Greenwashing and the fashion world

Greenwashing, in the world of fashion and other fields, is a marketing technique aiming at highlighting environmental concerns with misleading arguments.
Many companies in various sectors try to improve their image with greenwashing, claiming to be environmentally friendly when in fact they are not.

greenwashing and fashion

For several years now, more and more major clothing brands have been launching a range of organic cotton products.
You've probably heard of them. Once the machine is launched, countless fashion bloggers are trumpeting on all fronts that this is it, this is the news we've all been waiting for: they are finally dressing us in organic cotton!

Organic cotton. Yes, but how much?

Curious as we are, we tried to find out how many of the millions of products made each year by these greenwashing brands are made of organic cotton.
We were unsuccessful.
We're willing to bet our organic AND fair trade t-shirt (we've got it all around our neck) that it's a very low percentage. These fast-fashion brands can only make 100% organic on a tiny part of their articles.
It should be remembered that fast fashion consists of the ultra-rapid renewal of clothes offered for sale at derisory prices to encourage consumption. This mode of operation is impossible with too many organic cotton products, which are too expensive.

As a result, these brands that combine fashion and greenwashing sell rare organic cotton products at low prices and make very little profit on them, but they make up for this by selling countless products from environmentally and humanly irresponsible production.
All they have to do is forget about the latter in their communication plan and assert all over the place that they are embarking on a "sustainable development policy".

This massive communication is detrimental to 100% organic brands, such as Quat'rues, which do not have the same means to communicate.

Organic does not mean ethical

Beyond greenwashing, there are many examples of social washing in the fashion world.
According to some of these fast-fashion brands, by producing rare articles in organic cotton, they are launching "a much more ethical textile production while remaining in the trend".
Not true! Producing a few pieces in organic cotton means that in this case a tiny part of the production is in organic cotton.
Nothing more.
This does not mean that the workers are better paid. They still work an average of 70 hours a week for derisory wages.
This wage should be four times higher to allow workers to cover their basic needs and those of their families - food, health, housing, transport, water - and despite the call of groups such as Ethique sur l'étiquette and Clean Clothes Campaign, the facts seem unchangeable.

Thus, the clothing giants still market products manufactured in deplorable conditions but are extremely skilful in terms of greenwashing.
By selling very few organic products and communicating only on that, they attract a clientele that wants to consume better without looking too hard.

It is then up to us, potential customers, to realise that this cheap, trendy organic product is the fruit of greenwashing, and above all of the labour of underpaid workers, and that it is marketed among many other conventional cotton products (sometimes even toxic), sold with staggering margins.
It is up to us to orientate our purchasing act towards organic cotton products that are a little more expensive, but sold at the right price - that of coherence and ethics - allowing the manufacturers to live in decent conditions!