VASO'S OPINION: At 21 I wasn't very mature. Not only did I lack the wisdom that comes with age. I wasn't too concerned either. Although at such age I should have known better, I wasn't too concerned about the power I hold as a consumer - even less about the environmental impact of the fashion industry. Without having a clue, it was then I bought a polluting cotton shirt that taught me an important lesson about superior sustainability.
According to the World Wildlife Foundation, it takes up to 20,000 liters of water to make a kilo of cotton. By the weight of the shirt that’s about 4500 liters of water for that shirt alone. Top that with the negative impact of pesticides and it’s easy to see that it was far from being made by cleaner materials.
Hold on a minute, you might think. How did that shirt teach me about sustainability? Let me explain. According to me, superior sustainability in fashion consists of three elements: timelessness for style; product quality for longevity; and cleaner materials. My shirt failed on the latter while succeeding on the two former. I still wear my shirt with pride meaning, at least to me, it still meets my expectation to style 15 years after I bought it. And after all these years, the shirt is not ruined warranting it has great product quality.
Think of an opposite situation in which the shirt had been made from cleaner materials, such as, organic cotton, while not delivering on timelessness in style or product quality. In that case, the shirt would probably have had a short lifespan ending it’s life years ago as a non-recycled and non-reused item in the trash bin. That's far from sustainable and why I have come to learn that cleaner materials won't make it alone to fulfill Vakigrad’s quest for superior sustainable leather goods. It takes timelessness in style and product quality too.
