Fashion Design Software Helps Clothing Brands to Raise the Bar for Conscious Consumption
Historically, the fashion sector has depended on exploitative, unsustainable, and unethical labor practices to sell clothes. But the recent trends indicate that these factors won’t last much longer, and brands need to think about solutions that will enable them to boost sales while balancing the environment. In the past several years, the industry has entered a remarkable period of upheaval, with many leading and SME fashion companies ditching the traditional production methods alike to support eco-friendly and cruelty-free alternatives. The apparel design software is a customization solution that allows apparel companies to incorporate sustainable measures as it helps them to control their production process. Besides, it aids brands and retailers to make their consumers choose responsibly and reduce their tendency to throw everything that doesn’t fit or goes out of fashion. Since the buyers will decide how their clothes will look, they won’t have to worry about following someone’s else style and keep their fashion sense always in trend.
Fashion Design Software Provides Solutions to Help Brands Make Responsible Choices
Traditional fashion production ways were unethical in many ways. For instance, they took a monstrous toll on animal life as every year, over one billion animals are slaughtered for their fur or pelts after living their lives in horrific factory farms. Cows, particularly newborn and even unborn calves, are skinned alive to make leather. While animals killed for their fur are executed through anal electrocution, neck-snapping, drowning, and other ghastly ways in order to avoid damaging their pelts. Even wool, traditionally perceived as a more humanely produced animal product, involves horrors on par with those at a slaughterhouse. The harassment wasn’t limited to animals; the traditional fashion industry has caused tremendous pain to its workers as well. Considering the case of Cambodian garment factories, which exported around $5.7 billion clothes every year, its workers that earn 50 cents an hour are forced to sit for 11 hours a day straight without permission to use the restroom. And when the Cambodian workers protested against their state, the police shot and killed three of them; Human Rights Watch has reported this. Additionally, mass faintings are common in the oppressively hot factories where laborers are frequently fired for getting sick or pregnant. In 2013, Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest importer of apparel after China, witnessed a poorly maintained garment factory collapsing, killing 1132 people and injuring approximately 2000 others.
Additionally, apparel companies and factories have been killing the planet for a long time. Every year, the textile industry alone releases 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gases, which is more than all marine shipping vessels and international flights combined. Also, it alone consumes 98 million tons of oil. Textile dyeing is the second-largest contributor to polluting clean water, and on the whole, the apparel industry accounts for 10 per cent of all greenhouse emissions worldwide. To make the matter worst, the clothes produced are massively discarded by people. According to a study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 73 per cent of the total material used to make clothes ended up landfilled or incinerated. However, a silver lining was seen when big and small clothing manufacturers stood up to the atrocities they were committing to the planet, people, and animals alike. More apparel companies are realizing that there are plenty of other ways to sell fashionable clothing and accessories that don’t destroy the environment, endanger workers, or cause suffering to animals.
Let us explore more companies and learn from their success stories how they shun their tag for fast fashion and adopted measures that allowed them to become more eco-friendly.
1. Define and Verify Sustainability
Each brand and retailer understand sustainability differently, and each one of them is looking to own a niche in sustainable shopping. Not all brands are necessarily following the same definition of eco-friendliness, as some might think offering a top-quality product that doesn’t break or tear also caters to the need for sustainability. For instance, Buy Me Once stocks the most durable products with the best aftercare in any given category, including seamless socks that won’t tear at the toes and frying pans that won’t lose their handle. According to many experts, the most energy-efficient version of the circular economy is to manufacture a product that lasts long without any additional input or energy at all. Likewise, Rêve-En-Vert has committed to 40 per cent of its output being editorial or educational rather than e-commerce. It recently introduced the “Rev On Air’’ podcast, in which founder Cora Hilts interviews sustainability figures from Lily Cole to Eileen Fisher.
On the other hand, some brands are trying to redefine sustainability slightly differently as they attempt to bring in the concept of inclusivity and diversity. Take the case of Slowco, which is trying to win over less environmentally conscious consumers by delivering a fashion-forward aesthetic and genderless categories alongside its sustainability efforts. Its customers now understand that their brand is working for them. It is bridging the gap between ethics and aesthetics by trying to capture the huge segment of society that is sympathetic to sustainability but needs a push. The site has launched 30 brands this year, and it is expected to have over 100 by the end of 2022. The site also offers advantageous commercial terms to Black-owned brands and those offering more size inclusivity.
2. Ask Consumers to Make Responsible Choices
It is crucial for brands to spread the word and ask customers to make sustainable choices because it has to be sellable no matter what brands produce. If brands manufacture a product that isn’t received well by the users, it will create another problem for the fashion industry and the planet. However, this notion is already being pushed by the internet as it helps buyers educate themselves about the impact of their choices. Many observers have found that, in some cases, buyers own up to their choices and consciously choose ethical and sustainable products. However, there are cases where brands have to make their consumers aware of the possible outcomes if they stick with sustainability. For instance, Endless Wardrobe has a more mainstream client base. The site focuses on encouraging more sustainable consumption habits, asking customers to think about how they will use a garment at the point of purchase and then decide whether to rent or buy new or buy nearly new, accordingly. Sustainability criteria for newly onboarded brands are in the works. The brand intends to launch the criteria to have different levels to focus on providing the education and resources for brands to level up. According to the company, this site has seen sales increase 450 per cent in the last six months, with rental revenue jumping 2,000 per cent in the same period.
There is another way to help your customers make sensible, ethical, and sustainable choices that are by offering services that can benefit your businesses and the planet. The 3D fashion design software also follows a similar path and provides novel customization solutions to fashion brands and retailers. The custom-made tool enables your buyers to design clothes that fit their personality, fashion sense and help them to become more eco-friendly. As customers will have the upper hand in determining what their skirts, shirts, t-shirts, pants, blazers, suits, jeans, hoodies, jackets, and jerseys should look like, they will help companies produce less and of world-class quality. The tool comes with digital features that will help companies establish transparency as they can preview the product before they order it and enable buyers to ensure their designed product matches their expectations in terms of designs and quality. When a product is up to consumers’ imagination, they are less likely to throw it away as they will be satisfied with the outcome. And if they want to make any further changes can do it before they head for the final payment. The digital features in the software allow them to make the final necessary last-minute changes in the product with a few clicks. And also, when customers are involved in its designing process from the beginning, they have put in their emotions in it to bring out the best in them; hence, they are less likely to throw away the product. Moreover, since it is a customization tool and people are deciding what patterns and fabrics they like, brands have the golden chance to rise above the concept of seasonality, which is another burden on the planet.
3. Learn from Mainstream Brands and Retailers
As discussed above, thanks to the digital age, customers are increasingly becoming aware of the harmful effects of fast fashion, and leading fashion houses are smart enough to take note of the trend. Therefore, the majority of them are introducing their dedicated selections of products that fit their definitions of sustainability and meet customers’ expectations. Last year, Farfetch committed to having 100 per cent of its revenues come from conscious products or services by 2030. According to the company, it currently stands at six per cent. As Thomas Berry, Global Director of Sustainable Business Farfetch, correctly points out, the company is taking sustainable trends serious and willing to do more for the community. He was quoted saying, “People come to Farfetch for great fashion, but sustainability is not just something on the side. Any delivery and return are carbon neutral; there are regular marketing moments to put sustainable products in front of consumers, and our product edits include sustainable options.” The company claims that the sales of conscious products are outpacing its overall growth by 40 per cent.
Similarly, leading e-tailer, Net-a-Porter launched Net Sustain in 2019, curating products that meet higher human, environmental, and animal welfare standards. The platform was designed to shift consumption habits and raise awareness of services such as care and repair to increase the longevity of garments, digital ID technology to improve traceability, and lower carbon footprint shipping options. Brands — and their suppliers — have to meet a code of conduct to be included and one or more of nine key attributes, which range from reducing waste to considered materials. Net-a-Porter says its Net Sustain brands have increased by nearly 500 per cent since launch, jumping from 26 brands in 2019 to 153 as of July 2021.
Indeed, it is challenging to retrofit a company with sustainability commitments, but emerging brands and retailers and local companies can learn from the mainstream fashion companies to dedicate sites and pages that communicate more directly with customers regarding sustainability. The content provided on the site and another platform shouldn’t look mere activist movement, instead, attract more buyers and take the business to the mainstream. Many experts believe that the narrative-led shopping experience is intended to create an emotional connection between consumer and product, and this is the key to luring them into your sites and collections. The more you are honest with your audience, the more are the chances of increasing the longevity and a greater understanding of supply chain issues. It will also populate product pages with the cost per wear of each garment, calculated to encourage at least 30 years. It is not about pressuring people into buying new products or clothes; rather, it is about changing the narrative around responsible consumption. The sense of seasonality and novelty comes from content rather than products. For instance, Stories Behind Things combines the new online products with physical activations, hosting Clothes Swap events in London every other month. These events divert deadstock or lightly used products from landfills, with items donated from brands including Free People, Gap, and Harvey Nichols.
Make an Informed Decisions-
To sum up, it is understandable that becoming sustainable overnight is an impossible task, but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take the first step. Many brands have already taken it by accepting the mistakes we all have been collectively doing to harm the planet and receive monetary gains from it. But the time has come that we all show a little more seriousness and commitment towards making this planet greener, cleaner, and more sustainable and ethical. This is only possible when we take care of all the living beings on the planet and do not exploit them for our benefit. The apparel design software by iDesigniBuy will forever be at the service of clothing brands and retailers who are willing to make a positive move in the direction of eco-friendly tomorrow.
Allow us to help you in making the planet greener and cleaner!
