Ethical Fashion: Trend or Shift? - An Interview at Estethica

While the planet has been heated up in the midst of global warming, fashion world has been spiced up with a rise of what is called “ethical fashion” – fashion that generates human and environmental sustainability.

estethica is an international exhibition of high-end sustainable fashion brands that has been part of the London Fashion Week, which has now leached its fourth season in September 2008.

Having achieved the dramatic change of consciousness and attention in the fashion theme, is ethical fashion the trend of the moment now? A conversation I had with Orsola de Castro, a curator of the estethica and a designer of From Somewhere, has provoked a completely fresh answer to this question. While she has agreed that there is certainly a movement of “eco” at the moment, she argues that the green “trend” of ethical fashion is not a “trend” on a level that will be disappeared as a new season comes and goes by. Rather, she claims that “it is a shift than a trend” that is accelerated by the public’s consciousness. “The consumer and the public are demanding other alternatives and other solutions. And students coming out from colleges are not that happy to think that their clothes are being manufactured in a sweatshop in Asia,” she says.

What is more, from a Hymalayan-inspired progressive Indian designer NITIN BAL CHAUHAN to Phibiones by Antonello that employs traditional Italian embroidery methods, the styles and tastes of clothes that the designers are showcasing at estethica are incredibly varied. As you can see, “we cannot be the same trend” she added.

NITIN BAL CHAUHAN

Antonello Tedde from Pibiones by Antonello

“Now, it is going to take incredibly a long time to change the fashion industry from within, but this is what we are talking about. We are talking about providing an alternative, to an industry which has been exploited, which has been polluting, and which has been greedy. And operating a change from inside and the reality is that it is happening. It is the public definitely is responding to this.” Estethica has now opened a whole new era of fashion industry.