Will Shoppers Ever Really Care About Sustainability?
Sustainable fashion — a vision of clothing and accessories that don’t pollute the planet through greenhouse gas emissions, toxic chemicals, or waste — finally seems to have outgrown its hippie reputation and matured into a sexy, popular topic. “I do feel optimistic that in the last 10, 15 years there’s been a seismic shift … in the consumer’s interest and awareness of this issue,” Lily Cole, a model and socially conscious entrepreneur, said on a panel at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit on May 15 and 16. The panel was a gathering of industry insiders dedicated to figuring out how to clean up the mess the fashion industry has made of the planet. “Maybe I’m being naive, but it’s actually becoming sexier,” she said. Try telling that to the marketing departments of fashion brands who are flailing in this new, scary world of microfiber pollution and PETA exposés. This question of how to talk about sustainability to consumers hung heavy over the summit, with two panels devoted to the topic, plus questions for almost every other panel besides. Nobody, it seemed, had an answer, least of all summit co-sponsor H&M, which endured several thinly veiled jabs from panelists for its frequent sustainable marketing campaigns in the past five years. Read more at Racked.
