Sustainable fashion – only accessible to some

Stella McCartney hosted her Fall 2019 collection at Paris Fashion Week, with designs centered on her new “There She Grows” initiative that strives to protect endangered rain forests. The designs that were shown on the runway were cruelty-free and sustainable. (https://motif.org photo)

Sometimes it can feel as if concerns surrounding climate change is an upper-class problem, primarily because access to alternatives that would be better for the environment are more expensive and very often inaccessible to the masses.

In the case of luxury fashion, which is already inaccessible to many, with the industry wanting aspects of it to become even more green will potentially see traditional aspects of it dying out. A case in point is the Stockholm Fashion Week that was scheduled for this July, but which was recently cancelled by the Swedish Fashion Council.

To truly be sustainable and environmentally friendly is costly and tricky for fashion. It has the potential to slightly muzzle creative freedom on one hand as it will now be navigating itself within certain confines, whilst on the other hand losing the steady profitability of changing trends.