How I got involved in responsible fashion
I didn't commit to embracing the latest trend. It all came about gradually and took time. It's a personal learning process made up of life experiences, encounters, and experiences. In 13 years, I went from being a blind consumer to a responsible consumer. Here's how I gradually opened my eyes.
My first steps in fashion
It started in 2008. I worked for six years in fashion with the most amazing luxury and high-end brands. We were all driven by a crazy desire to create, innovate, and surprise. Each collection was a new creative challenge, and we produced miles of clothes without thinking, with no limits other than the budget imposed by the company.
Then one day, in the midst of this creative euphoria, I began to have some questions about our way of doing things...
It started when I realized we were making about 300 prototypes for a final collection of 50 pieces . All those clothes, all that fabric, then thrown in the trash. And above all, all that energy involved, whether from us in the studio, the stylists, but also the manufacturers who worked on these clothes. What if we had thought more about our products before launching these 300 tests?
One day, I was sent to Ukraine to pick up a runway dress. A round-trip flight in the same day. For one dress. Friends at other companies were sometimes sent all the way to China to pick up a garment and back, without even leaving the airport.
And then there were the sales, the clearance sales, and the repeated private sales. These places where we are made to believe that we are privileged when in fact, we are given all the discarded collector's items. These luxury products sold for a fortune in stores, and there, a few months later, hanging on racks or piled up in "everything for €20" bins... once again, what if we had thought more carefully about the collections? And what is ultimately the true value of these clothes?
My travels around the world
I finally left my career as a stylist, too disappointed by the reality of the industry, and I went on a 2-year world tour. My travels opened me to the reality of our planet: everywhere I went, there was waste, even in the wildest lands. In Australia, in the desert where only a handful of people live. In the Amazon, in the middle of the jungle. On the wild coasts of the Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean... everywhere.
One day I was in Vietnam at a restaurant, facing a beautiful beach. The beach was divided in two: one part with clear water, another part with water polluted with all kinds of waste: textiles, plastic, polystyrene... and in the middle, there was an employee who was pushing the waste with a stick out of the area visible from the restaurant... it's still prettier for tourists. I still regret having succumbed that day to only taking pictures of this pretty part of the beach. I clearly ignored the other polluted part for my photo. But in my mind, it remained.
My experience as a clothing consumer
Before, I used to wear clothes that I bought just because they were pretty and cheap . The more I had, the happier I was. My Saturday afternoons were dedicated to shopping. But often, I felt frustrated in front of my closet overflowing with clothes, saying to myself “I have nothing to wear” . Most of my clothes had become faded, damaged after only a few washes. I remember filling plastic bags with clothes, rushing with a clear conscience to the nearest Relais dumpster, without being able to put my bag in it because it was already too full. Sometimes, even when it was overflowing, people would leave the bags at the bottom of the dumpster, and everything would pile up there…
Then besides that, there was my grandmother. This woman from an older generation where people went to have their clothes made at a seamstress. She was always so well dressed, with 40-year-old clothes that still looked new . She liked to tell me the story of some of her clothes, who had made them, for what occasion. Sometimes she would pass one of her clothes on to me and I was surprised to realize that I too, 60 years younger, could wear her young girl's clothes.
Finally, thanks to my many travels, I learned to live with few clothes . At first, it was really a crisis, but then it was a kind of liberation. I understood that I needed few things to live and to be happy: basic and practical clothes for everyday life, and a few pleasure clothes to feel beautiful.
And since I needed less, I was able to spend a little on quality clothes.
This is how I understood that “consuming less but better” is not just a question of salary . It is above all questioning the necessity of what we buy . A garment that I find beautiful, that has meaning, bought with full awareness, of sufficient quality to last a long time. This is how I try to consume today.