An Amsterdam initiative asks people in the fashion industry to come together and pursue more innovative, ethical and sustainable goals, Benzinga reported. It’s called “Fashion for Good,” and it’s all about making the sources and practices of creating fashion into better versions of themselves.
There are five areas of focus for improvement under the initiative, or The Five Goods. Materials, economy, energy, water and lives all should be “goods.” Making them good might mean a few tweaks to processes in a few areas, or it could mean a transformative change in others. As much as reinvention is a practice, it’s also a state of mind.
Fashion for Good isn’t solely interested in fashion’s production, either. Although reinventing the way fashion creators run their business is among the priorities, new business models are just the start. The fashion industry has the potential to change in the way clothing is consumed. McDonough Foundation’s William McDonough said that instead of throwing away after the creation process, The Five Goods principle looks to recycle, enabling greater sustainability. This focuses on the longer-term future, in lieu of a single generation’s immediate benefit.
The initiative is all about free innovation that benefits not only companies but everyone who is a stakeholder in fashion—which, one way or another, is pretty much everybody. Sharing whatever the organization develops benefits the industry, and could in turn benefit society as a whole, said C&A Foundation’s Leslie Johnston.
Fashion for Good emphasizes the search for improved business practice and models, as well as the reinvention of practices via new and different technologies. It also provides funding for promising ventures into innovative ideas, in order to promote industry development. The organization, which received launch support from the C&A Foundation, also has an open-source guide for the industry’s benefit.
Fashion For Good convenes in Amsterdam.
