The MSU College of Natural Science hosted a Sustainability in Fashion and Textiles panel on Thursday in the STEM Teaching and Learning Facility.
The panel discussed how consumers can make informed decisions when purchasing clothing; greenwashing; the rise of fast fashion and thrifting; and the exploitation of workers within the fashion industry. This program was held conjunction with the 1.5° Celsius exhibition in MSU Museum.
The panel was moderated by MSU Museum curator of textiles and social justice Mary Worral. The panelists included fashion and design theory professor Theresa Winge, Project Cece co-founder Noor Veenhoven and VIM Magazine Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Director Caroline Miota.
Winge has worked in the fashion industry and noticed ethical problems occuring during the 80s and 90s that have continued into today, she said. Now, she teaches a program at MSU focusing on ethical fashion and informing students on what methods and materials are the most sustainable when making clothing.
Vanhooven is the co-founder of Project Cece – a search engine for fair and sustainable fashion. The platform aims to make sustainable products accessible to all.
When it comes to sustainability, Vanhooven believes switching the materials is not the only way for a company to become more environmentally-friendly. They also must ensure nobody in their supply chain is exploited, she said.
When it comes to fashion sustainability, some are more concerned about the environment while others care more about working conditions or animal cruelty. Vanhooven said these are all subsets of each other.
How customers can distinguish if a company is actually sustainable, or just claims to be for marketing purposes, was a large talking point during the panel.
“I love fashion and love the fashion industry, but sometimes they are more motivated by dollars than they are the values of their customers,” Winge said.
This brought up the concept of “greenwashing”, or when an organization or company pretends their products are more environmentally-friendly than they actually are to attract customers.
This led into a larger issue plaguing the sustainable fashion community: fast fashion. Fast fashion employs unsustainable practices to quickly produce clothing for each new trend, Winge said.
“Fast fashion really capitalizes on that system that is already in place and it rushes through secure materials and secure security,” Winge said. “It doesn’t usually care about human labor, whether that’s children, minorities, women or whether they are being treated fairly. The environment is no concern, nothing is a concern, except for making that fashion quickly and getting it to new stores.”
Fast fashion items are also made with inexpensive materials, causing them not last as long, so consumers quickly put them to waste.
Miota said apps like TikTok feed into this issue, as trends tend to quickly come and go on the app, further promoting the concept of fast fashion. The clothing company Shein, is a prime example, she said. Shein is known for its abundance of clothing options and remains a TikTok fashion trend staple despite it being a fast fashion brand.
“While there is a very large movement on the internet, especially for the web people, to move away from machines and fast fashion, it’s definitely a double edged sword because the internet is also fueling the issue with brands like Shein,” Miota said.
Panelists also acknowledged the trendiness of secondhand clothing and thrifting. Although more sustainable, the panelists pointed out certain aspects consumers should consider — including buying fast fashion brand second hand because it can perpetuate a cycle of buying and selling unsustainable clothing.
Winge also spoke on the exploitation of minority women in the fashion industry.
“Women and minority women in particular are extremely exploited in the manufacturing of the materials and even the actual fashion products in the end,” Winge said.
Winge said clothing companies tend to move their factories to where it is cheapest to produce, and that typically means looser regulations or even no regulations at all.
Since women typically work in these factories, Winge said they are oftentimes unknowingly exposed to chemicals and fumes from the fabric that can affect their fertility, preventing them from getting pregnant and even causing a variety of health issues.
Winge also said unsustainable clothing companies are polluting the communities that these workers live in, further impacting them outside of the workplace.
When it comes to low prices, Vanhooven said, if it seems too good to be true, it most likely is. There’s a hidden cost when it comes to buying cheap clothing, she said, and the higher prices are worth it to avoid exploitation.
“I think the important part is that we all have to do our part and we all have to keep fighting for this to become more sustainable,” Vanhooven said. “Everybody can do that in their own way with their own values, but everyday the fight is most important.”
