Celebrate, Educate, Connect
We challenge you to use your Instagram account to change the world! Every person who shares a slow fashion message on their account is helping to spread the fashion revolution. During our challenges we provide daily topics about slow fashion, and you join in by posting about them. Tag your posts #slowfashionchallenge2022 so we can find each other. Follow the hashtag to join the worldwide conversation. We share participants’ posts on the @slowfashionchallenge account to elevate the discussion and to spread new ideas, share information, celebrate sustainable brands and organizations, and to connect the community
Slow Fashion is about buying less, choosing well, and making it last.
- Slow down and appreciate what you have.
- Purchase from ethical and eco conscious brands.
- Look for garments made from organic, natural, recycled or upcyled fabrics.
- Shop small, indie, local, vintage and second hand.
- Swap clothes, rent them, reinvent, alter and mend them.
- Invest in classic pieces that will last for years. Celebrate and enjoy fine quality garments.
- Care for your clothes. Wash less often using gentle detergent in a cold gentle cycle and hang dry. Repair them.
- Support your local community artisans, tailors and makers.
- Write a letter to a brand you like and ask them “Who made my clothes?”
- Join us in the Slow Fashion Challenge!
The Fast Fashion Problem
Fast fashion is a huge problem for our planet and its people. The fast fashion industry is one of the largest polluters on the planet. It uses excessive amounts of water, treats garment workers inhumanely, contributes up to 10% of global CO2 emissions, floods the environment and our bodies with chemicals through synthetic fabric production and industrial farming of fibers and all of this is for cheap clothing. It’s creating more than our planet can sustain. Americans consume more than 400% more clothing than we did only 20 years ago yet we throw away over 14 million tons of clothing annually. The trend has become to only wear something once or a couple of times and then toss it in the trash, making room for the next new cheap item. Fast fashion brands often burn their unsold clothing. The system is out of control.
What can we do about it?
Start with being conscious about the clothes and accessories you choose. Consider who made them, where they were made, and out of what materials. Slow down your consumption and appreciate what you already have. Curate a wardrobe that you love enough to want to take care of, repair and enjoy wearing over and over. Shift how you view what you wear from a constant need for more to realizing the value in every piece and only acquiring new ones that meet high standards. When you do want to add garments, shop second hand, from sustainable brands, swap, borrow, reinvent and make. Purchase high quality items that you love and that will last for many years.
