Preview: Series Launch on Sustainable Apparel Tomorrow

We are very pleased to announce the launch of a new article series - Sustainably Attired: Exploring the Lifecycle of Fashion.

Through this in-depth series, we'll spend the next four months exploring the environmental and social impact of fashion. We’ll take you through the lifecycle of fashion: from the design phase, through material procurement and product construction in a factory setting. We'll look at what it means for apparel to be "fair trade." We’ll also take a peek inside the consumer’s closet and look at how consumer demand influences the industry. Finally, we'll explore the leading second uses for worn-out garments and the future of the sustainable fashion movement as a whole.

This series comes to you with the support of lead sponsor Levi Strauss & Co., a company we've covered many times over the years for their decades of commitment to sustainable apparel. Levi Strauss & Co. takes multi-faceted approach to sustainability, highlighting consumer-focused initiatives like low-impact care tags as well as collections like Water<Less, Waste<Less and Wellthread that are as highly fashionable as they are sustainable.

The apparel manufacturer has also made headlines for their collaborative approach, working with organizations like the Better Cotton Initiative and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition to support the sustainability of the apparel industry as a whole. We're thrilled that they've decided to take the next step by supporting our editorial exploration of the topic.

In keeping with the spirit of collaboration, we've also brought in a number of other companies with sustainability baked into their business model, including: INDIGENOUS, Modavanti, Amour Vert, Appalatch, Dhana Ecokids, Threads4Thought, Mata Traders, OSMIUM, Redress Raleigh and Synergy Organics. Fair Trade USA, purveyors of the Fair Trade certification for apparel, has also offered their support. These organizations will be sharing their perspectives throughout the series.

There is no denying that sustainability in fashion is a meaty, complicated topic, with many competing priorities for brands that wish to produce sustainable fashion that consumers will want to wear. Through the course of the series, we’ll seek to unravel how brands decide where to focus and how they prioritize competing issues. We’ll examine the impact of their efforts on people and the planet, and we’ll take a look at the future of the industry. Check back here tomorrow for the first article in the series. If you miss an installment, you can catch them all here.

Image credit: Cleo Vermij/Unsplash