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As public awareness about the changing climate and its impact on lifestyles around the globe rises, it’s becoming more and more popular for fashion designers, textile manufacturers, and even furniture upholstery manufacturers to use of raw materials from sustainable sources that can also be disposed of without producing excess long-term waste.
Luckily, natural fabrics and textiles were the original options for clothing, bedding, and more. This means there are plenty of past inspirations to work with. At the same time, though, the demand for textiles today is much higher than it has ever been. Consumers demand high quality, comfortable cloth in their pillows, clothes, and more. That’s where today’s technological innovations are breathing new life into old concepts about how to make fabric.
High Fashion and Sustainable Fabrics
The advent of eco-design is here, but that doesn’t mean the movement has taken over yet. Today’s cutting edge designers are moving beyond flirting with appearance and body lines and into the composition of fabrics themselves. They are creating beautiful clothing that both invokes classic designs and takes advantage of the development of new materials.
Designers dedicated to this aesthetic make sure their designs also incorporate the principles of waste reduction into their choices. That means more than just using sustainable fabrics.
- Eco-friendly designs need to be timeless, so looks don’t age out of wear
- Textiles should be long-lasting but still recyclable or biodegradable
- Designs that can be easily altered with fashion trends are preferred in this movement
- Incorporating traditional designs and modern ideas about body lines define a new aesthetic unique to the movement
This has the potential to redefine high fashion, which has traditionally feasted on the novel over the timeless, and on a constant influx of new looks over the innovative use of a limited wardrobe. That might take some time to take hold in the minds of fans, but it has a lot of potential for those who like to make their looks their own.
Home Decor and the New Eco-Friendly Fabric Movement
Fashion isn’t the only sector contributing to the rapid rise in demand for sustainable textiles. Consumers are adopting green products and ecologically friendly materials at a rate that is faster than ever before. Home decor these days reflects that.
In fact, the rapid rise of eco-friendly pillow options like Cariloha bamboo pillows might have a bigger impact faster than the change in the fashion industry, even if that change trickles down to consumer off-the-rack fashions. That’s because bedding and upholstery are always in high demand, even though they don’t cycle in and out of style as often as clothing fashions.
More and more home decor designers are picking up green design habits as the high demand for green design in new buildings is meeting an equally high demand for decor that reinforces that ethic and aesthetic. That just makes sense, really.
Why make an ecologically sustainable building design that minimizes its use of outside energy sources if the furniture and bedding inside it just contribute to ongoing ecological problems? The two movements are inevitably linked and sure to reinforce each other.
Krystle Cook – the creator of Home Jobs by MOM – put her psychology degree on a shelf and dived into a pile of diapers and dishes instead. She is a wife and mother to two rambunctious boys, sweating it out in her Texas hometown. She loves cooking, DIY home projects, and family fun activities.
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I love the fact how brands nowadays are more aware of the environment and are able to produce clothing that wont damage the ecosystem for us and the animals!
It makes me happy too! We only have one world.
This was a very interesting post. Most people don’t think about the thought and work that goes into making virtue clothes and fabric. We just like what we like and buy it. Thank you for sharing.
That’s very true that people don’t think about what goes into the things we buy and we all should really think about it more.
I’ve become a lot more interested in buying sustainable clothing. I try to avoid synthetic fabrics now and I’m really liking the feel and especially eco-friendly aspect of more natural fabrics like bamboo.
That’s great you are trying to buy more eco-friendly clothes!