It hurts a bit, but we’re smarter afterwards: we debunk six truisms about green fashion and show how it can be done differently.
“You really can’t go wrong with vegan fashion”
Attention, Greenwashing Alert: Do you know how shoes made of PVC, which used to be simply referred to as artificial leather shoes, are now marketed? As hip vegan leather shoes! Because “vegan”, like “eco” or “sustainable”, is not a protected term, it is greenwashed here that the eco-wood beams bend. Because although artificial leather shoes, unlike leather shoes, do not require an animal to be skinned, just as a polyester blouse does not require the torture of silkworms, unlike a silk blouse, plastic products still clearly endanger the ecosystems and thus the animal habitats of this world. So if you want vegan leather, then it’s better made from pineapple, mushroom or cactus – there are so many great plant-based alternatives. And we like to make sure that it is not specially coated with plastic such as polyurethane (PU).
“Yes, ok, luxury fashion is not necessarily produced fairly, but still better than fast fashion”
As you may have guessed, we love to romanticize the idea of luxury goods as a precious art of tailoring, crafted in an extravagant Parisian atelier with high ceilings and ornate moldings. The high price is equated with high quality and high ethical production standards. And terms like “limited edition” sound like careful consumption and not mass-produced, right? Unfortunately, many luxury brands are pursuing the same intention as fast fashion brands: as much profit as possible. Often even the same factories, the same workers and the same cotton farmers are exploited for just as low wages and thus even higher margins. Or a fraction is produced locally, but the rest in Asia.
In 2018, for example, the luxury label Burberry came under fire because unsold luxury goods worth 32 million euros were burned. And only to maintain exclusivity and market value! The luxury group Richemont (Cartier, Montblanc) had destroyed designer watches worth almost half a billion euros for the same reason. The good thing: scandals like these are pushing more and more high fashion brands to take responsibility: Labels like Stella McCartney have been focusing on sustainability for a long time. Chloé recently became the first luxury brand to be awarded the sustainable B Corp certificate.
“At least it’s ‘made in Europe'”
Let’s face it, having the ‘made in Spain’ – or Italy or Portugal – tag dangling from the dress is a conscience-soothing thing, isn’t it? We believe that we made a reasonably conscious purchase decision, since the items come from Europe. The problem: The country in which the textiles are sewn together to make a dress is just one step of many. Even if it’s sewn together fairly in a Portuguese family business, the cotton may still come from exploited farmers in India, or the textiles may have been dyed with toxic chemicals in factories in China. The supply chains are complex and usually stretch across several continents. However, the “made in” label only lists the country in which – please note – the last production step takes place.
So how can we bring more transparency into fashion? Through digital product passes, for example. In cooperation with the Berlin start-up circular.fashion, fashion groups such as Otto and Zalando have been selling collections with firmly sewn QR codes for the first time since spring 2022, which provide information about the origin, materials and even recycling options. A first important step, precisely because it comes from large online shops.
“Sweatshops are a problem in Asian countries”
Unfortunately a clear no. Again and again there are reports that reveal that the people in individual production facilities in European countries or Turkey are even underpaid than those in the sweatshop countries we know of, such as Bangladesh, Myanmar or Ethiopia. You may already know that in countries such as Serbia, Croatia or Bulgaria, textile workers sometimes only get barely 25 percent of the subsistence level.
But even the so-called West doesn’t exactly cover itself in glory here. For example, the fast fashion giant Boohoo caused an exploitation scandal in Leicester, England, in 2020: the local workers there received the equivalent of only 4.60 euros per hour – and thus less than half the minimum wage in the country. A different phenomenon can be observed in Italy. While the “Made in Italy” label gives luxury and exclusivity to many leather goods, the Italian leather industry is unfortunately anything but fancy: Accidents are common in the factories and skin damage and other illnesses result from direct contact with toxic chemicals.
And in the land of unlimited opportunities? Things are going on just as cheerfully: In Los Angeles, for example, around 50,000 textile workers work – most of them are illegal immigrants from Mexico, Latin America or Asia who cannot take action against their employers without risking deportation.
phew What does all this mean for us? Even with seemingly local productions – if they are not certified – you cannot always rely on fair conditions.
“Recycled materials are always sustainable”
Let’s put it this way: it depends. Namely which textile we are talking about. Because while many remanufactured materials, such as recycled cotton, have relatively good environmental credentials (particularly because they are biodegradable), not all recycled textiles do. Let’s take recycled polyester as an example: Although, in contrast to virgin polyester, it saves up to 62 percent energy and 99 percent water, the recycling of polyester is only a drop in the ocean from an ecological point of view – the products made from it still release microfibers into the environment and according to a study by the journal “Environmental Science and Technology”, these microfibers cause an incredible 85 percent of the man-made garbage on our world’s coasts. So the environmental footprint of recycled polyester, no matter how much energy it saves, is still pretty bad.
Yes, but at least they don’t produce new polyester for it, right? Unfortunately, we have to be the spoilsports here as well: Because items of clothing made from recycled PEP cannot be endlessly reused and quickly reach a qualitative limit, brand new polyester is often mixed in to maintain the quality. Which doesn’t stop the fast fashion giants from tapping on the green-looking “made of recycled PET” label anyway. If then recycled polyester is mixed with recycled cotton, both sound super-green, but in the end they are super-unrecyclable – and therefore: garbage. phew
“This shirt is carbon neutral”
It would be so nice if it weren’t so untrue. Even the fair fashion giant Armedangels once said on its website: “Sorry to say: But every company causes CO2 emissions, no matter how sustainable and economical it is.” The same applies here: Words such as “climate neutral” and “climate friendly” are not protected by law. Of course, CO2 can be reduced through shorter transport routes and the switch to green electricity – all important steps! But we must not forget: New products always mean new CO2. And when companies are labeled climate-neutral, this is not sucked out of the atmosphere, but calculated and offset by reforestation projects or other climate-friendly investments. But here, too, questions arise: Which emissions are calculated at all? Is the climate impact of washing and drying the shirt also included? And the later disposal? That’s no longer the company’s responsibility, one might think. Yes, critics reply and demand that labels be liable for the CO2 footprint of their goods even if they have long been hanging in our closets.
In the end it is like this: Of course it is better to buy climate-neutral things than not to pay attention to them at all. And of course we won’t stop consuming – but it’s the how that counts. In other words: barter parties, second-hand shops, and in between, of course, it can also be a new, ideally long-lasting piece that we enjoy every season.