with them. These sustainable brands, along with many other smaller sustainable companies, and big fashion names like H&M work towards a future where fashion is produced ethically. This means that materials are reused, less water is used for production, and child labor is illegal. By shopping sustainably, a consumer will feel a sense of pride and comfort in the fact that their purchase is doing good for the environment. However, with shopping sustainably, and supporting all the causes sustainable brands promote, a consumer is most likely also supporting the toxic body-shaming and classist community many sustainable brands foster.
But, I’ll talk about that in just a second. I want to make something very clear: In this Op-Ed, I am not trying to discredit the great work sustainable brands do for the environment. Fashion is the 2nd most polluting industry in the world, just behind oil. Change MUST be made in the fashion industry, and brands must work to lower their carbon emissions and start to promote ethical production. The sustainable brands I will be critiquing in this Op-Ed are doing great things for the environment, however some of the ways that they are doing this, and some of the ideas they are promoting in their tight knight communities are where the problems arise.
First, Sustainable brands cater most to the upper class, thin, white woman. They do this by creating a small size range and a high price point. A single basic dress could cost up to 300 dollars. Of course, the price range may have to be higher because of a more expensive production cost, but I think that there is no question that some of the cost comes from classism, rather than practicality. These brands what their items to seem elite, and so they make the cost reflect that ideal.
Because of this price range, sustainable brands make it very difficult for those who can't afford a 300 dollar dress to shop sustainably. You may have read that sentence and said: they can just thrift! And although that statement may be said with a positive mindset, underneath, it is filled with privilege. Assuming someone has the time to go thrifting, the money to pay for the gas, bus ticket, subway ride, carshare service to get there, or even has thrift stores near them is very naive. Telling those who don't have the means to shop sustainably that thrifting should be their only option also promotes the idea that just because someone doesn't have buckets of cash to spend on clothes, that they don't deserve new and high-quality clothing.
We need sustainability in fashion if we want the planet we live on to have a chance at survival, but, we need it in a better way. We need affordable and accessible sustainable clothing.
