The fashion industry must overturn its value system in favor of “slow fashion” and a regenerative approach if it wants to change the game. These are the words of Arizona Muse, top model and consultant in sustainable development during a conference given at the Pure London show on Monday.
The model, who has appeared in campaigns for luxury brands Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Prada, said her personal sustainability journey began when she became interested in where the clothes come from. he was asked to carry.
“All the information I got always referred me to the cultivation of the land. I never really envisioned that my clothes might have a connection to agriculture,” she said.
Since then, Muse has founded Dirt, an organization that supports and promotes biodynamic agriculture and reaches out to brands to fund regenerative initiatives to preserve our soils.
“Regeneration is the key, and that’s the challenge that drives me today. Sustainable development means first of all maintaining our resources in order to preserve them. We can no longer afford to keep the same practices that have been in place for decades,” she said.
“Soil regeneration is one of the major objectives to be achieved in the fight against global warming,” she continued.
According to Arizona Muse, we need to look at indigenous communities and their practices to understand how to move forward in the right direction.
“It was by listening to lectures or reading books written by indigenous people that I became much more consciously interested in regeneration,” she added.
Biodegradable mode
One of the ways to promote a regenerative approach in the fashion industry would be for brands to commit to creating more compostable products, so that once thrown away, they can nourish the soil rather than degrade it. Arizona Muse spoke on Monday with Dana Thomas, the author of “Fashionopolis”, a book that investigates the damage inflicted on the environment by the textile industry, as well as the efforts made to reduce it.
Dana Thomas, also a writer for Vogue magazine, which specializes in European sustainability, noted that many Native American tribes make their decisions as a group and by considering the possible impacts on the next seven generations.
“We have to think long-term in whatever decisions we make, not just in fashion, but in life in general,” she said. “All the products we create today must be able to last over time, whether through transformation into new products (recycling) or through favorable degradation for our soils”.
The fashion industry has long been the main culprit when it comes to environmental degradation, and this is all the more true since the rise of fast fashion.
This conference on sustainable development was held in a scorching climate in London (as well as throughout Europe), a worrying reminder of the climate emergency.
Temperatures in parts of England topped 38 degrees Celsius on Monday and are expected to rise further through the week.
This was the first physical edition of the Pure London show since the start of the pandemic. The event was held from Sunday July 17 to Tuesday July 19 at the Olympic London.
This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.com. It was translated and edited in French by Maxime Der Nahabédian.
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