Meet the Entrepreneurs Who Are Trying to Save Our Planet With Sustainable Fashion Let's aim to make green gorgeously fashionable

Modern development and lifestyle have its power of alluring everyone but with advancements comes irreversible consequences. Water scarcity, pollution, global warming, climate change are already at peak, the environment is suffering and each one of us is to be blamed for it.

While we can't make all the major changes, we can surely be conscious of some choices we make. And one of them is the way we dress. Yes, it's true, fashion is an essential part of our lives. That is the reason why the industry generates annual revenue of US$12,546 million this year. The number is huge, so one can imagine how this cost is directly impacting the environment. Every clothing item that is produced uses chemical for its production. From water, land, air to everything in between gets affected. The situation is going out of our hands and the situation is getting adverse.

To be honest, we love fashion but it is considered to be one of the most damaging industries when it comes to harming the environment. What's the solution? Going for sustainable and eco-friendly clothing options. for those who are unfamiliar with this concept, sustainable fashion is a movement and process of bringing a change to fashion style and system with an aim to build greater ecological integrity and social justice.

The aim has to be simple to work towards a green planet and several entrepreneurs have created brands of ethical clothing. Entrepreneur India spoke to some entrepreneurs who are trying to bring a change and change the fashion industry.

Source: Pexel

A Drastic Change In View:

The way we have been playing around with nature, one doesn't need to do a PhD do tell you the consequences we are going to face in the future. The condition around the globe is already raising an alarming concern and it is time entrepreneurs take this as a grave concern.

Pooja Khanna, Founder, Venn, a sustainable clothing brand came across studies and articles about pollution (including an increase in ocean plastic) from apparel industry and how unknowingly each of us is drastically contributing to it, that changed the way she views things.

"Being a follower of fashion trends and always having a big wardrobe, this was an eye-opener for me. This also encouraged me to start my sustainable fashion brand named Venn," she said.

Changing Brand Ideology :

At times one realization can change your whole outlook toward the making of your brand. And that is what happened with Designer Purvi Doshi, whose label initially used to work with silk. But when she got to know the cruelty towards silkworms for a metre of silk, there came a major shift in her brand ideology and then began the initial journey of sustainability.

"I was on the lookout for fabrics which were made from natural fibres to stop cruelty against animals and came across handspun and handwoven Indian organic fabric. The next step was reducing pollution and the task was to find fabric suppliers who were dealing in natural-dyed fabrics. This process took time and eventually the victory was in creating a change in the supply chain where the fabric suppliers started looking for naturally dyed fabrics with a conviction of joining hands with a brand trying to reduce pollution," she said.

It seemed like a big achievement then and with these two successes in her kitty, the next step was to become a zero-waste brand and hence they started to recycle and upcycle waste into tags, bags, cards, and other studio stationery.

Making Some Vital & Responsible Choice:

Sustainable fashion is about responsible choices. All strategies promoting environmentally, socially and ethically conscious production and consumption are important steps towards a more sustainable industry.

Explaining the process, Malini Chawla, Mompreneur and COO Ravissant said, "From a consumer and producer perspective, the ideal path on this route would be to manufacture custom-made, high quality and timeless design, in an environmentally friendly manner. Thereafter, it should be used long and well through good care, perhaps redesign later to be reused. Handed into a secondhand shop when not desired or donated. When the garment is completely worn out, deposit at points where textile material is recycled. Ideally, renting, borrowing or secondhand purchase should be encouraged. But in reality, this is not the case yet."

Chawla believes that as designers and thought leaders, we should embrace the use of organic fabrics and practice recycling techniques and strategies to reduce wastage from garments. And they do follow similar philosophy at their brand.

"Our philosophy has been some of these practices since inception - bespoke and limited collection; use of pure natural fabrics; recycling where possible," added Chawla.

When we talk about sustainable fashion, it is still at the initial stage but some responsible entrepreneurs are trying to make a difference. If they can, so can you!