Sustainable living can be fashioned by vintage

Small actions will help us live sustainable lives

The fortnight-long deliberations at the 27th Conference of Parties on Climate Change, or COP27, in Sharm el-Sheik concluded recently with a commitment to set up a funding mechanism to compensate developing nations for loss and damage from the effects of climate change disasters. How this will work is anybody’s guess. And without a firm commitment to phase out all fossil fuels—oil, coal, and gas—as proposed by India, it will be that much harder to keep the rising temperatures below the 1.5-degree cap.

But how can we expect political will from world leaders battling their own domestic issues? The Covid 19 pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine have led to “forward-looking uncertainty,” as some financial analysts call it. Many technology companies have already announced big job cuts as the world faces recession.

However, political will is not always required to bring about change; it’s often individuals and groups who bring about change, as seen with people’s revolutions like the Arab Spring or the recent street protests in Sri Lanka.

The pandemic taught us to prioritise what was important to us. The lockdowns forced companies to look at work-from-home (WFH) as a viable option to keep their businesses running. Less vehicles on the roads during the lockdowns meant cleaner air to breathe. WFH helped people move out of crowded, polluted, and expensive cities, to greener suburbs, and even smaller towns.

The pandemic taught us that we could lead fulfilled lives with reduced consumption. We learned to live differently. We made it possible. However, along with the pandemic came online shopping. At the click of a button, we could order, for instance, a trendy garment at jaw-dropping prices and get it delivered, often the same day, at our doorsteps. As easy as it was to expand our wardrobes, it was also easier to discard garments after a single use.

Fast fashion, as it’s often called, began around 2000 as big brands began reproducing fashions and trends within weeks of them appearing on the ramps.

Even as the industry doubled production by 2014, it took a toll on the environment, as production used up a large amount of water, contributed 10 per cent to carbon emissions, and polluted water bodies. What is worse, 85 per cent of the production ended up being dumped.

Gitika Goyal, founder of the Gitika Goyal fashion and home brands and board member of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion, says, “These brands tapped into the hunger for instant gratification. They started creating one collection a month, and it was all about use and throw, and they grew at an amazing pace. This meant maintaining high inventory, and they would end up with huge dead stocks, which were either burned or thrown in the sea.” Gitika decided to go against the fast fashion trend and work in slow fashion instead. Slow fashion is not trend-driven and helps preserve and extend a garment’s life in a sustainable way.

“I hold minimal stock. When I started my business in 1998, there was nothing called slow fashion. Maybe it was because of the way I was brought up or my NID education, I created clothes that were not western-influenced. I started working with master craftsmen, like with Chikankari in Lucknow. I went to small concept stores in the west. These stores would handpick designers who were pushing the boundaries. All these stores were about elongating the life of a garment—upscaling it, recycling it, darning it. I was fortunate to find partners who shared my beliefs.”

“I was never attracted to the numbers game. I was looking at the creative satisfaction that my R&D gave me. I made decent money and could give my craftsmen decent wages. You can wear any of my clothes for many years. Like a pashmina shawl has an infinite use, I have a salwar cut inspired by the traditional salwar—I can’t imagine it ever going out of fashion.”

So, how can we adopt slow fashion? Before buying a new outfit, ask whether it’s really needed and whether it can be re-worn several times. Instead of buying a new garment, buy vintage.

Today, there are many online options where pre-loved garments can be bought and resold. Finally, don’t discard—mend, recycle, upscale and resell. It is just such small actions that will help us live sustainable lives. For one swallow does make a summer.

(The writer is a journalist and author.)