In 2014, I attended the Copenhagen Fashion Summit – the world’s largest fashion event about sustainability. At the time, I was a fashion journalist who prided myself on covering anything that was new and exciting – emerging designers, fresh perspectives on style, trends. But something was wrong with the way we consumed and communicated fashion.
Epiphany came in the form of Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times. She strode on to the stage carrying a pile of jeans and threw them on to the floor, demonstrating their disposability, before proceeding to share her perspective on the fashion status quo – high street retailers dropping collections weekly and fashion designers creating six to eight collections a year. “It’s all unsustainable,” Friedman declared. “The answer lies not in sustainable fashion, which as a phrase makes no sense, but by building a sustainable wardrobe that works and has value for the person who has built it. I bring the same four dresses, two jackets and two pants with me everywhere.”
