What Do You Predict or Wish For Ethical Fashion in 2010?

[Amisha Ghadiali]

image courtesy of www.ecouterre.com

Happy New Year from all at EFF!!

Online Fashion Magazine Ecouterre asked me to share my prediction for Eco-Fashion in 2010. I was enjoying a peaceful week off from the internet and so didn't read the e-mail in time, but it got me thinking...

WHAT DO YOU PREDICT OR WISH FOR ETHICAL FASHION IN 2010?

Please add you predictions as a comment to this blog post. Please put your name and job title/organisation on your post.

Read Ecouterre's 16 Eco-Fashion Predictions for 2010

Read Ecouterre's 10 Green Designers Share Their Wishes for 2010

My Prediction:

Amisha Ghadiali, Associate Director of Ethical Fashion Forum & Designer/Founder of Amisha Jewellery

The last decade showed us that we could have it all when it comes to fashion, and then took that away from us as our economy changed. I think that this has led to a higher consciousness of how people think about our planet and our choices. The rate of interest from the consumer in eco-fashion is growing, and this is being matched by standards and innovation in the industry.

More and more big retailers are showing an interest in going green, and improving their production methods. Eco-Sourcing and research is becoming easier and easier, allowing an increased number of new designers to enter the scene. This will be even more prevalent through this year.

I am looking forward to increased collaboration in the industry through the Ethical Fashion Forum between suppliers, designers, retailers and buyers.

I predict that by the end of 2010, everyone will have a few pieces of eco fashion in their wardrobes, whether it be upcycled, organic, fairly traded or animal friendly. I am also hoping to see a lot more Eco-Fashion walk up the red carpet...

[James McAloon]

James McAloon Co-founder Excentree Fashion Colelctions http://www.excentree.com

I see a market whereby all consumers, across socio economic and international boarders embrace organic, eco and ethical fashion. Through a combination of availability and positive media support 2010 we shall see the growth of a niche that will become the growth standard marker for similar niches within other industry sectors.

Let's Do it.

[Celeste Lilore]

Céleste Lilore, Co-Founder RESTORE CLOTHING

We predict that through education and carefully considered choices the design community will help people transition from Healthy Lifestyles to Healing Lifestyles.

[Jackie]

Happy New Year from Jackie at Sustainable Fashion Strategies.
Following the great coming together witnessed at the NICE summit in Copenhagen, I wish for industrials and NGOs to meet individual thinkers, pretend to be Greenpeace activists for a day, refresh their policies for a year... I hope we will all learn to work together in more truely collaborative ways, putting the common good first before the profit margin of one corporation. I predict the Chinese strength of seeing their business as part of a whole, thinking where they stand in a larger communal structure; how they impact on others and are dependent on others, this less nombrilistic way of "thinking Corporate" will spread to the rest of the world. I foresee this will lead to deeper chains of thought and better chains of collaboration. I sincerely hope we will look at the shoulders we all bear, praying that a more responsible awareness permeates the consumer. I hope we will consume less, desire less quantity of goods but more quality in our lifestyles.
I hope I will be a better buyer, and that many opportunities will arise this year where I can inspire others to think more about pollution, water consumption, social responsibility.
I hope my personal project creating an educational exchange between children in Greenwich and children in Ngong will teach us openness, tolerance and make us reflect on how to be in awe of humanity always and wary of the power of a full wallet.
I hope the Paris catwalk will learn to have a head, will learn to have eyes that can see beyond a famous facade, a flash of label, and look into the making of a product, looking at the trace of the hands, the fingertips touching and faceting the product.
I wish we will all think more, so as to make the next decade a revolutionary one!
Jackie

[Laura Chenoweth]

Hello from Atlantic Canada (halifax, nova scotia)
what comes to mind for ethical fashion in the coming year of 2010...is further combining of appealing design and conscious manufacturing. we being over here...i find things are slower in terms of consumer awareness and clothing being highlighted as something one needs to pay close attention to with regards to sustainable/ethical....as the shopping big box malls are so popular with the masses. BUT the good news is for those who wish to buy local and support local, with local organic FOOD moving into the mainstream more and more...the curiosity and interest in purchasing local designer labels is on the rise.
people are starting to connect their consumer habits with their clothing! and if they need to purchase something new (like new underwear, a new pair of jeans....as they have so many reclaimed jeans...they would like to buy a new fresh pair..they start to consider who are they supporting with the new jeans purchase?
i predict more and more being written about clothing, the life cycle of clothing such as a pair of jeans...linking the simple fact a crop such as cotton had to be grown, organic verses highly sprayed bt cotton, picked, processed, dyed, cut into pattern, sewn by a human being somewhere very far away and then sold at a store somewhere...
love what you over in the UK are doing, as your ongoing research, visionary pace of exposing fashion as something that needs to be responsible, is so necessary. may this coming 2010 year be of benefit.

[Kimm Sutter]

From a UK/US/EU perspective, I would hope to see a growing trend, as is happening in food consumption, of some resources/skills, staying local. There is such 'plan for obsolesence' culture in the UK (new clothes being put on the rails in shops before we've had a chance to wash the last purchase!), that the mass public is throwing away textiles at a rate quicker than they can get them down to a recycling point and, to boot, loosing it's sense of individuality. Could we have some local workshops where designers (could charge) to help the public to add something special to their clothes... be it style, a belt, a pinning, a shortening... people then feel more comfortable 'working' with designers, they spend less on rubbish (hopefully saving to spend on better quality, ethically sourced products), throw away less... reduce, reuse, recycle? Happy New Year!

[Sheila Melissa Palmer]

That being said...the real deal here people is that until there is a sense of fair trade, fair labor and money is spread out in an equally, Eco friendly, or whatever you choose to label it. way..we must all decide how this industry is to evolve into more than what we have, better than what thought, and collaborate with all the diversity out there and really believe we can make a difference.and Mark Batchelor.?..when has the ethical supple chains been fair?..when countries are still paying little money for people to sew your clothes or produce products that fat countries don't give a dam. about?.....let's all correct ourselves...before we become hypocrites too!

[Julius Musau Musyoki]

I predict that designers' initiatives relating to ethican fashion will be have more and more commercial value as the consumer public gets more educated and exposed to such works by the media and other initatives, especial in an era the world is responding to the effects of climate change. the public will no longer see some designers' ideas as "crazy works" but efforts to provide solutions, safety and wealth for the masses and generations to come. New products will come to the market and there will be increased collaboration between industry regulators, creative people, communities, traders and producers.
I am optimistic 2010 will be a great success for Ethical Fashion worldwide and EFF will be more and more interactive...bringing together designers and ethical fashion players in all cities and even smaller towns like Mombasa in Kenya. Its 2010, lets go go!

[Red Thread Fashion Show]

I dream of (and see it coming as a market-lead need) a global "ethical label" that will signal to consumer the responsible fashion products, and increase the marketability of ethical fashion towards conventional (Iwouldn't like to call it non-responsible) garments. Ethical Fashion will become for our wardrobe what organic food has become for nutrition : the healthy way for all of community's stakeholders!

[Jenny Barrett]

I predict that retailers and their suppliers will create a new business model in order to make ethical and eco products more affordable for the consumer, therefore increasing the demand. In order for this to happen, they will both have to take a cut in their profits!! As the mighty Tesco would say ... 'every little helps'.

[Mark Batchelor]

That collectively, with all the hard work by all the people on here do, that the 'ethical' approach permeates the whole supply chain - and becomes 'the norm', not a 'nice to have when we have some extra cash to hand'.