#hm conscious
A brief story I wrote for a journalism class assignment about a current trend. I chose Ethical Fashion as my trend…..
Clothing That Cares; H&M Lead Ethical Trend in Fast Fashion
H&M are joining the bandwagon of big name designers, such as Vivienne Westwood, in making the fashion industry kinder to its workers and the environment.
International fashion powerhouse, H&M have recently announced they are opening two stores in Sydney before the end of the year. In previous years H&M have had their fair share of controversy with worker’s rights, even as recently as 2013 when workers at a Cambodian factory protested about poor wages. However, H&M have fought back back by launching the ‘H&M Conscious’ initiative. According to CEO Karl-Johan Persson, “We have set ourselves the challenge of ultimately making fashion sustainable and sustainability fashionable.”
H&M are not alone in the move towards ethical fashion production. Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood and Karen Walker have all become members of the Ethical Fashion Initiative which links designers with “marginalised artisans in East and West Africa, Haiti and the West Bank.”
The seven commitments of H&M are;
- Provide fashion for conscious consumers
- Choose and reward responsible partners
- Be ethical
- Be climate smart
- Reduce, reuse, recycle
- Use natural resources responsible
- Strengthen communities
As well as focusing on the production of their garments, H&M are giving shoppers the chance to make a difference by becoming the first fashion company to launch a global garment collection initiative. Donated garments fall into one of three categories; rewear, reuse or recycle.
Rewear – clothing that can be worn again will be sold as second hand clothes.
Reuse – old clothes and textiles will be turned into other products, such as cleaning cloths.
Recycle – everything else is turned into textile fibres, or other use such as insulation.
Great to see a company like H&M making a change for the better. They are the first fashion company to launch a global garment collection initiative. Hopefully it’s the start of bigger and better things to come. Watch the quick little video in the link to learn a bit about it.
http://about.hm.com/en/ImageGallery/landing-page.html/videos/CSR/HM_Garment_Collecting.mov.html
