Climate activist Greta Thunberg is appearing on the cover of the first issue of Vogue Scandinavia (photographed by Alexandrov Klum). In an Instagram post about the cover and the interview with the magazine, Thunberg spoke about her views about fashion and sustainability.
"The fashion industry is a huge contributor to the climate-and-ecological emergency, not to mention its impact on the countless workers and communities who are being exploited around the world in order for some to enjoy fast fashion that many treat as disposable(s)," she stated.
"Many are making it look as if the fashion industry are starting to take responsibility, by spending fantasy amounts on campaigns where they portray themselves as 'sustainable', 'ethical', 'green', 'climate neutral' and 'fair'. But let's be clear: This is almost never anything but pure greenwashing. You cannot mass produce fashion or consume 'sustainably' as the world is shaped today. That is one of the many reasons why we will need a system change."
Vogue Scandinavia's feature states that the last time Thunberg bought something new was three years ago and it was secondhand and that she mainly borrows things from people she knows. Most of us are probably not as virtuous as Thunberg when it comes to resisting to buy something new, but we all know that we are living in the middle of a climate crisis and we need to act as soon as possible.
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, released on Monday, highlights that unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach. Amid a global pandemic, this summer has seen record heatwaves (today Siracusa in Sicily, Italy, registered the highest temperature in European history, 48.8°C), raging wildfires and flooding, clear signs that the planet is suffering and we are irreversibly damaging it.
Change is necessary and the fashion industry will have to stop promising and act rather than, as Thunberg says, spend money on glamorous campaigns that do nothing but pretend action is being taken.
Yet change may come and is coming from all those independent designers who are working on sustainable projects. Icelandic product designer Valdís Steinarsdóttir, for example, has so far worked on experimental projects to reduce waste, coming up with material experiments based on recycling organic matter.
For her "Bioplastic Skin" project for example she tried to come up with a biodegradable packaging for meat made out of the skin of animals. Animal hides are often considered as a byproduct in the meat industry and Steinarsdóttir suggests that those of us who would like to consume meat, should do so with as little pollution to our planet as possible.
Yet plastic food packaging and films/cling wraps are often not recyclable as they may be too dirty and therefore contaminated. These types of plastics are thrown away and end up in a landfill or in the ocean.
In Steinarsdóttir's project animal hides are boiled to collect gelatine that then gets mixed with other substances to make the material obtained more flexible. The meat could be therefore wrapped in a packaging material made with the skin of the same animal, dramatically reducing waste. The packaging would also expire together with the products it contains.
Steinarsdóttir 's "Just Bones" focuses instead on developing a strong, natural material from animal bones. In this case the bones are ground to a powder in a process similar to that to make MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard). The bones are then boiled in sour fruit extract: the resulting material can be moulded, but once it dries it is very strong.
Both materials, made from slaughterhouse and farmers' waste products, dissolve in hot water (so the vessels and bowls made with this material are not waterproof) and biodegrade within weeks.
Fashion-wise Steinarsdóttir has experimented with another project entitled "Shape. Repeat" and inspired by the process of making clothes.
Quite a few designers have been trying to find ways to reduce fabric waste, developing zero-waste patterns, but Steinarsdóttir eliminated this phase by using a natural liquid material made with agar (a gelling agent derived from red algae), gelatine, or Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) mixed with water, natural cochineal dye derived from insects (for colour) and sugar alcohol (for flexibility), instead of fabric.
The material is molded into a two-dimensional shape (the mold can be modified to adjust sizes and shapes) and when it dries out, the article of clothing is mostly ready to use, it only needs a few minor finishing touches, but no seams or stitches to hold it together.
The most surprising thing about this experimental process is that you can melt the clothes made with this process, you can pour them back into the re-assembled mould and restart the process again, making a completely new garment with the same material or repairing the old one. In this way, excess scraps and materials are eliminated (you would still need the mould, though, to make the designs).
At the moment the project is still at the experimental stage and the designer has just created a few translucent cropped tops, but it would be good to see what would happen if a fashion designer would work with Steinarsdóttir and develop a proper collection.
The main aim of Valdís Steinarsdóttir's projects is to bring changes, but also open up a platform for discussion and debate about consumption and waste and a new path towards the creation of innovative, compostable and biodegradable materials.
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.