Rest Assured: You Don’t Always have to be Sustainable
Maya Alexander
Is fashion really becoming more sustainable, or is it just another trend—an expensive one? Brands like Reformation produce clothing items that follow the latest trends while claiming to be sustainable at the same time—a double win, right? Social media is flooded with messages encouraging us—or sometimes, guilting us—to be sustainable, anyway. To convince us, we’re given images of ultra-chic or even simply cozy, so-called sustainable clothing that are irresistibly entrancing. The only catch is that you’ll easily find yourself paying $100 for a white tee shirt.
Maybe preaching sustainability is merely a way to be “politically correct.” Our Instagram feeds are flooded with infographics policing us on how we need to be more sustainable if we want to combat climate change. We’re guilted into believing that we’re in an all or nothing situation—that if we don’t always shop sustainably, we’re actively harming the environment. There’s a legitimate fear that we could even be “canceled” and accused that we don’t support the idea of sustainable fashion. As it goes for many progressive movements, activists grab onto one broad issue that they likely do not know the technicalities of and stand by it, with no exceptions.
But what does sustainability actually mean? Do the very creators of these infographics or Tik Tok activism videos even understand?
Sustainable fashion is an umbrella term for clothes that are created and consumed to be, well, sustained in order to protect the environment. Beyond that, you cannot entirely pin down what it means—when you’re browsing at a store that claims to be sustainable, how exactly are they combatting the imminent issue? Are they somehow cutting down on CO2 emissions; are they providing safe working conditions and a fair wage for workers? Consumers are often guilted into buying something, almost always ridiculously more expensive, that isn’t clearly directly helping the environment. The burden is put on them to unpack the brand’s vague sustainable claims.
Of course, this is not to say that a consumer is unjustified to feel good about themselves when buying something labeled sustainable—for all they know, they are directly making a difference. To truly tackle the issue, it’s time to start holding corporations almost fully accountable for their vague or non-existent sustainability efforts, not consumers.
How are we, as consumers, expected to always shop sustainably if we still have the easiest, most affordable access to fast fashion brands such as Zara, Urban Outfitters, PacSun, and so on? Trends are ever changing, and such brands keep up. It can take time and effort to sort through second-hand stores, whether that be online or in-person. Though a sustainable store such as Reformation is only a click away online, maybe we don’t always want to pay that much. To be clear, this is not to say that I haven’t shopped at stores like Reformation in the past and happily walk around with their tote bags. Let's be honest: while visiting their website for the purpose of this article, I was immediately captivated by a knit dress and subconsciously took note of it for the holiday season. So this article is not about “canceling” shops like this. It is, however, to say that you can buy into brands that tag themselves as sustainable—whether you’re shopping there because you’re trying to be sustainable or simply just happen to like their clothes—while also allowing yourself to shop cheaper for basic items. There should not be one clear cut path applied to all consumers.
Collage by Isla Mitchell & Maya Alexander
Not only do trends change, but bodies do, too. When we buy expensive items, we often tell ourselves that it needs to be worth it and that we’ll wear them forever—but what happens if we gain or lose weight and that item no longer fits? We’d be burdened with shame that we wasted money. Sustainability further ingrains toxic relationships with weight into an already skinny, undiverse fashion realm. Though brands attempt to take steps to make their models more diverse, at the end of the day, we still see an overwhelming amount of tall, skinny, and often white women. While there is some POC representation on, again, Reformation’s website, the models are still overwhelmingly slim. Although such brands offer larger sizes, we rarely see them on the models, enforcing an idea that, “yes, we’re sort of ‘allowed’ to be bigger, but not really.”
Inevitably, you’d need to buy new clothes to curate a new wardrobe in accordance with this change. Sometimes, we have to buy more, and that can’t be avoided and must be accepted. Gaining, losing weight, or not, we have to buy new socks and underwear; oftentimes they are purely “essentials” that are more convenient to buy in cheap bulk. We can’t assume that because people shop this way, they do not care about climate change.
Maybe, however, we can look at the instances where we don’t have to buy more. Let's say you have five white tank tops that vary only slightly—if you see another one at Urban Outfitters, for example, perhaps that is a moment where you can stop and make at least an ounce of change. You probably don’t need a sixth white tank top, no matter how much you can justify its difference from the others. If you already have an abundance of a certain type of garment, maybe it’s better to wait to stumble upon a second-hand option, that could likely be cheaper, down the line. Owning one-of-a-kind items and being able to say that you know nobody else has the same item is a rewarding feeling anyway!
The takeaway is that we are riddled with overgeneral pressures to be sustainable if we want to contribute to a progressive society, that it is an all or nothing situation. At the end of the day we—particularly as part of Generation Z—live in a world that has a myriad of pre-existing factors that contribute to climate change. Of course, we should take steps within reason if we want to collectively combat these factors, but we cannot be burdened with the personal responsibility of not always shopping sustainably—whatever that really means—when easily accessible corporations haven’t given us the ability to.