What is Slow Fashion and Why is it so Important?

When Sage & Sunday was just an idea in our mind, we knew it had to be something beneficial for the planet as well as for us and our community. Having a fair bit of knowledge of the fashion industry and the history of the fashion industry, we needed to shift the way we would want to produce clothing. Hence the term 'slow fashion' has been a kind of base for us to work with when making the clothing we love to wear. Today we will dive into a brief history of the fashion industry and explore why the need to slow down production is so important. 

A brief history of fashion

Let's start at the beginning, where clothing and so called 'fashion' all began. Fashion has its roots in ancient civilisations where clothing was primarily functional, made from natural materials like animal hides and plant fibres. It gradually shifted into becoming more of a form of social status than something to keep you warm or cool. 

As time moved on, clothing became more of an art form, celebrating craftsmanship and elitism. A handful of designers would custom make garments for affluent members of their society, flaunting new and elegant designs. This brought about the exclusivity of fashion, and the desire to wear what celebrities wear. As this continued, the industrial revolution boosted the level of production in clothing. With the sewing machine having been invented, clothing and fashion became more of a commodity than anything. 

Fast forward to the present day, we have what is known as fast fashion. An ever growing fast paced world of designing and redesigning cheap clothing with cheap labour. This overflows into many wrong doings in our world like unsustainable materials and child labour. Fashion has become a prime example of the dangers of consumerism and is a major contribution towards climate change. The amount of water and other resources need to produce all the materials used for clothing is disheartening when crunching the numbers.

Introduction to Slow Fashion

As climate change becomes more apparent, and conscious movements grow in battling not only climate change, but other wrong doings of the world, a few members of the fashion world have made the shift to a more slower production line, limiting garments and using more ethically sourced materials. Thus the term slow fashion has been coined. Today was are going to take a plunge into why slow fashion is so important and highlight some key features that explain slow fashion.

Environmental impact

As fast fashion is extremely bad for the environment, slow fashion is here to flip that around. It is here to counter act the harsh impact fast fashion has by implementing eco friendly practices such as using alternative materials (like hemp) and reducing waste. Waste reduction can be seen in a few forms; some more obvious than others. Slow fashion wishes to not produce an excessive amount of items, thus there is a focus on quality and durability. Another form of waste reduction is the use of recycled and biodegradable materials. Fast fashion is a major force of filling up landfills with discarded clothing, thus slow fashion, as said above, makes less clothing and uses better materials to make the clothing.

Mindful consumption

Slow fashion also promotes a mindful approach towards consumerism. By holding the values it does, slow fashion gives the consumer the opportunity to buy wisely and mindfully - having known the effort and care thats has gone into producing the clothing they are buying. This relationship between producer and consumer is rather unique to consumerism, and wishes to push for a more mindful way of buying, not only fashion but any commodity. 

Within the field of mindful consumerism comes the behind the scenes workings of how slow fashion is being made. Ethical labour practices are in place, promoting better paid workers as well as better working conditions and an overall higher quality working environment. The history of fast fashion shows how harsh the labour practices were, and if speaking on a more energetic level, those harsh conditions play out in the quality and feeling of the clothing being bought. Therefore having better and happier working environments will hopefully promote a better and more thoughtful customer. 

Lastly, as we touched on at the very beginning, fashion created a sense of individuality and valuing craftsmanship. As this is seen in slow fashion, it feels a bit different to the elitist mindset of the 19th century fashion designers. The value of individual craftsmanship is high, although has a more conscious level to it. In a world of excessive products and things, when one is purchasing a handmade object, it becomes almost sentimental and valuable, but not only in a monetary way. What we are trying to achieve in this slow fashion world is creating meaningful items for us to wear and coming back to a sense of celebrating craftsmanship and giving back to the planet and our communities.