Eco Fashion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Eco Fashion - Essay Example The focus of the paper "Eco Fashion" is on chemical use and pesticides use in the processing of raw materials for garments. Vogue notes that the earliest references in the past three decades with regard to sustainable fashion and ecofashion were made as early as 1990. Then, the New York Times headlined a story with regard to an emergent green movement in the world of fashion, as well as a new environmental push in fashion observed in Vogue not long after that. It was also in 1990 that a pioneer of the ecofashion movement, Katharine Hamnett, spoke before the United Nations with regard to the anomalies in the way garments were produced. The talk was specifically about the negative ecological impacts of those production and marketing processes for fashion and garments. Terms such as acid rain and children of the earth, as they pertain to fashion, also came into vogue. These point to the deep historical roots of ecofashion in the fashion literature. Fast forward to the present, and there are whole movements in countries in support of ecofashion, and awareness of the large negative impacts of mainstream fashion processes, including the production processes for garments, has reached an all-time high. For instance, in Sweden, government assets that promote ecofashion cite statistics with regard to the massive negative environmental toll of producing mainstream fabrics. The chemical trails from the dyes, bleaches and prints that are used to produce garments are said to be on par with the production. of wastes in petrochemical plants. Meanwhile tons of these garments end up becoming part of landfills and cause long-term havoc to the environment because of the chemicals that they contain. They also take a long time to totally decompose. This awareness in turn has been used to provide a boost for the creation of new ecofashion companies all over the world. In Sweden for instance, the first ecogarment firms were founded in 2004 (Quinn 2007). Among organic sources, the lite rature mentions hemp, cotton and bamboo as prime examples of organic materials that have become representative sources of fabrics in ecofashion (Rauf and Vescia 2009, p. 27). Recycling materials and the use of so-called â€Å"low-impact dyes†, or dyes that have a minimal environmental footprint, are also among the key concepts, materials and technologies that are associated with ecofashion (Lee 2009; Styles 2012). On the other hand, new ecofashion trends emphasize how current ecofashion has veered away from the symbolisms and the values associated with past eco-fashion waves. These include those that were produced by the counter-culture hippie movement of the 60's and 70's. Emerging ecofashion trends include that ecofashion has come to be embraced by the biggest mainstream fashion designers and brands, from Armani to Oscar de la Renta. Moreover, the focus of the new wave is on the aesthetics of the person wearing the apparel (Winge 2008, pp. 511-524). Elsewhere in the literat ure, sustainability and ecofashion have also come to be associated with fair trade too. Are the cotton farmers paid well and fairly? Are the supply chain processes optimized to