The organics of organic fashion
Organic fashion is good for the environment, producers and consumers. But each manufacturer has its own interpretation of this term. Therefore, the most important question is: what is important for me?
No synthetics but plant or animal fibres on skin: cotton, linen, silk, wool. Abstaining from synthetic fabrics is the lowest common denominator concerning organic fashion.  "I prefer clothing made from natural material," said 71 percent of the women asked in a survey by the German Brigitte magazine. But can a cotton t-shirt already be called organic fashion? Or can it even be called ecological?
Cotton is the most important natural fabric. Farmers in the US, China, India, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and many other countries produce a total of 25 million tons of it each year. To achieve this, they spray 40,000 tons of pesticide. There is no other economically-used plant that is sprayed with similar intensity. The consequence is residues in the ground and in drinking water. Each year, thousands of agricultural workers and smallholders die due to pesticide poisoning. In the past years, there have been several thousand deaths among Indian cotton farmers. They believed the promises of the seed industry and invested in genetically engineered plants. However, the genetic cotton did not tolerate any drought and plant pests – the crops were a mess. The heavily mortgaged farmers committed suicide.
Abstaining from harmful substances
Not for my t-shirt, that is what more and more people say to themselves deliberately buying clothing made from organic cotton. Triclosan harming the liver, allergenic dye, carcinogenic formaldehyde are chemicals that renowned testing magazines have detected in t-shirts, socks and other cotton textiles. Nobody likes to wear that on his or her skin.
Most people expect organic fashion to be at least free of any harmful substances. It would be even better to abstain completely from using chemicals: e.g. hardly biodegradable whiteners that make t-shirts look truly white. Or synthetic resins that are mixed with cotton to achieve non-creasing shirts and blouses. It would be best to dye clothing on a non-synthetic basis. But that would be too costly and difficult, which is why even sophisticated organic fashion rarely offers non-synthetically dyed products. On the other hand, an effective wastewater treatment plant next to the dyeworks should be a common standard. Otherwise, t-shirts in Tirupur or another industrial city in Southern India would cause a colourful mess.
Apart from ecologic aspects, more and more people set great store by social criteria. It is simply intolerable that silk spinstresses have to work 60 hours a week and still do not make enough money to earn their living.
Leo Frühschütz
Schrot&Korn
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