Designers who care about sustainability — is it as exhausting as it looks from the outside?
I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to understand what it actually takes to produce clothes in a way that doesn't make you feel terrible about the planet. And the more I dig into it, the more I feel like the fashion industry is built to make this as inconvenient as possible.
I'm not a full-time fashion designer, but I work in the creative field and I'm genuinely curious. So I wanted to ask the people who actually deal with this every day:
If you make clothes and you try to do it sustainably or circularly — is it easy to verify that the materials you're buying are actually what they claims to be? Does sourcing take up a reasonable amount of your time and energy?
And the information side — do you feel like there's enough clarity around what circular production actually means? Or does it feel like you need to become a full-time researcher just to make informed decisions about thread and zippers?
I'm also curious whether the market rewards you for doing things right. Do your customers understand what they're paying for?
I am curious what the actual day-to-day reality looks like — not the version that gets written up in sustainability reports.