We are proud to partner with Teens Turning Green on the Project Green Challenge, which has gone off with a bang! We specifically worked with them on today’s Eco Style Challenge and hope that you will take it.

Teens Turning Green has empowered students around the nation to lead a movement devoted to education and advocacy around environmentally and socially responsible choices for individuals, schools, and communities. As today’s challenge says, most people don’t realize that thousands of chemicals and massive amounts of energy and resources are used to turn raw materials and crops into the textiles that make our clothing. This process poses numerous environmental and human health threats, not to mention social justice concerns. Young people will be a vital part of the movement to make the fashion industry an industry that helps the world instead of hurting it. You can take action, and today’s Challenge helps you learn how. You can also find tips on our Take Action page.

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This October, Global Action Through Fashion is partnering with the organization Teens Turning Green to energize high school and college students across the country to participate in Project Green Challenge, a 30-day green lifestyle initiative. The Challenge will raise awareness about conscious living, informed consumption and the collective impact of each of our actions.

While GATF’s participation weighs heavy in the fashion aspect of the Project Green Challenge, challenges will cover many aspects of daily life, including food, fashion, bodycare, energy, tech, fitness, and more. (Do you have any idea what nasty ingredients you may find in your shampoo?)

How it Works
Throughout October a daily green challenge will be outlined on ProjectGreenChallenge.com and in an email delivered to each participant who has signed up . Each challenge will be supported with resources, tips, facts and a green glossary. Continue reading

Thank you all for supporting the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Global Action Through Fashion at our symposium and cocktail June 30th! This event celebrated fashion’s surprising influence on our daily lives and the fashion industry’s underutilized power to change the world.

The symposium from 7-8pm featured speakers Eve Blossom of Lulan Artisans, Lynda Grose of CCA, Kindley Walsh-Lawlor of Gap Inc. Social and Environmental Responsibility, and Domenica Peterson of Global Action Through Fashion, and moderator Connie Ulasewicz, author of Sustianble Fashion: Why Now?. Guests had the opportunity to engage in discussion about issues related to fashion and solutions for the future. Continue reading

By Amy Brozek

Tomorrow I am graduating from San Francisco State University and after all my hard work I decided this week that I would pamper myself and get my nails done for the big event. Getting my nails done is something I often do myself and I rarely go to the nail salon. My roommates and I have a ritual of painting our nails while watching our favorite shows, which led me to think, what exactly is in nail polish? Is nail polish safe? Are there ethical nail polish companies or nail salons out there? My questions led me to my search for ethically nail polish companies and where I could get a spa treatment without sacrificing my health. Continue reading

By Amy Brozek

When thinking about sustainability in terms of garment production, what comes to mind first is if the fabric is sustainable? Was the pattern cut using a jig-saw method to eliminate fabric waste? Was unfair labor used? Rarely do consumers or producers realize the labor or waste resulting from all non-fabric related materials to put the garment together, meaning buttons, thread, zippers, embroidery etc. This overlook is causing some concern in the apparel industry.

Socially consumers are unaware of what it takes or how their clothing is produced. To them, clothing is a trend, something to be tossed away when the next trend comes. However there are several social and environmental issues surrounding the use of non-fabric materials. Continue reading

By Ava Alemazkoor

That bubble wrap sure is fun to pop! Those styrofoam chips are so easy to throw in a box to protect your perfect package, and that plastic bag protected you shirt so well for how far it travelled, but what are the consequences for using these fossil fuel based products? And who or what is being harmed in the process?

Many manufacturers are unaware, or dismiss, the environmental and social issues that are linked to both the process of creating the packaging for apparel, as well as the consumer disposal patterns of that packaging.

Every single day people purchase items, from food and wine, to apparel and cosmetics. All of these items come in some form of packaging, mainly used for the protection of the product, as well as the aesthetics, trying to lure customers into buying more products. Manufacturers often forget what effects the process of creating their packaging can have on the environment, and on the people creating the packages. Many times companies do not settle for environmentally friendly production because of the higher costs that can be linked to it. Because manufacturers do not feel responsible for the usage, disposal, and clean-up of packaging waste, they rarely consider what happens to the packaging after the product has been purchased. Continue reading

By Amy Brozek

While issues of sustainability in apparel design have been at the forefront of ethical issues to consider in the fashion industry, the idea of promoting sustainable business practices within corporate offices and retail store locations is something often not considered.

At the retail store level each day waste is created from coupons, brochures, and magazines. Often things of this nature are not printed on recyclable materials, or they are treated with chemicals to give them a glossy appearance that makes them unrecyclable and hazardous to the environment. Items like coupons are often demanded by consumers in order to get the best deal. In order to give consumers what they want retail stores give out thousands of these handouts, many of which never get used or recycled. Retail stores also create waste by throwing away fixtures, such as lights, T-stands, mannequins, tables, shelving, and marketing materials like window decals and posters which also end up never being recycled. Demand for new store items comes from consumers who always want something “new”. They do not want to walk in the store day after day to find the same boring layout, fixtures, and marketing. This in turn, causes the corporate offices of retail locations to constantly be updating in-store marketing materials and redesigning their stores to keep customers excited and coming in for more. Continue reading

By Amy Brozek

This past semester in my Textiles in the World Marketplace course we have been studying the textile and apparel industries of several countries around the world. We have discussed economic treaties like NAFTA (North American Free Treaty Agreement), ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), as well as, how the apparel/textile global complex has come to affect the overall well being of each country’s inhabitants.

In class, we were required to read Factory Girls, a novel by Leslie T. Chang. The novel takes place during the 1990’s and explores the lives of female garment workers living in Dongguan. In the novel, the female garment workers were left with no other choice than to work for the garment factories, at low wages, and long hours in order to support their families back home.

Although it is twenty years later these issues I read about in Factory Girls are very much alive in today’s culture. The female garment workers of Cambodia work for $90 a month in order to support their family members back home. For most women this is the highest paying job they can get, as it also provides more security than working in the fields. Continue reading

By Stephanie Starr

Scientists in Singapore have recently discovered a method in developing naturally colored silk. The findings were first published in Advanced Materials, a weekly scientific journal, described as “intrinsically colored and luminescent silk.”

Not only does the traditional textile dyeing process depend heavily on water consumption, but it also requires toxic chemicals that seep into the environment. The textile industry is accountable for a significant percentage of industrial water pollution. Intrinsically colored silk completely eliminates the dyeing stage, ultimately reducing financial expenses, possible pollutants and the demand for water.

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By Melissa Hook

Apparel labels are to inform us of the content of each piece of clothing we purchase. The information they are to disclose is the garment’s country of origin, brand, size and care conditions. Many consumers were not aware of the importance behind these labels until the last decade as the buzz around child labor laws and fair treatment of workers was brought to attention. Sadly it was not until bad news hit the headlines, but nonetheless it made us more aware of our little white labels inside our clothing.

Because of the reputation China and other large clothing production countries like India were given many consumer became weary of purchasing imported clothing as a whole. Made in USA became an easy recognizable way of thinking your clothing was produced ethically, in our country, giving jobs to our own workers, right? Wrong. Continue reading