Month: May 2017

The Environmental Impact of Fashion

I have mostly focussed on the working conditions of those making our clothes and have not really addressed the environmental impact.   The Economist posted an article recently on the environmental impact of the fashion industry.  The industry is unsustainable but it appears consumers don’t even realize it.  According to the article “global clothing production doubled between 200 and 2014” … Read more →

The long unethical history of the fashion industry

With the invention of the sewing machine a new industry was born.  At it seems the fashion industry has been plagued with controversy. The Fiber Archive takes an interesting look at the history of the sewing machine and the fashion industry. “The deplorable labor conditions for 19th-century garment workers are well documented: men, women, and children of the lower classes… Read more →

The Broader Impact of the Fashion Industry

I came across an interesting CBC article suggesting that cheaper fashion affected the Canadian inflation rates. Yes cheaper fashion does benefit the Canadian economy, allows us to spend our hard earned money on other items and so on.  But what the article does not say is that someone pays.  There are not breakthroughs in clothing manufacturing that make it cheaper… Read more →

Transparent Fashion?

It looks like someone – Fashion Revolution –  has done some homework and released a study of the most transparent fashion companies. The index includes only big brands and those that volunteered to be included.  They sent questionnaires to the brands and received only 47% response rate (this is not surprising).  No brands scored above 50% on their rating scale –… Read more →