What exactly does slow fashion entail? Slow fashion is an awareness and approach to fashion that carefully considers the processes and resources required to make clothing, and focusses on timeless, high-quality designs over trend-driven pieces destined for the landfill after a few wears.
What is slow fashion?
There are countless terms in the sustainable fashion sphere, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed—especially when some of them seem to blur together. So what is “slow fashion” exactly, and how is it different from sustainable fashion? We’re here to tackle the term for you and explain why slowing fashion down is crucial for a fashion industry that leaves a lighter footprint for generations to come.
Put simply, slow fashion is the opposite of fast fashion. It encompasses an awareness and approach to fashion that carefully considers the processes and resources required to make clothing. It advocates for buying better-quality garments that will last longer, and values fair treatment of people, animals, and the planet along the way.
Realistically, slow fashion and sustainable or ethical fashion have a lot of similarities. They are sister movements and follow the same general guidelines. The main difference with slow fashion is that it hones in on reducing consumption and production more specifically, harkening back to the pre-fast fashion era of our grandparents when clothing was a long-term investment rather than a throwaway hobby.
The beginnings of slow fashion
The past decade or so has seen a wave of change sweep through the fashion industry. An increasing number of brands are rejecting the principles of fast fashion and opting for a more sustainable approach to making clothes.
The term slow fashion came about quite organically. It was coined by Kate Fletcher of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, following the phenomena of the slow food movement. As with the slow food movement, Fletcher saw a need for a slower pace in the fashion industry.
Slow fashion opposes the fast fashion model that emerged around 30 years ago, in which clothes became cheaper, and trend cycles sped up. And despite ongoing sustainability efforts to close the loop in fashion, ultra fast fashion brands like SHEIN are pumping out an alarming amount of poorly-made new styles