I love fashion. I love shopping. I'm a big believer in retail therapy. A new pair of shoes makes me feel great. While I'm addicted to the consumerism of skintight jeans and flowery T-shirts, I never think about how these beautiful items end up in my hands.
My favorite shoe brand is Nine West. Their shoes symbolize sophistication, professionalism, and most importantly, authentic leather. Since my female shopping intuition kicked in, I was taught to embrace leather shoes and reject the artificial material resembling leather.
I like to think I'm using the most of my resources. But should we pay attention to our clothes and shoes for the sake of the environment?
I think about my merino wool sweaters, fur-trimmed coats, and silk blouses, but I forget they come from animals forced into captivity to feed our materialistic needs. And after the animals suffer their ordeal and succumb to our consumerism, then their supplies probably go to some God-forsaken sweatshop companies conceal from public knowledge. And at those companies, water and air pollution can come from the machinery and other supplies to bring the fashion to our stores.
ORGANIC: It's a great word, but what does it really mean for clothes? Pure organic cotton means grown without pesticides for the benefits of eco-friendly clothing. When pesticides are used, they can contaminate groundwater and threaten the air quality, so minimal use is good for the environment.
Hopefully, the labels promising to be green will not be so vague and actually explain to us why this article of clothing is so green. But "pure organic cotton" is the famous phrase in the eco-fashion world. Some oil-based synthetic materials like nylon and polyester need fossil fuels to be created, so check the labels to see what the material is made of. Most likely, it will be a cotton-polyester mix, but knowing how these materials affect the environment is still important.
RECYCLE: Clean out your closets and, simultaneously, bring more clothes in. Vintage will always be in style, so the thrift shop is your friend. I love shopping and donating to thrift shops because I'm recycling and supporting others' recycling efforts. Although the recession-stricken public may not want to warm up to the idea of used clothes, it's not a dirty thing. Buy gently used stuff and wash it at home, and nobody will notice. In fact, you'll get more compliments since there were not thousands of the same thing hanging in the department store.
A lot goes into our clothes. At a young age, I paid attention to the labels to see where my clothes came from. I would wonder why seamstresses in fill-in-the-blank country would want to sew this particular shirt together. Yeah, for the money, but it seems random. So as we embark on replenishing our closets with what the fashion world has manipulated us to buy, we should think about where our attire comes from and how it affects the environment.
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