YING-HSUAN Li

To reflect on fashion, sustainability and culture, in my point of view it is all about diversity and the relations to humanity. The way people define the gap between fashion and sustainability. Fashion is the way we illustrate culture and identity, but in other hands it causes environmental impact. This can not only have physical and tangible influence on  natural integrity, but also mental influence on consumers whom define fashion. Everything is connected like a cycle, how people can use limited materials to make lives better and thinking differently may have an impact on the way people purchase fashion goods; with more concern regarding the issue of sustainability. 

In retrospect, personally I think fashion sustainability shaped my thinking of fashion, owing to people that follow the fashion trend on platforms such as social media convey variety of fashion campaigns. This influences the younger generation whom are persuaded into the mindset that wearing garments more than once is not fashionable which increasingly affects mental health and causes social pressure. Having experienced social pressure, it really made me deeply contemplate how sustainable fashion could change people’s perspective on fashion. Fashion has the potential to be sustainable and has a possibly to prevent the material waste. I now realise it is my choice to see things from a different perspective, with the knowledge that every year large amounts of garments are wasted or purchased and dumped due to rising consumerism alongside quickly changing trends and fast-fashion which in turn causes pollution levels to rise. At this stage I began thinking about  any possible alternative ways to help this issue. The issue of lack of sustainability in fashion is so prominent because it is easy for people to buy clothes, but difficult to stop the damages people bring to nature and the environment. Also nowadays advertisements persuade people to purchase clothing and items they don’t really need at a price that attracts people’s attention. Subsequently, a solution which is can aid the issue of sustainability and pollution in fashion that can be realised by the average consumer is simply buying second-hand clothes or recreating clothes/materials which are good for our world, it could really makes better lives from such little things.

Furthermore, being a student in a fashion school, I feel excluded from what society defines us what we should dress, although I can admit that in the past I was out of control and blinded by fast-fashion trend, which gave me serious anxiety to keep buying new goods in order to look good, however, don’t wear/reuse the good. Thereby, fashion sustainability in hindsight is people’s responsibility to create better lives, regardless that fashion is ongoing and will never end, this issue will remain alive alongside fashion.