A Conversation I Had

I was just trading emails with green fashion design student, Ibada Wadud. She calls herself the "Ethical Fashion Missionary" and with good reason as she has worked extremely hard to educate herself in the field of sustainable fashion. Keep an eye on her as I have the feeling she will be going places. Check out her Ethical Fashion website to see what she is up to.

Anyway, I read one of her articles called "Grey is Green". It is an extremely thought provoking article that really touches on the current gap between the fashion industries' perception of green versus where we need to be. The gap is significant. In the article, she make the following point:

"While it is easy to leave design for creatives, environmental stewardship for activists, poverty reduction for economists, education for professors and the formation of global partnerships for diplomats…"

I found that statement to strike a cord with me and so I wrote back to Ibada with the following:

This is precisely how I feel but in a somewhat different context to what you were communicating in the article. Our unwillingness to be accountable is in my opinion the largest driving force leading us down our current unsustainable path. We shirk our duty, instead relying on "the experts" to take care of things. Experts like diplomats, corporations, consultants and advisors. In a capitalist society, the only thing the experts are taking care of is the financial bottom line. And although the advocates and activists are well meaning for the most part, they can do little w/o mainstream participation - real participation, not just dropping a donation in the box every now and then.

Now add consumerism to the mix along with our complacency and we have environmental melt down just around the corner. Very much an inevitability unless we find a way to change our mindset. And that is what it is all about - changing mindset. Casting off the consumerism treadmill would be a good start. Do away with this culture of disposability, trendiness (here today, gone tomorrow), low quality / low price (if it breaks in a few months, who cares, it was cheap to buy anyway), etc. It is not an easy treadmill to get off given that the "experts" work very hard to keep us on it!

Only when the main stream population fully embraces sustainable living do we have a chance to turn the boat around. And I mean sustainable living at all levels from the foods we eat to the cars we drive and the clothing we wear. That change in mindset is happening now and as it picks up steam, it will force a change in the mindset of government and corporations.

We literally make a statement with every purchase we make. That statement is either for change or indifferent. What statement are you making?


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