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The fashion industry has a disastrous impact on the environment. In fact, it is the second largest polluter in the world, just after the oil industry. And the environmental damage is increasing as the industry grows.
However, there are solutions and alternatives to mitigate these problems. The first step lies in building awareness and willingness to change.
Source: Gigie Cruz-Sy / Greenpeace
FASHION & WATER POLLUTION
In most of the countries in which garments are produced, untreated toxic wastewaters from textiles factories are dumped directly into the rivers.
Wastewater contains toxic substances such as lead, mercury, and arsenic, among others. These are extremely harmful for the aquatic life and the health of the millions people living by those rivers banks. The contamination also reaches the sea and eventually spreads around the globe.
Another major source of water contamination is the use of fertilizers for cotton production, which heavily pollutes runoff waters and evaporation waters.
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
- Choose clothes made in countries with stricter environmental regulations for factories (EU, Canada, US…).
- Choose organic fibers and natural fibers that do not require chemicals to be produced.
FASHION & WATER CONSUMPTION
The fashion industry is a major water consumer.
Huge quantity of fresh water are used for the dyeing and finishing process for all of our clothes. As reference, it can take up to 200 tons of fresh water per ton of dyed fabric.
Also, cotton needs A LOT of water to grow (and heat), but is usually cultivated in warm and dry areas. Up to 20,000 liters of water are needed to produce just 1kg of cotton. This generates tremendous pressure on this precious resource, already scarce, and has dramatic ecological consequences such as the desertification of the Aral Sea, where cotton production has entirely drained the water (see pictures above).
“85 % of the daily needs in water of the entire population of India would be covered by the water used to grow cotton in the country.
100 million people in India do not have access to drinking water.
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
- Choose fibers with low water consumption such as linen, recycled fibers, etc
Cora Ball/Rozalia Project
FASHION & MICROFIBERS IN OUR OCEANS
Every time we wash a synthetic garment(polyester,nylon, etc), about 1,900 individual microfibers are released into the water, making their way into our oceans. Scientists have discovered that small aquatic organisms ingest those microfibers. These are then eaten by small fish which are later eaten by bigger fish, introducing plastic in our food chain.
The True Cost Movie
FASHION & WASTE ACCUMULATION
Clothing has clearly become disposable. As a result, we generate more and more textile waste. A family in the western world throws away an average of 30 kg of clothing each year. Only 15% is recycled or donated, and the rest goes directly to the landfill or is incinerated.
Synthetic fibers, such as polyester, are plastic fibers, therefore non-biodegradable and can take up to 200 years to decompose. Synthetic fibers are used in 72% of our clothing.
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
The True Cost Movie
FASHION & CHEMICALS
Chemicals are one of the main components in our clothes.
They are used during fiber production, dyeing, bleaching, and wet processing of each of our garments.
The heavy use of chemicals in cotton farming is causing diseases and premature death among cotton farmers, along with massive freshwater and ocean water pollution and soil degradation.
Some of these substances are also harmful to the consumer (see section about toxicity).
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
- Choose organic fibers.
- Choose sustainable brands.
- Always wash new clothes before using them for the first time.
- Look for garments with certification label controlling chemical content such as OEKO-TEX®, GOTS, or BLUESIGN®.
FASHION & GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
The apparel industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions.
The global fashion industry is generating a lot of greenhouse gases due to the energy used during its production, manufacturing, and transportation of the millions garments purchased each year.
Synthetic fibers (polyester, acrylic, nylon, etc.), used in the majority of our clothes, are made from fossil fuel, making production much more energy-intensive than with natural fibers.
Most of our clothes are produced in China, Bangladesh, or India, countries essentially powered by coal. This is the dirtiest type of energy in terms of carbon emissions.
“Cheap synthetic fibers also emit gases like N2O, which is 300 times more damaging than CO2.
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
- Choose natural fibers.
- Buy less, buy better quality, mend clothes.
- Buy clothes made in countries powered by more renewable energy.
FASHION & SOIL DEGRADATION
The soil is a fundamental element of our ecosystem. We need healthy soil for food production but also to absorb CO2. The massive, global degradation of soil is one of the main environmental issues our planet is currently facing. It presents a major threat to global food security and also contributes to global warming.
The fashion industry plays a major part in degrading soil in different ways: overgrazing of pasturesthrough cashmere goats and sheep raised for their wool; degradation of the soil due to massive use of chemicals to grow cotton; deforestation caused by wood-based fibers like rayon.
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
- Choose fibers friendly to the soil.
FASHION & RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION
Every year, thousands of hectares of endangered and ancient forests are cut down and replaced by plantations of trees used to make wood-based fabrics such as rayon, viscose, and modal.
This loss of forests is threatening the ecosystem and indigenous communities, as in Indonesia where large-scale deforestation of the rainforests has taken place over the past decade.
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
- Choose Lyocell/Tencel® instead of rayon, modal or viscose.
FILA player Ashleigh Barty could gain WTA World #1 ranking this week in the Cincinnati Masters. Photo supplied.
Author: Trudi du Toit0 Comments
Since the days that Bjorn Borg and Boris Becker set hearts racing on and off the tennis courts, FILA and tennis clothing and footwear have been a close match. This partnership continues today, especially on the women’s circuit, with several Top 30 ranked players wearing FILA in major tournaments across the world.
FILA’s Ashleigh Barty, Australian #1 Women’s Singles player, is the #1 seeded player at the 2019 Western & Southern Open, which starts today (12th August) in Cincinnati. Should she reach the semi-final, she could regain her World #1 ranking, recently lost to Naomi Osaka in Montreal. Barty moved to the World #2 spot after winning her maiden Grand Slam singles title at the French Open this year and her performance this week could earn her the top spot in the forthcoming US Open in New York (starting August 26th), the final Grand Slam event of the year.
In Paris Barty wore the special-edition P.L. Rolando Collection, which is a modern version of FILA’s first creative director Pierluigi Rolando’s archival sketches dating back to the early 2000s.
Another FILA WTA player, Karolina Pliskova from the Czech Republic, is current ranked #3 in the world as well as in Cincinnati and could also be a contender for the World #1 spot if she reaches the semi-finals. She is a former #1 world ranked player.
Last year’s winner in Cincinnati, Kiki Bertens, recently switched her clothing and footwear sponsor from Mizuno to FILA. The Netherlands champion is ranked #5 at the tournament this year.
FILA’s Timea Babos in June won her second Grand Slam title of the year at the French Open, which earned her the #2 WTA World doubles ranking. For most of 2018 she was ranked #1 in World doubles after she and her partner Kristina Mladenovic started the year with a victory at the Australian Open.
Other women in the WTA Top 100 rankings who wear FILA are Kateryna Kozlova, Sofia Kenin, Margarita Gasparyan, Laura Siegemund and Alison Van Uytvanck.
Pic: CGtrader
CGTrader and apparel manufacturing firm, IKAR, are set to transform traditional fashion visualisation using 2D images and paper catalogues into immersive 3D and AR customer experiences for its intimate apparel and activewear lines. CGTrader and Magic Leap, a spatial computing platform, will explore interactive spatial 3D applications for garments consumers.
CGTrader will provide photorealistic 3D models to IKAR via the new all-inclusive, scalable CGTrader ARsenal augmented reality solution. IKAR designs and manufactures seamless garments that can be found in retail stores such as American Eagle, Target, Ross, and Nordstrom. Moving from a flat 2D presentation to 3D and AR experiences for its fashion industry customers provides numerous advantages. It allows IKAR to depict seamless apparel on 3D fashion models without incurring the cost or time of traditional photo-shoots. It will also help them to present complete digital 3D fashion collections, including all designs, colours, styles, and combinations, without having to invest in physically producing individual garment samples. Bringing the digital world seamlessly into the physical also will allow IKAR to create immersive, engaging, and sales-inducing customer experiences – including virtual fashion shows – in any environment, such as trade shows, sales meetings, in-store, and online, according to a press release by CGTrader.
To achieve this, IKAR will use CGTrader’s recently-launched AR solution, CGTrader ARsenal, which provides a breakthrough in the way retailers plan, implement and finance 3D product visualisation. As the first complete, easy-to-deploy AR solution for this industry, CGTrader ARsenal includes all the capabilities and services required to quickly and efficiently integrate AR for online stores, enabling shoppers to experience products in an immersive, interactive environment.
Looking forward, CGTrader is working with Magic Leap to explore how its advanced spatial computing technology can offer IKAR the opportunity to develop end-of-aisle and other advanced immersive customer experiences. Both companies will continue to explore how this application can be extended to at-home shoppers and take interaction with AR models to the next level. With Magic Leap Lightwear devices, consumers would have the ability to visualise 3D fashion models wearing garment collections at-home and be able to interact with the model by changing the desired colour, shape, or style of the garment via AR menu choices.
“For us, CGTrader ARsenal provides an immediate solution for a more elevated mean to present our products, while eliminating the need to invest in expensive 3D software, internal training, project management, other internal resources or upfront investments for 3D implementation. We can cost-effectively outsource the 3D modelling and 3D viewing processes so we can focus on what we do best. This is transforming our whole approach to the way we think about pre-sales and fashion product presentations,” Roi Ballin, business development manager at IKAR said. (GK)
Why do all e-commerce sites display products in grids—tiny thumbnails on a white background? Three years ago Neha Singh was convinced she could improve the online shopping experience, and she left a job as Director of Product at Vogue.com—where she was responsible for building Vogue Runway’s fashion show interface as well as the VR app—to do it.
Singh, an MIT Computer Science alum, launched Obsess in mid-2017, as a B-to-B service, custom-making immersive shopping environments for the likes of Tommy Hilfiger and Levi’s. Today, she and her team of seven are powering up their new consumer offering, ShopObsess.co, an online destination with 19 unique virtual stores across which approximately 700 items are for sale (the site operates on an affiliate model not unlike Farfetch). In the mix are shops dedicated to the tie-dye trend, to denim, to yoga, and to wellness, a party boutique, and influencer-curated stores. Prices go from high to low—luxury to affordable—and Instagram brands with values important to millennials and Gen Z, like sustainability and diversity, are emphasized. “You can follow these brands individually, but it’s hard to get them all in one place,” says Singh. Just don’t go looking for a search function; the site doesn’t have one. “It’s really about discovery.”
In that sense, ShopObsess.co recreates the IRL boutique experience, but it does brick-and-mortar one better: “We don’t have to be limited by what’s possible in real life,” says Singh, as she swipes left and right on the site’s CGI-enabled “underwater” store, which showcases coral-colored clothes from Altuzarra, Zimmermann, and Maje alongside handbags by Chanel and Louis Vuitton as fish swim by in the aquarium that surrounds the shopping space. “It’s a whole different way of looking at the e-commerce interface—intuitive.”
It beats a thumbnail grid, sure, but the implications for the future of shopping—and fashion—are profound. When 5G launches, says Singh, “the [Obsess] experience will become even more interactive, more photorealistic, and faster to load.” Eventually, too, the site will be dynamically merchandised, meaning that it will learn your preferences, and the items that you see will be targeted to your tastes. And that’s just for starters. “In the long term future of Augmented Reality glasses—and later contact lenses—our eye view will become our screen,” she explains. “Digital information and objects will often be indistinguishable from physical objects, and a new layer of digital fashion will emerge where items won’t need to be manufactured physically, but will be ‘worn’ in this AR realm virtually.”
For the time being, Singh says she’ll judge Obsess a success “when we get users engaged with the new format—if they love discovering products in this way and they have fun while shopping here. Our mission is to make shopping fun again.”
The ESA and Barbie collaboration will highlight the achievements of Samantha Cristoforetti, who is the only active female astronaut in Europe
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To celebrate the collaboration, Ms Cristofortti has also been presented with a one-of-a-kind Barbie doll, depicting her in her spacesuit (Image: ESA/Mattel)
In the hopes of encouraging more girls to become the next generation of astronauts, engineers and space scientists, the European Space Agency has joined forces with Barbie.
The rather unexpected collaboration will highlight the achievements of Samantha Cristoforetti, who is the only active female astronaut in Europe.
Isabel Ferrer, European Director of Marketing for Barbie, said: “We are proud to launch this collaboration with the ESA with a clear goal: to inspire girls to become the next generation of astronauts, engineers and space scientists.
Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti with her Barbie doll (Image: ESA/Mattel)
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“Barbie has always shown girls that they can be anything, giving them the opportunity to interpret different roles through play and embark on countless number of careers encouraging imagination and self-expression.
“We know how important it is for girls to have role models and this new ESA collaboration helps us to take this to an astronomical new level.”
The collaboration aims to inspire more girls to become astronauts (Image: ESA/Mattel)
To celebrate the collaboration, Ms Cristofortti has also been presented with a one-of-a-kind Barbie doll, depicting her in her spacesuit (Image: ESA/Mattel)
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To kick off the collaboration, a series of motivational videos will be released, in which Ms Cristoforetti will show girls from the UK, Germany, France and Italy around the ESA European Astronaut centre in Cologne.
There will also be kids-targeted content on Barbie’s YouTube blogger channel, highlighting Ms Cristoforetti’s achievements.
Ersilia Vaudo-Scarpetta, Chief Diversity Officer for ESA, said: “The European Space Agency is strongly engaged in promoting girls’ interest in STEM subjects and space careers in particular, as we need a diversity of talents to imagine and enable the future in space.
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“We are therefore proud to launch ESA’s collaboration with Barbie, highlighting inspiring role models as the astronauts and encouraging girls to believe in themselves, look at the sky and dream high.”
To celebrate the collaboration, Ms Cristofortti has also been presented with a one-of-a-kind Barbie doll, depicting her in her spacesuit.
While the doll sadly isn’t available to buy, the collaboration has been described as ‘long-term’, suggesting an ESA Barbie doll could be in the works in the near future.
Italian underwear, clothing and swimwear brand, Yamamay, has opened the doors to its first store in South Africa. Located at Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in Pretoria, the flagship store stocks the international brand’s trendy range of underwear, corsetry, swimwear, nightwear, clothing and accessories.
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Established in 2001, Yamamay boasts a network of over 700 stores worldwide. Spanish supermodel, Georgina Rodriguez, was recently signed on as its ambassador.
The new store launched with the latest lingerie and sleepwear from Yamamay’s spring/summer 2019 collection, as well as the CR7 Underwear Collection by Cristiano Ronaldo.
“We are thrilled to introduce Yamamay’s latest underwear and sleepwear collections to South African men and women, just in time for spring,” says John Kainga at Yamamay South Africa. “The arrival of Yamamay in SA brings local consumers closer to the global fashion scene, introducing a brand that is the perfect fit for South Africa’s most discerning shoppers who enjoy treating themselves to quality fashion from around the world.”
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In addition to the Menlyn Mall store, Yamamay plans to open its second flagship store at Cresta Shopping Centre in November this year, as well as another two stores at Sandton City in Johannesburg and the Pavilion in Durban respectively that are expected to open before the end of 2020.
Gianluigi Cimmino, CEO Pianoforte Holding (which owns the Yamamay brand), comments: “I’m very proud of this new opening in Pretoria. South Africa has long been a key destination for the world’s most sought-after fashion brands, and we believe that Yamamay’s introduction to the South African market is not only a significant step for the brand’s international footprint, but also brings South African consumers the calibre of international fashion they deserve.”