[Music]
[Applause]
have you ever heard the expression we
are what we eat well how about we are
what we wear and here’s the thing we put
on our bodies that’s why my talk today
is about slow fashion you may have never
heard about slow fashion before but you
would have heard perhaps about that
fashion or at least fast food and if you
starting to draw the parallels between
the two you’re absolutely right because
both can be extremely damaging to the
planet and the people this is something
that I found out as a writer and
researcher on the topic of fashion and
sustainability but first let me tell you
a little bit how my love of fashion
started I was born 37 years ago in the
country that no longer exists called the
Soviet Union growing up in Moscow in the
1980s we didn’t have much choice feed
for food or for clothes and we’re also
taught that neither could be wasted let
me share some of the most exciting and
desirable things from my childhood
first up bananas bananas were a prized
commodity and people had to queue up
long hours to get them so did I as a
child on occasion after school and
although they were probably not the
world’s best bananas
I still remember them as being some of
the tastiest next up American jeans now
American jeans were a symbol of freedom
and all those things that didn’t exist
in the Soviet Union
they could only be bought on the black
market and trafficking in jeans could
land you in jail but even wearing them
could potentially get you expelled from
University or fired from your job on the
count of wearing the arch enemy’s
uniform of choice and finally a trip to
McDonald’s this is the long queue
outside of the first McDonald’s when it
opened its doors in Moscow on a cold
January morning of 1990 this was not
only our first exposure to Western fast
food outlet it was also a sign of
changing times of capitalism taking over
and big mats were on at the beginning
fast-forward to my early twenties the
choice of everything became simply
overwhelming you could get bananas every
day or a new t-shirt every week I loved
it and I pinched over the next two years
I was busy filling up my wardrobe with
jackets jeans shoes dresses scarves in
every color of the rainbow
and I know I was not alone over the past
two decades our relationship with
fashion has changed dramatically the
good news is that clubs have become more
accessible as a result we’re buying more
and more of them and wearing them less
and less and when we’re done with them
are most likely simply bored with them
we’ll throw them away
can you guess how many killers of X
tiles each of us is actually throwing
away every year sighs more
well the thing is if you live in the
United Kingdom it’s likely to be 30
roughly equivalent to 30 pairs of those
coveted blue jeans we saw earlier this
is what has become known as fast fashion
and this is also the main reason why
fashion is now considered to be one of
the world’s most polluting global
industries there are many statistics
some more shopping than others how
drivers in China for instance literally
turned the color of next season’s big
trend because of the poisonous effluent
that goes into them untreated or how
hazardous chemicals can be lurking in
our clothes and our wardrobes just some
of the things are discovered when I
first started looking into the impacts
of fashion on the environment six years
ago but then I was working with a major
in nature conservation organization and
at some point I wondered how my fashion
choices set alongside my otherwise green
values and this is how I began my own
quest for fashion that doesn’t cost the
earth we have also discovered on a
journeys that fun fashion doesn’t just
leave ugly scars on our planet is also a
major culprit in modern-day slavery and
industrial disasters like the Rana Plaza
collapse in Bangladesh in which more
than 1,000 people lost their lives the
Rana Plaza tragedy gave rise the whole
new movement called fashion revolution
which calls on us as consumers to ask
brands a very simple question who made
our clothes and in fact if we are asking
ourselves the same question and I have I
admit
we would agree that we do need a fashion
revolution and believe me as a Russian I
don’t use the word revolution lightly
but I think we also need a fashion
evolution in other words we just need to
slow down like food fashion is best
enjoyed and so it was in many ways
inspiration behind slow fashion and it
has become quite a trend and speaking of
trends in this day and age of social
media I sometimes see a fashionista
posting a beautiful photo of an organic
apple on her social media feed and I
wonder how about the clothes shouldn’t
she be also promoting organic cotton and
why is it that enjoying your grandma’s
homemade past days today considered cool
whereas wearing her a knitted jumper is
not well maybe not quite the same design
and although there are nowadays
campaigns that encourages to cut down on
food waste by choosing say ugly
vegetables I somehow doubt that a
similar complain encouraging us to
choose ugly if sustainable clothes would
have as much success so can there be a
better way to fashion and we all be
green and glamorous fair and fashionable
stylish and sustainable at the same time
my answer to that is yes and the one
thing we can all do is eat the advice of
British fashion designer Vivienne
Westwood who encourages us to buy less
choose well and make it last by and less
is obvious today we’re literally
drowning in the amount of clothes we
have forget designer kitchen today’s
must-have item for new home owners is a
walk-in wardrobe some large it in a
bedroom
but if you’ve ever experienced this
feeling of staring at the first thing
that seems wardrobe with nothing to wear
in the morning you would agree that
having more clothes does not necessarily
make it easier for us happier in fact we
only tend to wear about one-fifth of the
clothes already in our closets on the
regular basis we should all remember it
next average for that pair of blue jeans
on sale by buying less we can also buy
better by focusing and prioritizing
quality over quantity in recent years we
have become accustomed to a t-shirt that
costs roughly the same amount of money
as a cup of coffee let’s think about it
how can that be and if we are prepared
to pay a little bit more for fresh
wholesome food we should also accept
that well-made clothes do cost more but
it’s not an elitist issue either whether
in a budget for high street or culture
we can still make responsible fashion
choices look at the labels other
questions get informed
it’s not as difficult there are already
encouraging signs this is happening for
instance in emerging markets places like
China India Brazil and yes Russia
consumers are today starting to look for
sustainable fashion and finally we need
to make it last and this is the one big
difference between food and fashion most
foods aspire fashion doesn’t well at
least it shouldn’t though it’s used to
be something who would pass down
from one generation to the next today
they barely make it through to another
season we should not be treating our
clothes as disposable items and speaking
of generations fashion has a peculiar
tendency of coming around full circle to
remember those flared jeans that were
all the rage in the 1970s well they
wouldn’t look out of place on today’s
catwalk spider my wish is that in the
future
fashion becomes smarter slower and more
sustainable by taking on board the same
concept of circularity in the way we
produce use and dispose of our clothes
and that all of us will give it a chance
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Applause]
have you ever heard the expression we
are what we eat well how about we are
what we wear and here’s the thing we put
on our bodies that’s why my talk today
is about slow fashion you may have never
heard about slow fashion before but you
would have heard perhaps about that
fashion or at least fast food and if you
starting to draw the parallels between
the two you’re absolutely right because
both can be extremely damaging to the
planet and the people this is something
that I found out as a writer and
researcher on the topic of fashion and
sustainability but first let me tell you
a little bit how my love of fashion
started I was born 37 years ago in the
country that no longer exists called the
Soviet Union growing up in Moscow in the
1980s we didn’t have much choice feed
for food or for clothes and we’re also
taught that neither could be wasted let
me share some of the most exciting and
desirable things from my childhood
first up bananas bananas were a prized
commodity and people had to queue up
long hours to get them so did I as a
child on occasion after school and
although they were probably not the
world’s best bananas
I still remember them as being some of
the tastiest next up American jeans now
American jeans were a symbol of freedom
and all those things that didn’t exist
in the Soviet Union
they could only be bought on the black
market and trafficking in jeans could
land you in jail but even wearing them
could potentially get you expelled from
University or fired from your job on the
count of wearing the arch enemy’s
uniform of choice and finally a trip to
McDonald’s this is the long queue
outside of the first McDonald’s when it
opened its doors in Moscow on a cold
January morning of 1990 this was not
only our first exposure to Western fast
food outlet it was also a sign of
changing times of capitalism taking over
and big mats were on at the beginning
fast-forward to my early twenties the
choice of everything became simply
overwhelming you could get bananas every
day or a new t-shirt every week I loved
it and I pinched over the next two years
I was busy filling up my wardrobe with
jackets jeans shoes dresses scarves in
every color of the rainbow
and I know I was not alone over the past
two decades our relationship with
fashion has changed dramatically the
good news is that clubs have become more
accessible as a result we’re buying more
and more of them and wearing them less
and less and when we’re done with them
are most likely simply bored with them
we’ll throw them away
can you guess how many killers of X
tiles each of us is actually throwing
away every year sighs more
well the thing is if you live in the
United Kingdom it’s likely to be 30
roughly equivalent to 30 pairs of those
coveted blue jeans we saw earlier this
is what has become known as fast fashion
and this is also the main reason why
fashion is now considered to be one of
the world’s most polluting global
industries there are many statistics
some more shopping than others how
drivers in China for instance literally
turned the color of next season’s big
trend because of the poisonous effluent
that goes into them untreated or how
hazardous chemicals can be lurking in
our clothes and our wardrobes just some
of the things are discovered when I
first started looking into the impacts
of fashion on the environment six years
ago but then I was working with a major
in nature conservation organization and
at some point I wondered how my fashion
choices set alongside my otherwise green
values and this is how I began my own
quest for fashion that doesn’t cost the
earth we have also discovered on a
journeys that fun fashion doesn’t just
leave ugly scars on our planet is also a
major culprit in modern-day slavery and
industrial disasters like the Rana Plaza
collapse in Bangladesh in which more
than 1,000 people lost their lives the
Rana Plaza tragedy gave rise the whole
new movement called fashion revolution
which calls on us as consumers to ask
brands a very simple question who made
our clothes and in fact if we are asking
ourselves the same question and I have I
admit
we would agree that we do need a fashion
revolution and believe me as a Russian I
don’t use the word revolution lightly
but I think we also need a fashion
evolution in other words we just need to
slow down like food fashion is best
enjoyed and so it was in many ways
inspiration behind slow fashion and it
has become quite a trend and speaking of
trends in this day and age of social
media I sometimes see a fashionista
posting a beautiful photo of an organic
apple on her social media feed and I
wonder how about the clothes shouldn’t
she be also promoting organic cotton and
why is it that enjoying your grandma’s
homemade past days today considered cool
whereas wearing her a knitted jumper is
not well maybe not quite the same design
and although there are nowadays
campaigns that encourages to cut down on
food waste by choosing say ugly
vegetables I somehow doubt that a
similar complain encouraging us to
choose ugly if sustainable clothes would
have as much success so can there be a
better way to fashion and we all be
green and glamorous fair and fashionable
stylish and sustainable at the same time
my answer to that is yes and the one
thing we can all do is eat the advice of
British fashion designer Vivienne
Westwood who encourages us to buy less
choose well and make it last by and less
is obvious today we’re literally
drowning in the amount of clothes we
have forget designer kitchen today’s
must-have item for new home owners is a
walk-in wardrobe some large it in a
bedroom
but if you’ve ever experienced this
feeling of staring at the first thing
that seems wardrobe with nothing to wear
in the morning you would agree that
having more clothes does not necessarily
make it easier for us happier in fact we
only tend to wear about one-fifth of the
clothes already in our closets on the
regular basis we should all remember it
next average for that pair of blue jeans
on sale by buying less we can also buy
better by focusing and prioritizing
quality over quantity in recent years we
have become accustomed to a t-shirt that
costs roughly the same amount of money
as a cup of coffee let’s think about it
how can that be and if we are prepared
to pay a little bit more for fresh
wholesome food we should also accept
that well-made clothes do cost more but
it’s not an elitist issue either whether
in a budget for high street or culture
we can still make responsible fashion
choices look at the labels other
questions get informed
it’s not as difficult there are already
encouraging signs this is happening for
instance in emerging markets places like
China India Brazil and yes Russia
consumers are today starting to look for
sustainable fashion and finally we need
to make it last and this is the one big
difference between food and fashion most
foods aspire fashion doesn’t well at
least it shouldn’t though it’s used to
be something who would pass down
from one generation to the next today
they barely make it through to another
season we should not be treating our
clothes as disposable items and speaking
of generations fashion has a peculiar
tendency of coming around full circle to
remember those flared jeans that were
all the rage in the 1970s well they
wouldn’t look out of place on today’s
catwalk spider my wish is that in the
future
fashion becomes smarter slower and more
sustainable by taking on board the same
concept of circularity in the way we
produce use and dispose of our clothes
and that all of us will give it a chance
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
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