Sustainable Style

The earth is ours,
Yours and mine,
Ours to live on, ours to share,
Ours to guard, regard, and tend with gentle care --
The earth is ours, Yours and mine.
-Child’s poem

The Earth is our home and its inhabitants are our neighbors. Together we share the responsibility for its wellbeing. We must work together for a better future. There is no Planet B.
 
The choices we make as designers, manufacturers and consumers has an enormous impact on the lives of animals, humans and our environment. With the increase of pollution, deforestation, global warming, and resource depletion, we need to recognize that we are all interconnected to a larger environmental and social system and make decisions accordingly. We need fewer products ending up in landfills and production with questionable roots. We need more up-cycled, recycled, ethically produced, and fairly traded fashions. We need quality over quantity. We need design with a purpose. We need sustainable style.
 
Sustainability isn’t just a trend nor should it be the next generation’s job.I believe quality fashion should be created in a sustainable and responsible way. And that we can look great and make a positive impact at the same time. Our choices matter. Together, we can be part of the solution by choosing products created responsibly: 

Ethical Fashion
Any fashion business depends on the people behind it. Ethical fashion is an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacture of clothing which maximizes benefits to people and communities, ensuring we’re caring for those down the line whom many of our everyday choices affect.

Shop Across Africa for fair trade, handmade accessories.
Each purchase provides jobs, empowerment, and restores dignity.

Sustainability
As articulated in the report titled ‘Our Common Future’, from the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), what has now become a widely accepted definition of sustainability: “[to meet] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Environmental Impacts
Minimizing the environmental impact of all business operations, throughout the supply chain. Creating and acting upon opportunities to reduce environmental issues beyond the immediate operations- such as awareness raising, investment in and support of environmental initiatives. 
 

• Counter fast, cheap fashion and damaging patterns of fashion consumption
• Defend fair wages, working conditions and workers’ rights
• Support sustainable livelihood
• Use and develop eco-friendly fabrics and components
• Up-cycle and recycle to promote energy efficiency and reduce waste
• Develop and promote sustainability standards for fashion
• Resources and initiatives to raise awareness
• Protect animals, animal rights, and their habitats

Let’s share a commitment to products that are manufactured, produced and handled in a socially, environmentally and economically sustainable manner. After all, the world we live in is real, the lives that we touch are real, the people we work with are real, and so are the choices we make.