The Voice of Fashion
India’s First Sustainability Survey
Almost every article that revolves around Earth Day—observed on April 22 every year since the last 49 years from the time it was first coined in the US and then widened globally in 1990—runs the risk of becoming a what-to-do sermon. That’s why a piece published today on Quartz.com that advises readers to “sit back and do nothing this Earth day”, perked my interest instantly. The Zen advice of taking a step back from stirring the pot all the time—by shopping, eating, doing laundry, cleaning, scrubbing, washing, flying, surfing the Internet, putting on the lights, using coolers or heaters and a whole range of activities that define human existence today, is also a “to-do”. Yet it is beautifully reflective of the ever inflating Bill to Earth, because of the sheer number and frequency of interventions coded into our daily lives.
The Voice of Fashion however decided to stir the pot. By taking the ladle beneath the soup and the gravy to touch the cooking vessel and ask some fundamental questions. In the coming months, starting soon, we will launch India’s First Sustainability study titled The Positive Fashion Survey: Towards A Circular and Sustainable Economy.
That fashion contributes acutely and constantly to environmental wreckage through its carbon footprint as well as the core philosophy of fashion that depends on acquisition and change rather than sharing, reusing or giving away actually heightens the onus on all of us. For us at The Voice of Fashion, call to action meant understanding what sustainability, environmental nourishment and protection, mean today to consumers and creators. Do we even have a national, local vocabulary, in Hindi and other languages to discuss issues of sustainability, or green, organic, natural, responsible, conscious fashion—currently all a ball of entangled wool—with artisanal sectors, craftspeople and small-town consumers?
Photo: Shutterstock
A stock photo of multi-racial people used for representational purpose.
A statistically sound, methodically researched, multi-city study across genders and age groups peculiar to India, the TVOF Positive Fashion Survey will document levels of awareness, budgets, commitment to what should be a lifetime cause, and the relevance or existence of sustainability practices in brick-and-mortar fashion and e-commerce. As well as what these concerns mean to the crafts sector that contributes enormously to what India calls fashion.
The first such initiative in India, this survey will help us identify gaps that may become crucial to industry and to firms and groups who want to work with or create for India. Our aim is to sift the wheat from the chaff and focus on relevance rather than rhetoric.
The middle path is what India may need and want, instead of obligatory frugality, denial or promises of activism, that are sometimes laced with secret hypocrisy.
The Positive Fashion Survey, will bring to the shore many myth busting facts, many ideas. The Earth Day, a day of secular environmental commitment is a good day to ring in these plans with our readers.
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