Sustainable Style: How Fashion Is Changing Without Costing The Earth

Trunal Sahuji

इस खबर को सुनने के लिये प्ले बटन को दबाएं।

Fashion has long pioneered trends and style. Yet behind the glamour lie serious environmental and social costs: overflowing landfills, exploitative labour, heavy carbon footprints.

What Sustainability Really Means in Fashion

“Fashion that doesn’t cost the earth” is more than a slogan. It rests on key pillars:

Longevity, not disposability: Clothes designed to last many wears, many seasons.
Ethical labour: Fair wages, safe working conditions. Human dignity in production.
Better materials and environmental care: Fabrics and processes that reduce waste, pollution, and energy use. Natural or recycled materials. Responsible dyes. Circular systems.

Why the Urgency Is Greater Than Ever

Some facts are hard to ignore:

The fashion sector contributes nearly 10% of global carbon emissions.
We produce 92 million tonnes of textile waste annually.
Every few seconds, a truckload of textiles is landfilled or burned.

Fast fashion — affordable, trendy, disposable — fuels this crisis. Toxic dyes pollute rivers; unsustainable supply chains harm workers and ecosystems.

Indian Designers Leading the Shift

India has a special place in this transition. Rich in textile traditions, handloom crafts, and artisanal skills, many homegrown labels are becoming beacons of sustainable design.

Here are some trailblazers:

Rkive — Uses deadstock or discarded textiles. Their pieces are nearly one-of-a-kind.
Sand by Shirin — Focuses on seasonless designs. Clean silhouettes. Slow production cycles.
11.11 (eleven eleven) — Explores indigenous cotton, natural dyes; connects wearers to farming communities and tradition.
Jayati Goenka — Revives weaving, block-printing, artisan handlooms; small-scale, carefully crafted productions.
No Nasties — Organic, fair trade; transparent supply chains. Basics and essentials done ethically.
Oshadi Collective — “Seed-to-stitch”: from growing organic cotton to final tailoring. Regenerative supply chains. Supports farming and ecosystems. Elle India
Iro Iro — Works with textile waste, zero-waste pattern cutting. Bold silhouettes with responsible design.