Millennial consumers bring considerable baggage with them when they prepare to purchase luxury clothing. Along with their tech savviness and a strong preference for personalized, brick-and-mortar shopping, younger clothing shoppers also show up with a healthy dose of morality… and they’re not alone. The ethically-bent clothing shopper is a growing category, and though it may be lead in bulk by Millennials, consumers across the board are all looking to do good while they look good.
Customers are excited about supporting a cause, helping struggling third-world economies, and feeding clothing companies that are working towards a smaller carbon footprint. As the market share for luxury apparel continues to grow, sustainable practices need to grow along with it if they want to appease their ethical customer base. Here’s how they’re doing it.
Living in a Material World
The textile industry has started taking a closer look at the materials that they use, and how the production of those materials affects the greater environment. For example, clothing companies have taken action to replace the organic-based adhesives and primers used in clothing construction to water-based materials, and have looked to source safer alternatives to substances that they believe should be restricted.
On the immaterial side of things, companies are monitoring the amount of energy and the source of the energy they use in clothing production, with a goal to lower the emissions produced by the entire clothing creation process.
But monitoring and restricting materials and energy, though essential to the success of the clothing industry, is only part of the solution. The textile industry is also changing the culture of semi-disposable clothing that has been created by fast-fashion trends.
Extending the Apparel Life Cycle
The growth of the luxury fashion industry has been attributed, at least in part, by an increasingly quick speed to market, as well as a decrease in the life cycle of each clothing piece. In other words, companies have been encouraging consumers to buy more and more often by increasing the number of fashion seasons, while also pushing them to get rid of the clothes they buy much sooner than necessary. To curb this wasteful practice, many luxury fashion companies are reevaluating their relationship with their customers and communities, as well as with the environment.
In this new ethical era, the garment industry is ready to market clothing as an investment in timeless quality, using responsibly-sourced materials to create pieces that can be worn for more than a week-long fashion season. Extending the lifetime of a single garment could minimize the pounds of textiles disposed of each year, one step at a time.
Following the Example of Kering
Just this year, the global luxury group, Kering, launched an open-access course in sustainable luxury fashion with the goal of educating and inspiring upcoming designers. Kering has always been at the forefront of the environmental movement, and now they’re sharing their wealth of knowledge and experience in eco-friendly fashion with the world.
Released along with the London College of Fashion, the digital course will make sure that the future of fashion design is as forward-thinking as they are. There is now no excuse for aspiring designers not to be well-versed in eco-fashion as they enter into the luxury textile field.