Sustainability, Consumerism, And The Wide Expanse Of Social Media

Sustainability, consumerism, and the wide expanse of social media are all interconnected in today’s digital age. With information overload and consumption at an all-time high, how do we make the right choices without feeling overwhelmed? Content creator, photo-journalist, and sustainability advocate, Aditi Mayer breaks it down for us

- Aditi Mayer

In 2014, when Instagram was still gaining momentum in the fashion space, Los Angeles-based Aditi Mayer decided to embark on a personal journey with sustainability. It all began with an emotional response to the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse that claimed the lives of over a thousand factory workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Mayer knew she didn’t want to follow a cookie-cutter format with her blog, instead, she used it as a platform to voice her opinions and create palatable information covering various important topics such as fair trade, systemic racism, and labour exploitation – all of which she beautifully interspersed with imagery and interviews with sustainable brands and designers. Seven years later, the 24-year-old has become a champion of and spokesperson for several pressing issues plaguing the fashion industry today. “Fashion, for me, is a vehicle to unpack culture and beauty. It’s also a tool to unpack systems of oppression and power, while acting as a subversive method to capture audiences, because, at face value, if we talk about the politics of labour and the environmental impact of fashion, it might be overwhelming, but if we talk about a pretty dress that’s inherently tied to those topics it becomes a lot more approachable. Fashion is our second skin, we either use it to conceal or express something, this became a democratic medium to unpack that,” she explains.

But the topic of sustainability can often feel daunting due to its complex nature, and social media during a pandemic can turn into an involuted space. Here, Mayer elaborates on the intricacies and relevance of both topics and explains how small changes can go a long way with responsible consumption.