Sustainable is a word I will never tire of hearing, saying and a lifestyle I will always be compelled to practice. Depending on the generation, you encounter people that are thrilled to use it, know about it, want to share their practices, discoveries and habits for a better world or simply tag people that prcatice it as tree huggers (as if it were a dishonor).
There's people, so very much 2001, that don't want to know, duck their head under the sand like an ostrich, still arrogantly believing that "someone" will do it for them, whether in politics, enviroment, education, health, minorities and they don't have the responsibility to do anything.
It's time to wake up and be active citizens, choose your cause and do anything that it's in your power and more, go the extra step, don't wrap your eyes with prosciutto. Our children are born in a world in which they will have to deal with the mistakes that us and the generation before us have made. We can't reverse global warming, landfills of plastic bottles, deadly polluted rivers, but it's in our power to stop the deterioration.
HOW?
I am going to give you two suggestions.
Fashion Revolution because fashion is about feeling good, fashion is knowing that what you wear hasn't been produced under slavery conditions, that nobody has to work 120 hours overtime a month for that damn t-shirt that you will wear 3 times and throw away because it's destroyed and it will, itself, pile up in a landfill that will never disappear from Earth. Fashion is about not wanting more, but desiring a piece so much that you end up cherishing, taking care of, mending, fixing and wearing it for as long as you can. Fashion is knowing who made the clothes that you wear, knowing where did it all begun, feeling empowered by knowing that you saved money to purchase that beautiful item you wanted.
All of the above is the way I grew up thinking that fashion was about, it's why I fell in love with fashion, it's the Italian way of dressing, owning your style with that conscience that you always are appropriate wherever you go, because luxury is first a state of mind.
It's a Revolution that wants to bring back things to where they were before, the Italian way I must say. Join the movement and help spread the voice, and if you want a crush course on how to attain it, get the book here.
NOTE: Sharing some pictures of the masterclass held at Miami Dade College's Fashion Institute during Miami Fashion Week where we were enlightened by Orsola de Castro, the founder of Fashion Revolution, Barbara Hulanicki, OBE founder of legendary Biba and fashion visionaire supreme and Willie Walters, director of fashion at London's Central Saint Martins
Plastic Free July and every month.
Why? I am going to give you 7 reasons that the Italian in me would use to convince you:
1. who needs a straw, really? Unless you had dental surgery
2. who drinks coffee in the paper/plastic cup?
3. who eats food from foam containers? Honestly, they make an annoying noise and make the food taste weirdly synthetic.
4. why would you eat from plastic plates with plastic cutlery? China and silverware is not meant to keep for Sundays.
5. how gross and vulgar is that Solo red cup? (<--- you bet Cecilia knows better when she'll be in college)
6. who does groceries without recycled bags anymore? In Italy they charge you for every plastic bag the supermarket provides you, and it's been like this for as long as I remember.
7. why would you drink water from a plastic bottle? Do you even know how many bacteria are stored in that bottle and that it is not recyclable?
Accept the pledge & CHOOSE TO REFUSE
NOTE: did you notice how I was holding a plastic coffee cup at the event with Barbara Hulanicki? Since after I took the pledge, I have been so resilient to choose to refuse and wherever I go I ask for a glass or porcelain cup for my coffee. It doesn't hurt asking, you get the side eye, but they always have it.