VOA —
Sustainability issues related to the environment have caused many changes in various industries, including the fashion industry. Awareness of the impact of the fashion industry, which is often said to be among the top three environmental pollutants throughout the world, has given rise to a lifestyle that is starting to promote slow fashion.
Najmah Faradiba, an employee of a private company, started buying environmentally friendly fashion products in 2017. Diba, as she is called, admits that she is interested in sustainability issues, especially in the fashion industry.
“I started reading – it turned out that the clothes I often wore were fast fashion which had a very serious environmental impact,” said Diba.
What Diba calls fast fashion refers to an industry that produces clothes en masse, quickly, according to trends and… cheap. Because it is cheap, consumers are often willing not to wear these clothes for long.
The Ellen Macarthur Foundation in the US finds an average of seven to 10 wears before a garment is thrown away. The foundation, which is committed to a circular economy to eliminate waste and pollution, also notes that the textile industry relies heavily on non-renewable resources, such as oil to produce synthetic fibers, fertilizer for cotton plants, and various chemicals to produce fibers and textiles. Another organization, earth.org, notes that of the 100 million pieces of clothing produced each year, 92 million tons end up in landfill.
‘Slow fashion’
The book “Fast Fashion: The Dark Sides of Fashion” published in Germany, which Ghina Fadhilla read, opened her eyes to slow fashion. This term, which is often equated with sustainable fashion, refers to practices that are based on environmentally friendly and ethical production processes, and whose use lasts for a longer period of time. The practice of slow fashion also does not prioritize quantity, but rather quality.
Koleksi Abhati Studio, Yogyakarta. (Courtesy: Abhati)
Ghina’s desire to contribute more to slow fashion led her to join the Slow Fashion Indonesia (SFI) community in 2020, first volunteering as a SFI social media content creator. One of the interesting initial content on the SFI IG account in early 2021, he recalled, was “Know Your Jeans,” which discussed the impact of jeans production on the environment.
“We explained that to make one pair of jeans requires several liters of water. “From the production results, there is liquid waste, there is an impact on the environment around the factory,” he explained.
According to SFI sources, one pair of regular jeans requires 11 thousand liters in the production process, an amount that can fill 20 bathtubs. Ghina considers it important to continue campaigning for slow fashion or a waste less lifestyle.
“If we don’t campaign much for slow fashion or less lifestyle, maybe the only people who are aware of it are people who really care about that area,” he stressed.
But if many people campaign for it, people who are continuously exposed to such information will try to pay attention to what they can contribute as individuals, continued Ghina.
SFI Community
Ghina joined SFI because she knew its founder, Tara Ainun Adila. Tara herself was very interested in the issue of sustainable fashion when taking online courses during the COVID pandemic. This organizational activist during his studies followed various accounts for related issues, including the global slow fashion movement based in the Netherlands, until finally deciding to establish the SFI community at the end of 2020.
Tara Ainun Adila, co-founder of Slow Fashion Indonesia (SFI). (Courtesy: Tara)
Tara views forming a community as important because there are many garment factories in Indonesia that produce clothing for various foreign brands and this causes the environment to be polluted by chemicals from these factories, as well as, people’s appetite for consuming fast fashion is still large.
Apart from that, there is a misunderstanding among young Indonesians who pay a lot of attention to environmental issues. “They started shopping at thrift shops (used goods stores). “But their mindset is that the most important thing is to follow trends, so thrift shops fall into trends, the products they buy are the trendy ones,” said Tara.
Because they think this kind of shopping means they care enough about the environment, they continue shopping. “As a result, the price of clothes in this shop has risen to match the price of new products,” explained Tara.
At the start of its activities, SFI tried to increase awareness about slow fashion in the online fashion lover community considering the pandemic situation at that time. Among them are participating in organizing the SF Season. For three months, the community encouraged people to stop consuming or shopping for new fashion, providing information on ways to be more responsible and conscious consumers.
hierarchy pyramid
SFI’s invitations are often based on the Buyerarchy of Needs pyramid compiled by Sarah Lazarovic, said the public health graduate who now works as a recruiter at a technology start-up company.
Koleksi Abhati Studio, Yogyakarta. (Courtesy: Abhati)
“First, we campaign to use what is in our wardrobe. On top of that, if you don’t have any clothes to borrow, we can borrow your mother’s or sister’s clothes. Third, swap or exchange clothes. Fourth, thrift, shopping for used or second hand clothes. “Next, make, repair the clothes to make them new, and finally buy them,” explained Tara regarding the hierarchy.
Tara is optimistic that slow fashion will become more widely practiced. Even now, many groups are campaigning for sustainable fashion.
When SFI was invited to be one of the speakers by such a company, for example, he saw that the audience came from industry, the community, including celebrities, who were interested in the same issue. “I think, in the future, more people will pay attention to slow fashion,” said Tara.
His optimism increased when students from a school visited by SFI to promote sustainable fashion were enthusiastic about holding a follow-up event. Likewise, when it came to swappyness, the clothes exchange event he sponsored was welcomed by various age groups. This year SFI also visited the Baduy tribe to study the tribe’s weaving in order to learn one of the sciences of sustainability from various tribes in Indonesia.
Natural dyes, care for the environment
Back to Diba who buys slow fashion products to show his concern for the environment. Several local brands, he said,
trying to reduce the impact on the environment, one way is by using more natural dyes. Among the fashion brands mentioned by Diba is Abhati.
Putri Anggita Mustikasari, owner, co-founder of Abhati Studio, Yogyakarta. (Courtesy: Abhati)
Putri Anggita Mustikasari is the owner and co-founder of Abhati, a natural color studio based in Yogyakarta. Abhati, from Sanskrit which means splendor, produces cloth using techniques inherited from its ancestors, such as hand-written batik, using natural materials in the environment.
As a graduate of architecture, he studied the concept of sustainability. However, he switched to textiles, clothes worn every day, after feeling that the problems that had to be solved in the world of architecture through sustainability were too complex.
Putri admitted that there are consumers who are interested in buying because of Abhati’s design, apart from those who care about the environment like Diba.
“Our number one mission is to increase public awareness. That’s our biggest homework, which honestly we are still doing and it’s not easy. “But increasing public awareness that what we use, what we buy, has environmental and social impacts,” said Putri.
Putri markets her products through social media and artisan bazaars. He always prepares an Abhati brand story that displays photos of how the cloth is made and how the batik is made.
Koleksi Abhati Studio, Yogyakarta. (Courtesy: Abhati)
Currently Abhati’s dyeing capacity is around 100 meters of material per month, and for its batik products, it takes up to two months to produce the same length of cloth, explained Putri. What are Abhati’s future plans?
“Our goal is not growth. Because our goal is that it has no end, the only limit is natural resources. “That’s why we want to expand collaboration and increase public awareness, because what is important is consumer behavior,” he explained.
Currently, the most difficult challenge for Putri is when product prices are compared, because people are used to the prices of clothes in fast fashion.
“People don’t realize, for example, when they pay only IDR 50 thousand for fast fashion clothes, who actually pays the rest? “There are those who pay for it, yes, our earth, people who work in factories and are paid very low wages,” he reminded.
With social media as a communication tool, Abhati continues to increase awareness among the public. Abhati tries to be transparent about prices, for example, because his batik makers are paid a living wage, unlike most batik makers who are paid under Yogyakarta’s minimum wage.
Price and quality of ‘slow fashion’
Diba herself said that even though it is relatively expensive, it is not a problem for her to buy slow fashion products if the quality is good.
The criteria for choosing clothes for women who last bought clothes about six months ago is, “I look at the brand first, look at the brand’s story about whether it is committed to environmental issues or not, then look at the quality, whether it will be more durable, comfortable to wear or not. No.”
Dyeing with dyes from natural ingredients. (Courtesy: Fashion Indonesia (SFI))
He also prefers versatile models with neutral colors. Even though he has started adopting this lifestyle, Diba, who admits that he still keeps and wears clothes he bought three to five years ago, said he has not actively campaigned for slow fashion and has only implemented it for his immediate family.
Good news came from Ghina, who admitted that she recently exchanged three clothes that she rarely wore at a recent clothes swap event. This confirms that practicing slow fashion is not difficult.
He himself believes that many adults actually are
knowing how to practice slow fashion. According to him, this was a practice carried out by ancient people who were not consumptive about buying clothes because there were not many choices and there was no convenience of online shopping.
However, Ghina observes that there are still misconceptions in implementing slow fashion in Indonesia. “People think that if we want to implement slow fashion, we have to buy clothes that are branded with sustainability. For example, the ingredients are made from natural ingredients, with natural dyes. In my opinion, most of these clothes are still priced at a high price for Indonesians, 1 million rupiah and above. Well, actually, to implement slow fashion we don’t always have to buy clothes made from natural materials. We can start from what we have at home. “That’s much more environmentally friendly than buying new, even if the ingredients are natural,” he explained. (uh/ab)