Photos and text by Francesca D’Angelo, CC-BY-NC 4.0 2025
Sustainability mood board (2020, Francesca D’Angelo) From top left: Balenciaga’s koala hoodie (“Balenciaga Australia Bushfire Disaster Koala Hoodie”. Balenciaga. June 15, 2020. www.balenciaga.com). Made in Italy tags for two children’s dresses. Made in India 100% Modal (cellulosic material). Viscose and Polyamide (at least one lesser evil?). The plastic water bottle my daughter carried around in her plastic wagon throughout an entire summer – a hint to recycled polyester. And my bamboo plant – a source for rayon. These last two are a reflection on the interesting permutations of our environments into textiles.
Sustainability mood board: a process of brand product development, the mood board enables designers to gather inspirations for the development of new lines. Something akin to a crystal ball, the mood board attempts to thematically piece together a current collective mood in order to predict the upcoming season’s representative fashions. This mock mood board is not a prediction of fashion to come, but a reflection and critique on the overarching sustainability theme that has taken hold of the fashion industry as a whole. And so, the collage is meant to bring together those objects and sentiments that come to mind when I think “what IS sustainability?”
Sustainability as fashionable
Sustainability, in 2020, emerges as a fashionable trend, as the fashion industry – ironically, one of the very industries responsible for its reification – adopts it as its own overarching theme, and aligns itself to the cause. For example, a current favourite brand amongst Gen Z consumers, Balenciaga released, in 2020, their “Printed Koala Hoodie” in white organic cotton fleece retailing and selling out for a whopping sum of $1,075 USD in a bid to raise funds for Australia’s devastating bushfires. The renowned fashion house maintains its foothold on fashion as it converts or aligns itself with a whole new generation of consumers who have sustainability on the mind to its creed, as it mimics their desires/concerns. While their effort is not the only example of a fashion brand using cause marketing to demonstrate their newfound commitment to sustainability efforts, these latest instances from large luxury brands demonstrate the promotion of “sustainability” as a theme in fashion product development as well as in green capitalism. Simply put: sustainability has become fashionable. And, as an offshoot of the sustainability and fashion merger, the Balenciaga hoodie acts as a reminder of a familiar fashionable tale – the evolution of a counter-cultural movement into mainstream trend. But what does this trend say about those of us who choose to don or not these manifestations of social protest? What can be said about our commitment to causes where the fate of humanity seems to hinge?
From a cultural analyst perspective, wagging a finger at the misdoings of corporate entities and unveiling corporate truths might seem our obligation, however, this act dismisses our own responsibility and reasons for doing so. It would be a lie for me to sit here writing these lines without admitting my own involvement. Using a phenomenological approach, I want to question commitments and responsibilities in relation to this hoodie.
At first glance, the design, itself, of the hoodie appears so comforting: the soft white cotton fleece hoodie with adorable caricature of a baby koala and its shadow perched directly over one’s chest, directly aiming at the heartstrings, as it resonates with me: “Awww,” and the warmth inside me rises, “So cute, and only $1075!”; prematurely, I think, “how nice of Balenciaga to take this initiative” because it is a convenient and efficient response for me: I get to think the world is after all good, and I can pardon my instinctual, aesthetically-charged emotions (see collage above). But all too soon, the next phase of consciousness emerges, where I recognize all the relevant marketing cues pointing my way to greenwashing. But that too is too quick to judge and too easy. I cannot simply leave it there. What of my own response? Why did it work? How did I get so sidetracked? Why do I still pine over that silly hoodie I could never be allowed to wear – not for what I stand for, nor for my own economic limitations, and, more distantly, nor for my age. But, there it is, still filling orders, needs and wants.
The irony of this tale is that fast fashion brands, long before many luxury brands, initiated their own what I would call ‘lines of absolution’: their organic lines, like H&M’s Conscious line, sustainable collaborations, charitable donations, like Ardene’s Me to WE initiatives, and other attempts at absolving the guilt incurred from incessantly adhering to “the bottom line”. The contradiction this sets forth is one we might ask: how, in the face of this obvious contradiction, do we not see through these efforts? Maybe it is because, as North American consumers, we have already been trained to accept all contradictions as conditions of the system of false choices that puts forth options: good/evil, organic/non-organic, sustainable/non-sustainable where the consumer can choose, and thereby choosing feels s/he is in command, “I have done the right thing, I have made the right choice”. The consumer too, by making the ‘right choice’ can absolve themselves of their own consumer guilt.
Just as I have become accustomed to organic produce abutting “other” produce along grocery store lanes, so too I have now become or maybe I have been carefully groomed to accept sustainable fashion living alongside non-sustainable fashions. The contradictions are mind-numbing, but yet they are there…without protest: peacefully co-existing. Maybe it is a part of the process, or a sign that things are in a phase of transition, as Gucci itself stealthily keeps its shelves aligned with both sustainable and non-sustainable fashions. As journalist Robert Williams for Bloomberg notes, “At a Gucci boutique next to Paris’s Place de la Concorde, products made with more eco-friendly materials have been quietly mixed in with the items on display.” So luxury brands have been quietly moving in this direction, carefully trying not to draw too much attention – in case the sustainability novelty wears off, or simply to appease discerning customers not interested in luxury intermingling with popular concerns.
Averting attention is the paradox of the fashion industry as it reflects the very nature of the industry American sociologist, Herbert Blumer, described as “fickle”. The delicate balance between corporate interests, environmental concern and consumer interest seems to defer responsibility and challenge fashion’s newfound commitment. If Blumer was correct in stating, “fashion is fickle,” then will this marriage last, or is it only another of fashion’s passing fads?
This careful grooming of our retail stores, our sentiments where our choices are neatly laid out for us clearly depict how sustainability no longer sits diametrically opposed to fashion but has now dissolved into fashion. This reciprocal relation begs the question: what are the implications of this reciprocity? How effective or genuine is this form of social protest? As sustainability enters fashion’s fold, sustainability becomes fashionable and fashion becomes sustainable. This contiguous relation leads to contagion, but is it merely a symbolic contagion? Has sustainability really caught on, or will it remain a passing fad demonstrated only through a form of symbolic dressing similar to the 60s hippy? And as a form of symbolic dressing, does the sold out Balenciaga hoodie represent sustainability “selling out”? By extension, on the consumer’s side, by consuming goods produced in the name of sustainability, the guilt of over consumption is lifted. Has sustainability, then, simply become a fashion accessory?
By extension and association, as Sustainability enters Fashion’s fold it too becomes cool/fashionable to imitate sustainable practices. As the two approach each other, they infect each other. To develop the analogy further: while social practices become more imitated, as in the case of our drive for a sustainable future – especially as it is seen to have ‘caught on’ with the younger Gen Z generation, as experts on the Business of Fashion continue to purport – those practices, in turn, become fashionable – imitable. And what has in fact become common practice amongst many popular Gen Z brands, Fashion has now fully accepted Sustainability.
But, this is not a new move on the part of Fashion: past examples demonstrate a similar trajectory. The 1960s hippy helps demonstrate: as counter cultural movements gain popularity, fashion gathers those popular sentiments up within its fold as it co-opts the subversive, the cool, to serve it over to its proponents who can then, by association, and through conspicuous consumption demonstrate how they too are invested in the social activism, in this case: sustainability. And so, popular Gen Z brands remain relevant, stand the generational test of time, as they adopt their consumers’ current concerns as their own, and then repackage it in a symbolic form – in this case: a hoodie.
As the hippy held a diametrically opposed position to mainstream cultural values of materialism, so to the new Gen Z tribe advocates against the consumption of goods. However, this position is held symbolically in their fashions, and as such, the new fashionable sustainability advocates, like the hippy, find their form of cultural critique unable to escape being a kind of inverted bourgeois form. To demonstrate commitment to sustainability, we don the symbolism demonstrating our commitment: we wear our commitment. A commitment constructed for us/by us where we relinquish our responsibility for change to the forces that appear to be doing the work for us. Consider how despite the controversy the hoodie spurred due to its perceived greenwashing, it continues to be a coveted item as customers pre-order and wait the estimated two-month arrival.
So, sustainability becomes simply a fashionable accessory. A buzzword. And then, like an accessory, sustainability is something fashion can put on and take off. Simulating the manner in which the casualness of the particular fashionable object in question – the hoodie – is readily thrown on and off.
In this latter sense, the Balenciaga koala hoodie can be read as demonstrating more of a half-hearted commitment to sustainable efforts, both for its wear and its target consumer. As a more casual piece of clothing, the hoodie clearly targeted the conspicuously named Gen Zs, a demographic already receptive to sustainable fashion efforts. Hence, why the hoodie does not ‘suit’ me. A clear example of astute marketing, targeting youth is almost foolproof as this age range is already prone to a casual dress code, like wearing a hoodie; as well, youth itself sits diametrically opposed to the formal dress codes of their parents, elders, the normative culture – who would not normally don hoodies as normal dress code. This brings us back to Blumer’s point: fashion is fickle. As such, once this generation grows and tosses off their hoodies for their new forms of more formal business attire, will fashion also shed its sustainability dress and don something more familiar?
But, again, this is very easy and quick of me to judge while dismissing my own responsibility within this discourse. What we wear helps demonstrate the sustainable hat we wear: maybe it is our ethical concerns for fair wages, humane treatment, or maybe its our environmental concern for the preservation of wildlife, biodiversity. Whatever reason, we all wear these hats under the umbrella of sustainability. As long as it bears the sustainability stamp, we all seem to be absolved from engaging in real action. We can simply wear our concerns, show it off and then, at the end of the day, take it off as we release ourselves from the same burdens brought on from wearing those exact clothes: shame, guilt.
All this said, sustainability has challenged us all to think of our modes of consumption, and while we all work towards absolution, we should not underestimate our collective efforts for affecting change… one rayon shirt at a time.
References
Barthes, Roland. 2006. “A case of cultural criticism.” The Language of Fashion. New York, Berg Publishers.
Williams, Robert. 2019. “Why luxury fashion is walking the runway in recycled-plastic heels.” Bloomberg, 20 Aug. 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-20/gucci-and-saint-laurent-face-an-uphill-battle-to-get-green.
Blumer, Herbert. 1969. “Fashion: from class differentiation to collective selection.” The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 3.
Francesca D’Angelo, PhD, Fashion Professor & Program Coordinator – Fashion Management Degree, Faculty of Business, Humber Polytechnic.
