by millennial pink feminist
September’s Vogue issue. It’s a big deal. I also hate it. It’s a bible of ads. But as this year’s cover donned the Queen of My Heart, Taylor Swift, I bought it.
The cover of the issue features a bold header that reads, “Radical chic fashion in value and sustainability.” What does this even mean? Is it radical to be sustainable because the fashion industry clearly isn’t?
I read a couple of Vogue articles on sustainability. One article discussed women who usually buy haute-couture starting to lean towards vintage haute-couture, not only because that shit is in, but also because it is more sustainable. Sustainable meaning we are recycling previously owned clothes and also not contributing to an industry that pumps mass amounts of energy-guzzling clothes into the marketplace.
This article quoted designers as noticing this trend and their push to create more vintage-looking clothes. So designers are noticing the desire for sustainability, so they are manufacturing more clothes that look vintage in the hopes people will buy these instead of actual vintage, sustainable pieces. The fuck. Another article spoke about making haute-couture more long-lasting, ie. more sustainable. Wait, so this $30,000 bag wasn’t a long-lasting investment, to begin with? Yikes.
So Vogue’s take on sustainability is confusing and hypocritical, to say the least. As the great journalist that I am, I needed to delve deeper into the evidence–or lack of evidence–before me. What does sustainability in luxury brands look like? Is it even possible???
I connected with a friend that works for a well-known luxury brand. We spoke about her role as a buyer and how the brand has developed various sustainability initiatives. These include, of course, creating long-lasting pieces that are regarded as treasured investments. Other programs include the commitment to mend any products that need to be fixed after sale, opening workspaces in communities whose economies are struggling as part of an effort to bring well-paying jobs to the area, and helping to create sustainable working conditions.
Unfortunately, despite these efforts, there is still shit tons of waste. Most luxury brands do not send clothes to other fashion re-sellers to avoid their high-class products ending up in the “wrong hands.” For this same reason, these types of brands shirk away from sales. So where do all unsold clothes go??? Landfills??? Destroyed by any means necessary? Yes, and yes. Great.
Instead of dumping unsold clothes from these luxury brands into the netherworld, luxury brands could consider refashioning the clothing into something else. Given the high-quality material of the pieces, designers can easily recycle these clothes into new fashionable garments. Hello, authentic new vintage (yes, we understand the paradox here, but we hope you follow) haute-couture!
When it comes to fast fashion, the waste is even worse. Production-wise it takes around 3,000 liters of water to create a cotton shirt. Imagine the number of resources needed to create a bejeweled pair of sweats. After buying fast fashion, people often toss these cheap clothes into landfills without a second thought. The chemical-filled clothes then enter landfills, whose toxic chemicals leak into the water we drink. Thank god people are thinking more about this (I see you, Millennials, and Gen Z), and places like Forever 21 are being snuffed out.
So what can we do to help the sustainable fashion movement in a real way? I spoke with sustainability goddess and Brooklyn entrepreneur Kaitlyn Murray, founder, and owner of the fashion line La Vie Après l’Amour. Murray’s business focuses on recycling clothes and re-styling them into chic pieces.
Murray grew up having an eye for fashion and a skill for sewing and crafting. Murray shared her stories from college about adding leather sleeves to an army jacket when that shit was chic and bleaching jeans in her dorm bathroom. This sort of hard labor sounds like my personal hell, but I’m grateful that we have fashion luminaries who are churning their bathroom brilliance into shiz we can buy.
Murray cat-walked her bespoke stylings around campus, and people noticed. Could she make these unique pieces for them? These requests continued long after Murray graduated from college. To meet the growing demand for her tailored clothes (from annoying people who can’t sew for shit), Murray launched La Vie Après l’Amour, a title that denotes her belief in giving life to preloved clothes. Murray began La Vie Après l’Amour by thrifting pieces to tailor, but this was time-intensive. Also, why pay when so many friends have stuff they want to give away? After hosting an event for friends to drop off all their clothes—old, stained, tarnished, out of trend—the whole lot, Murray had a stockpile of inventory to refurbish. She still has heaps of clothes from the first event, which happened more than two years ago.
Despite being built from a hodgepodge of clothes emanating from the dark corners of her friends’ closets, Murray’s collection has a cohesive identity. La Vie Après l’Amour, features simple items that won’t go out of style. For example, she works with a lot of men’s button-downs, covering up tarnishes with embroidering, adding large pockets, and making some off-the-shoulder. Her clothes are timeless, never trendy. She also hosts chic stoop parties from her apartment in Bedstuy to sell her clothes. I went to one recently, and it was nothing less than fabulous BK-chic. In other words, Murray’s business has proved to be stylish, cost-effective, and highly sustainable. Hey Vogue! Look here!
In the New Year, Murray will be implementing a click-to-pay feature on her company’s Instagram page @apres.la.vie. She is also currently applying for grant money to expand her business. Her eventual goal is to open a brick-and-mortar shop that is a mixed purposed venue—clothes, coffee, sewing lessons, socializing, etc.
Below are some easy tips for our less talented Degenerates to follow to lead their own sustainably chic lives:
- Buying second-hand – there are more than enough clothes out there already to dress everyone. This will help lead to a decrease in clothing production and nasty fast fashion.
- Buying cool designer thrift keeps you from entering the likes of Ann Taylor and Zara
- Becoming more aware of what is going on with sustainability in fashion- Follow Fashion Revolution – @Fash_Rev on Instagram – Who made my clothes campaign?
- Contacting your favorite companies directly to demand that they be better and have a sustainable supply chain
- Clothing swaps with friends
- Donate clothes to secondhand shops
In summary, it’s trash to buy new. It’s expensive and often not the best quality (unless it’s, like, super expensive). Buy designer thrift or just thrift. Great quality is sustainable. The next girl I encounter who says, “I got this at Zara…” Grr.