I recently bought a dress – which sounds really boring and isn’t how I normally start conversations- but I actually felt good about it.
I’ve always been conscious of my actions and their effects on the environment, so a few years ago, I started reading up on the fashion industry and how it relates to pollution, unfair labor, and carbon emissions. I even saw the documentary that this blog post is named after. I don’t want to spoil it, but it basically points out the darker side of the fashion industry and how we as a society of consumption have turned our back on ethical practices. Exploiting workers in developing countries, using materials that include animal byproducts, and throwing away all the material that we do not use has led to a massive problem. In order to combat this, we can recycle clothes, sell them elsewhere, swap clothes, buy secondhand…etc.
I cut down my shopping by more than half, but I’ve also tried to make each purchase an investment purchase also so I wouldn’t feel as bad about my closet.
So getting to the point of this post- my dress I wore today was this awesome peace silk (a vegan silk alternative – real silk involves killing silk worms) maxi dress with awesome slits and a great cut-out back. But my favorite part of the dress was its tag! The tag says that its made of recycled man-made fabrics.
Eco-friendly AND vegan fabric + my personal style? = heck yeah.
The dress is actually a much prettier maroon shade, but the lighting made it all wonky. Also yes, I blurred the photo.
The denim jacket was with me because I went to Barnes and Noble to read as I do almost every weekend, because Barnes and Noble is to me like Tiffany’s is to Holly Golightly, and Barnes and Noble happens to maintain a welcoming temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit. I ended up not wearing it though because I wasn’t about to let air conditioning rain on my eco-friendly fashion parade.
Bottom line: The True Cost (I think its still on Netflix) is definitely worth a watch- and so is ethical living.
xoxo
