By: Noor Khan
Sustainability is hard to navigate. In a world of Instagram shopping ads and Pinterest-worthy clothes at AliExpress prices, it’s hard to orient yourself with what’s wrong, right, or real. Enter, QFSF; consider this blog a nice reminder that sustainability isn’t perfect – a message that’s hard to convey when there’s a lot of pressure to save the world and the earth and the future and stuff. This post ambitiously aims to explain the weird intersection of fast fashion brands and sustainability; in essence, yes you can be a sustainability advocate and still wear your Zara jeans 3 days a week. It starts with opening up more conversation about lesser evils in fashion.
There’s one thing you can almost always find in the comment section of posts, tweets, and TikToks about sustainable fashion: that one comment that says there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Whether or not you agree with that stance is honestly not relevant (you should agree, though); but the quote carries a lot of weight. It’s hard to be sustainable when you’re trying to mitigate the damage caused by corporations that are out of your control, but there is such a thing as slightly more ethical consumption under capitalism; it’s us trying our best.
To be sustainable doesn’t mean to give up and stop consuming entirely just because corporate greed is destroying the planet and keeping us from ethically buying anything. Sure, sustainability means you should be boycotting the purchase of new clothes from H&M, but it doesn’t mean you can’t buy anything at all. Whether or not we live under the thumb of capitalism and corporate greed isn’t really up to each and every one of us on an individual level. We can still shop! Sustainable fashion isn’t only about condemning shopping and just reworking the old stuff you bought in high school to make it look trendy again (but reworking is a pretty cool aspect of it, though) – it’s also about reducing your footprint in the bigger picture. If you like a top from H&M, sustainable fashion isn’t here to tell you that it’s ugly and you shouldn’t want it. It’s more like a friendly reminder that tells you you can totally find that top on Depop (or Etsy, or Poshmark…), or find something similar at the thrift store, or just borrow your friend’s top that looks pretty much the exact same.
This is the crux of fast fashion and sustainability: lesser evils. It’s easy to say H&M, SheIn, Forever 21, and such brands are just plain bad and evil and judge everyone that wears them, but people that do that kind of suck. Truth is, you can buy a SheIn top at the thrift store and be doing just as much good as someone who stitched a top themselves out of an old dish cloth (probably don’t mention that to them though, they might get offended). Zara as a brand is doing numbers on the environment (if you don’t know just how bad it is, there are some good reads here and here), but that doesn’t mean you should get tormented for wearing Zara jeans you already own. Lesser evils in fashion means recycling what’s already produced, even if it was originally a product that came out of a not-so-good brand. It’s imperfect environmentalism and it’s totally okay.
To conclude, I have an anecdote: I got a top on Depop a year ago and found out upon receiving it that it was from Forever 21. I was honestly super against wearing it because I felt like that diminished its sustainable value a bit (not to mention something feels way less vintage when you find out it’s from Forever 21). It hid in my closet for, like, 5 weeks before I finally got over myself and wore it and then realized it’s a pretty cool top and I shouldn’t feel guilty for wearing it and liking it. There’s a good message in that messy little story: it’s fine to wear or buy an unethical product if you got it through ethical means.
I think a good portion of sustainability advocates need to remind people that they shouldn’t have to be some perfect picture of consumerism that only buys handmade small business stuff and nothing else – that’s unrealistic and unaffordable for most people. We should tell more people that they shouldn’t feel guilty for imperfect sustainability; that’s what I hope to convey every now and then through QFSF. Basically, wear your Zara jeans. They’re cute and they fit nice. But also remind yourself and your friends that the environment exists, it’s important, and we can always buy second-hand Zara jeans – do that, and you’re well on your way to being a sustainability advocate.
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