Hello, this is our weebly site. We are doing the Go Green project and our theme is Ecological Fashion. We want to know if there are companies that make sustainable clothes and how they make that. We want to learn how to make sustainable clothes ourselves too. We do this by designing our own sustainable clothes and giving a fashion show with these clothes. We are very excited for this project and hope to learn a lot more about making the world more sustainable!
Enjoy our site!
Introduction
Fleur Akkermans
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Eva Jorissen
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Janne Hoos
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In this small video, we introduce ourselves by using plates we have made ourself. We tell a little bit about ourselves and about our ambitions for this project. We hope you enjoy it! |
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Task division
Role:
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Who?
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Remarks/description:
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Research question
Main question : How can we make clothes more sustainable?
Sub-questions:
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1 - Are there any companies that make sustainable clothes? If there are; how do they do that?
Yes, of course there are a lot of companies that make sustainable clothes. But how do we actually know that these clothes are really made of organic and sustainable materials? Therefore there are a few organizations that go and visit the companies to check if they are really using organic materials. One of the biggest organizations is the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). The companies can be certified by GOTS. But they must contain certain conditions, for example they must contain a minimum of 70% organic fibres. We have found 1o companies that make sustainable clothes and we have sent them a few questions.
Here are our questions:
1. Why is this company interested in making sustainable clothes?
2. What materials does this company use to make sustainable clothes?
3. Is making sustainable clothes more expensive then when if you would make non-sustainable clothes?
4. Is it difficult to make and sell sustainable clothes?
5. Is it possible to make and sell clothes that are 100% sustainable?
6. Is it difficult to compete against non-sustainable fashion brands?
Some companies did not reply us. But here are the answers of the companies that did reply us:
2 - How can we make sustainable clothes more attractive?
Well, there are several reasons why certain clothing or things attract to people. There are some economical factors: Money is a big role in the world of buying and selling; if something is cheaper, the more people are able to buy the clothes. So it will attract more people. We found out that there are three main factors that can make sustainable clothes more attractive.
- Give it more attention on social media.
- Tell it to the people what the effect will be if we don’t start to think about a greener world.
- Give it more attention by designing an own collection and showing the younger generation that sustainable clothes can look very nice.
3 - Are high-fashion brands more sustainable then cheaper brands?
Most people think high-fashion or the most expensive brands are also the brands that are the most sustainable, but we found out this isn’t true in all cases. We did research into 3 well-known high-fashion brand and 3 low-fashion brands.
The 3 high-fashion brands we used are :
- Chanel
- Stella McCartney
- Adidas
The 3 low-fashion brands are:
- Zeeman
- H&M
- Zara
Our conclusion is that overall there is not such a great difference between sustainability in high-fashion and low-fashion brands. It still depends on which brand you take a look at and not the type of brand. We did see that more and more brands try to make their company more sustainable, because it is a great topic in our society nowadays.
4 - What is the difference between the sustainable clothes in India and in the Netherlands?
One of the differences is that in India it has already influenced consumers more than in the Netherlands, which is why a lot of attention is spent to it here. But the sustainable fashion brands that are situated in the Netherlands really try to make their clothes 100% sustainable or at least as much as possible.
We also think that by the attention that’s spent to in the Netherlands, way more consumers will buy sustainable clothes. In India they as well still focus a lot on their labour conditions, because they are very bad there so sustainability comes at the second place at most brands. But because of a lot of people there are aware of it, they buy those clothes as well. If you compare them focusing on the materials they use approximately the same kinds, mostly they at least use organic cotton or bamboo in both countries. Except that in the Netherlands they also focus more on wearing denim and making that more sustainable. Both countries are doing their best to make their fashion world more sustainable and giving everyone the change to be able to buy these clothes as well.
5 - What can we do ourselves to make clothes more sustainable?
On the 1st of December, we organised our own fashion show. We used old clothes to recycle them, and to make new clothes out of it. We had made t-shirts, blouses, a pair of jeans, a skirt, etc. We wanted to do our own fahion show, because we wanted to know how you could make sustainable clothes yourself. There are lots of companies that make them, but we wanted to know if we could design and make our own clothes. We have learned a lot from doing this. For example, how to make clothes ourselves ofcourse. But the main thing we learned about doing the fashion show is, that you don't neccessary have to buy new clothes every time. You can recycle them or make them yourself. That is a lot better for our environment and the world we live in. But how did we do that? Down below are the steps we made and a video of our fashion show!
Step 2 : collect old clothes and make sketches and drawings of what you want to design out of them.
Step 3 : make a clear overview of our designs.
Video conference
On the 30th of November we had a video conference with India. All groups had the opportunity to ask questions to each other. Therefore we asked some questions, which you can find down below. Furthermore, the video conference was not as clear to others as it was for us. We did get some very usefull answers, but for other groups this was not that succesfull, because of hearing problems in India and in the Netherlands. But we did have a good conversation with the people from India, and it was very nice to see them and to talk to them.
Here are the questions we asked to India:
1 - Do you wear sustainable clothes in India?
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1 - Yes, because here in India, the average temperature is high, so we wear lots of thin clothes made from biological cotton.
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Conclusion
How can we make clothes more sustainable? That is where our research is about. We have found out there are lots of ways to make clothes more sustainable. And we think that everybody has its own way to do that. Therefore we have picked out the most important ones to us, to make clothes more sustainable in your own way.
Here are ways to make clothes more sustainable:
- By the use of organic and non-harmful materials, like the well-known materials cotton and bamboo.
- To make more publicity for the sustainability of clothes by for instance, giving your own fashion show, like we did.
- To make people aware of what they wear and what might have been done to make that type of clothing.
- By introducing rules for the way clothes need to be made and what types of materials can be used, so that even the high-fashion brands are aware of what they make.
- To make sustainable clothes less expensive, so that more people can afford them.
- To recycle all kinds of materials that can be used again to make new clothes, or to recycle old clothes into something new.
- To make the machines that are used for making clothes more sustainable. Such as, some small ecological fashion companies make their clothes by hand, which doesn't harm the environment at all, because no machines are used.
Reflection
This project was a very special one. We got the opportunity to research something that we really like. Fashion. It is a passion for all three of us. That is the reason for us liking this project so much. We have learned how to make clothes more sustainble, how to make your own fashion collection, if there are sustainable fashion companies, and how they make sustainable clothes. It was all so interesting and special for us to be a part of this project. It was also very nice that it was international and that we had the chance to talk to Indian people about our topic. We even led our child dream come true; we could design our own clothes and give a fashion show. That was an amazing thing to do. Finally, we just loved doing this project. Therefore, we are very grateful that we could participate in the Go Green project of 2016/2017!
Our cooperation went perfectly. The working together went very well and everything was done in time. But we had a problem with creating the weebly site. Because we did not get the link to start to work on our site, we could not start editing it yet. Therefore, that is why our deadline for the weebly site was a bit later than the rest, as discussed with our teacher. During the rest of research everything went perfectly. And in the end, we are very proud of what we have done and what we have as a result here, on our weebly site.
Thank you,
for visiting our weebly site! We hope you have learned a lot more about ecological fashion and that you enjoyed it as much as we did!
Lovely greetings from,
Janne Hoos, Fleur Akkermans & Eva Jorissen,
Dongen, The Netherlands