Sustainable fashion: Pop London and manufacturing abroad
Sustainable fashion to Pop London is a holistic approach to fashion that includes minimising harmful impacts on the planet, people including socio-economics. As the founder of a British sustainable fashion brand and as an expert in ethical and sustainable fashion I was invited to COP26 in Glasgow. In my panel discussions I was asked to describe and explain how and why, as a sustainable brand Pop London has manufacturing in India.
I have included the short video above covering some of the reasons but I am writing this article to delve deeper into the fashion industry, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, fairness and eco solutions. I could go way deeper than even this article but I appreciate not everyone wants to nerd up on this topic.
Who made my clothes, what’s in my clothes? These type of questions are promoted and initiate important conversations about the fashion industry, ethics and sustainability. However, the solution to the questions need to consider diversity, inclusion and much more (also capitalism but like I said I could really go on about this subject).
Clothes don’t come from shops or online stores, that’s where we buy them. Clothes are made from textiles or materials that need to be grown on farms or cultivated when describing natural fabrics such as cotton, linen, silk and in the case of synthetic fabrics such as polyester or acrylic the raw materials are extracted from our planet as fossil fuels. In both types of materials and textiles the subsequent stages invole a chain of events of that transform them from raw materials into fabrics that can be dyed, printed, cut and sewn.
In Britain, there are wool mills in the industrial towns around Bradford and there is sheep wool or cashmere from goats for knitting into garments. Most of British manufcatured textiles are for luxury and premium brands. Where clothing is produced in the UK, generally the fabrics and components to make those clothes are imported into Britain from around the world.
Manufacturing in Britain is expensive which is why at Pop London I design with Harris Tweed, surely the most beautiful heritage British cloth, but only our outerwear jackets and lovely gilets are manufactured in the UK. A really important goal for me as the founder of Pop London was to make sustainable fashion more inclusive and affordable. The gilets and faux fur outerwear and our Harris Tweed accessories are the most expensive collections in Pop due to the UK manufacturing.
India is an international hub for industrial farming, processing and manufacturing of textiles from raw materials to the finished product. Besides the domestic textile industry, India also imports vast quantities of fabrics, buttons and components from China. India is an international clothing production hub. From intricate embroideries and bespoke textiles for couture and luxury fashion all the way down to mass printed or dyed, mass produced clothing for fast fashion retailers. Where you have an international hub such as India that is involved in every stage of the fashion industry you have vast quantities of surplus, rejected, discarded fabrics, buttons, threads, yarns and every single component that goes into making clothing. This is what I source to make collections for Pop London.
When thinking about a greener future, it’s important to me that diversity and inclusion goals are remembered in a true sense. The global south should not suffer a less prosperous future because the global north decided it’s only sustainable and eco friendly to manufacture in their own countries. Countries like India have much innovation and practices to share. There is an entire city-wide infrastructure around recycling, repairing and reusing in Delhi. There are NGOs creating employment and skills for homeless people or those with learning difficulties that are centred around recycling and creativity. Much of the wastage and surplus fabric and trims I source for Pop London is possible because local traders organised and mobilised to create places to buy them from (I also do my own investigations and research to discover where the surplus fabrics end up). Innovation and green solutions are not only to be found in technology and apps from London and San Fransisco and we all need to learn from and support one another.
I will post an article soon on circularity in fashion. Pop London’s circularity will leave you spinning!
Shazia