The Shades And Silhouettes Of Eco-Friendly Fashion

From emerging designers and veteran stalwarts to the internet’s biggest e-tailers, luxury fashion is racing to quell its effects on our planet. But what is the green standard it’s defining, and who are the people setting the bar?

- Andrea Sim

According to the deity of search engine data, the term “sustainable fashion” has a rapidly growing audience, its search volume having increased fourfold on Google in the past five years. Yet how many of us — industry insiders and laypeople alike — can own up to truly comprehending its nuances?

“Sustainability is a word that means a lot of different things to different people,” Natalie Kingham, fashion and buying director at MatchesFashion writes over email, in response to why the luxury e-tailer has carefully outlined in detail the yardsticks they’re measuring eco-friendly, responsible fashion by, after launching its green curation and initiative, The Responsible Edit this past March. In not so many words, it articulates how despite the fashion industry’s gusto in cleaning up our planet’s polluted waters, the idea of sustainable fashion is still somewhat murky to many, in part due to its dense yet fast-evolving terrain that belies the sheer breadth and depth of the issue. (The Instagram caption-level of content consumption today we believe, too has a part to play.)

So, as we leave the folkloric comparison of conscious clothing to burlap sacks in the past — with breakout designers like Marine Serre and Bode exemplifying the creative extent of upcycling — the industry is slowly but surely giving us a new framework to consume by, powered by open conversations and transparency.