Posted by Zoica on Saturday, June 07, 2008 to Sustainable Fashion

Yves Saint Laurent just died, and with him a legacy. Something that he once said and it can be considered his mantra: “Fashion fades. Style is eternal”, has a powerful significance in the today fashion and apparel world, making us pause, and think of possibilities.

We should all think of making classic fashion, so the customers would wear it until wears out, not out of fashion. We can do that with great designs, while keeping focused on the product lifecycle, indirect cost, and environmental impact of facilities.

After finding out that 37 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions came from transporting product by air, versus 17 percent for materials used in production, and 16 percent for energy used in workshops, Vuitton favors today shipments by rail and sea.

"What is your carbon footprint?"Very few companies can answer to that question, but the ones that they do, makes us better customers, because a better informed customer makes better decisions.

The 35 year old Patagonia launched last fall a program called “Footprint Chronicles”. Their initiative studies the impact of a few products, from tops and jackets to bottom and shoes, as they move through the supply chain, proving that the supply chain is the majority of the impact.It is a fascinating lesson that pressure us pause to think.The CO2 (carbon dioxide) emission and energy usage numbers are daunting.

Going back to the drawing board we should all ask ourselves: “Is our company polluting?” “What is our carbon footprint?” “What are the sociological costs to what we are placing into the market?” It is an intricate road, but knowing that we are not alone in that quest, makes it more accessible.

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