TREND OR TRASH

Trend or Trash

We as consumers often overlook the effect that we have on the world around us from buying clothes. Have you ever taken a moment to look at what is used to make your favourite pair of jeans? Or wondered who made your “trendy” t-shirts? More often than not how we decide on what clothes to buy and wear is; How does it look? What's the price? and occasionally Where is it from? We don’t always realise how large of an impact our clothing is making. 

I'm sure most of you know that the fashion industry isn’t the most honest or environmentally friendly industry out there. We all know about sweatshops etc. but one “secret” about this industry is the negative effects of cotton clothing. If you were to take a look in your closet, how many items would find that are “made with cotton”, probably quite a few…. But if you looked to see how many items that are “made by organic cotton”, maybe not so much… You may be thinking, why does it matter what type of cotton my clothes are made out of? Well (in order to prevent this being an english essay), I’ll quickly sum it up for you. As the demands of the fashion industry increase and expand in order to keep up people have begun to modify cotton plants in order to keep up. The way they do this is through pesticides. But these are not your normal pesticides your Grandma would use in her garden, these are highly toxic pesticides that contain some of the 9 most highly toxic chemicals in the world. At first the pesticides help the cotton farmers to control weeds and pests, but after continued use they begin to affect the soil and have less of an impact. The soil eventually becomes so dried out that it takes over 10,000-20,000KG of water to make 1kg of cotton! Pesticides also affect the people using them, many children born into villages close to cotton farms are born with birth defects and disorders due to aerial sprays of pesticides. And according to the World Health Organisation around 20,000 people in developing countries die every year from cancers and miscarriages because of these aerial sprays. 

However there are many ways that we can have “cool clothes” but not make such a negative impact on the environment and others. One great way we are able to do this is through buying ethically! There are various ethical fashion and apparel brands all over the world but as well all have experienced shipping prices are well... usually more than the actual product. And especially now that overseas shipping takes literal YEARS to come I have found some amazing ethical fashion brands that are designed and created right here in New Zealand!

So here are 6 NZ brands that are well made, unique and of course ethical! And as this release is about female empowerment these brands are all created and/or designed by amazing women!