Fashion trends come and go but one of the fashion trends that was on the rise in late 2018 and is coming to full-force in 2021 is the Vegan Trend. Fashion expert Helen Lee Schifter believes in vegan fashion. One would think due to the many articles advocating a Vegan diet that being Vegan just means that people don’t eat meat or eggs. And while that is definitely true, going Vegetarian has extended much further than that and has engulfed the style industry. In 2020, and upcoming 2021, expect countless people to extend their belief in a cruelty-free food environment for animals to also extend their vegetarian philosophy to the style industry. After all, in an age in which miracle fabrics are available, why should people be wearing leather shoes or purses, and perhaps even far worse, animal clothes or jackets. With wool, organic cotton, hemp, and bamboo products being not only readily available and sustainable, why buy products made out of animals? So popular is the trend that not only do many vegetarians not buy clothes made from animal skins they also will not buy style products that use a lot of water.
Unaware shoppers may not realize that the style industry uses and pollutes a great percentage of many country’s drinking waters. For example, a single t-shirt can take up to 2700 liters of water to produce. What are some of the worst eco-fashion faux pas? Non-organic cotton uses up tons of water and also is full of pesticides. Polyester has a tendency to wash petro-chemicals into the oceans with each washing, By choosing eco-friendly products such as hemp, bamboo, or sustainable organic cotton, vegetarians can significantly alter the and affect the amount of water being used by countries such as Bangladesh, India, or China are using now.
One of the frequent counter-proposals from non-vegetarians is the question, “Aren’t vegetarian positive styles more expensive? And the answer is mixed. Yes, in general terms, vegetarian-friendly style items are more expensive. However, this is counter-manned by the fact that while individual items are more expensive, people tend to keep better care of their clothes when they realize what a significant effect the industry has on the environment. There are acres and acres of disposal clothing filling up trash bins and Goodwill shops. People act as if the clothing industry never had an impact on the environment. By being conscious of the fact that the style industry does significantly have an effect on the environment, vegetarians hoe to make a significant change in not only the eating awareness of the world but also their clothes sense. Fortunately, the trend is shifting significantly in the style industry and while every company may not be going vegetarian, the call to use less water is definitely being heard in the clothing industry. Slowly the message that sustainability is getting through and many retailers such as
H&M and Zara are pushing to sell clothes that are sustainable, with Zara pledging to be 100 percent organic, sustainable, or recycled by 2025. According to Helen Lee Schifter many vegetarians are at the push for this effort world-wide.