Behind La P.M.: Sustainable Fashion for Peru – Session 7
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): La Petite Mort
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/07/01
What is the way forward for sustainable fashion?
That is a big challenge. That is a big question. As I was telling you before, La Petite Mort was not inspired for a particular personality or person in Peru. It was rather inspired by the lack of sustainable fashion in the country. I figured there was a need we had to cover and the industry had to cover. I remember living in Peru years ago.
Yes, we heard about it, but we talked more about sustainability in marginal ways: climate change, the weather, and contamination. We do a lot of extraction industry stuff. We would never think of fashion. Fashion was becoming an important industry. When I learned about sustainable fashion, I figured, “How are we letting this pass by, and how are we not informed about it?” We do have a high appreciation for everything that is handmade.
Handmade embroidery because worked with a lot of artisans and artists from the coast, the North, and the different regions of Peru. When we talk about ethical fashion, they would think social-wise. It is important, super important. However, they would never consider the green side of it, which should be equally important. So, this is how La Petite Mort is in Peru.
In my mind, it was to develop in Europe exporting Peruvian materials that were high quality. It is crazy in Peru that we didn’t do it. So, I started to do some research to look if anyone was doing anything, and if we could work together. Eventually, I did find out about a year and a half ago, when I started with this product. An association for sustainable fashion was created in Peru. Other than that, there was not much.
They were young girls with a great spirit and a lot of energy trying to push and tell people about sustainable, and ethical, fashion. They started. It has been a year and a half of their work, plus my work, and to me, right now, it is unclear. My objective is clear. The how we’re going to get there, or get people to care about sustainability in fashion, is a mystery.
Is it seminars? Is it movies? We don’t know how to. We know what we want. It is a big need. I certainly hope that the Ministry of Commerce will get more into this, too. They are into pushing cotton, alpaca, and social enterprises, but the ecological side of it. It is still off. Nobody is mentioning it. Most of our cotton production is regular cotton and pesticides. To change the industry, it is a lot of money invested. How long will is it going to take? I don’t know. Can the government intervene to give incentives to farmers to change their ways? I don’t know if they have the money.
There are a lot of things to change. I cannot really think about changing the industry without changing the customer first. Finally, I think the industry will change based on the demands of the customers. If the customers in Peru keep on thinking it better to have ten pairs of jeans of H&M or ten t-shirts to have a lot of options, then we’re wrong. That’s a trend to change. Not to stop buying at H&M, but that they choose to buy fewer pieces and better quality – instead of buying a zillion. This is the one idea we’re trying to settle.
However, to be honest, I don’t know how long it will take for us. (Laughs) We don’t know how we’re going to take us. (Laughs)
This makes me think about a conversation with an individual. I talked to Cory Doctorow. He talked about the separation between material culture and green culture. That is, there shouldn’t be a separation between them because material things can be cool. Some parts of green culture are about complete reduction of whatever owned materials. Don’t have ten garments, have two, but there’s also the idea that if you can have a certain production cycle, and decomposition cycle, that is essentially carbon neutral and pollution neutral, then that has no impact on the green culture, and, in fact, that would provide a reason for a convergence of green culture and material culture. Any thoughts on that?
If we choose the good materials to use for that, if we buy less, then yes; we might choose better. In a market, the market, as I see it, when we import a lot of fabrics from China, and not even because they are super new and even cheaper than the national fabrics, people with the economy worldwide has been messed up, but in Latin America it has been steady for the last few years.
Even though it has not been as good as it was a few years ago, but the middle class has grown a lot, you have to understand that in developing countries when you started making money. You wanted to show that you made money.
I’m not sure how the ethical or the green culture can get into this space of showing off all of the money they have by buying more things.
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