Fashion is a world of art, beauty and creativeness. Kings, queens and other members of royal families used to be the models for styles and trends in clothing, footwear, hairstyle and other voguish accessories. Today, it is the role of actors, actresses, professional models and other celebrities to set the trend. Designers used to employ the most appropriate and often expensive materials without regard for their impact on the earth’s ecology.
Current issues of climate change and global warming has changed the way things operate. Sustainable fashion has become hip. Some of the most popular organic materials used in today’s clothing and even for footwear are from bamboo, hemp, soy fabric and other modern breeds of fibre crops such as genetically modified cotton and organically grown cotton in their natural colouring. These do not easily fade in colour as those that are synthetically dyed. One drawback of organic cotton though is that the raw material is more expensive than less environment-friendly kinds. But they consume lesser natural resources such as water and are more resistant to pests.
Another approach to sustainable apparel is recycling. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic is coded number one in the recycling code indicated by the chasing arrows logo according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the US. Recycled PET makes for a good material for clothing. Recycling uses much lesser resources than raw materials of virgin sources while effectively reducing air, ground and water pollution.
We can do our share by going green in fashion.