Behind The Seams: Empowering Women Through Sustainable Fashion

“These hundred ladies also like, you know, break the culture norms,” Madhu Vaishnav, Founder of Saheli Women in India said during a session last week in the UN SDG Media Zone during the UN General Assembly and Climate Week in New York City. Produced by the Fashion Impact Fun and the PVBLIC Foundation in partnership with the UN, Vaishnav and a few other women explained how buying and investing in sustainable fashion supports communities, families, the environment, and women’s economic and personal lives. “The stories are just unbelievable,” Vaishnav said, as she shared the story of a woman who was married off as a child, learned garment industry skills at Saheli Women, and dramatically improved her finances, her life and her family’s lives, including finally sending her children to school.

“When woman earns money, she changed everything.” Vaishnav added. “Another thing which I would say is, more majority of our ladies are saying that we stop facing the domestic violence.” She shared the story of a woman who told her, “My husband doesn’t beat me (anymore). He respect me,” because now she earns money that supports the family.

“I always say woman is a not a leader, she’s a ladder. And when she became a ladder, she let lot of other ladies climb on it and she create such a beautiful world around us,” Vaishnav impassioned, adding, “it’s an economy of caring.”

Vaishnav is one of three recipients of grants from the Fashion Impact Fund that were honored at the UN session. Saheli Women is a woman-owned business empowering women in rural India with what she called, “ethical fashion. We co-create slow fashion garments with international fashion partners, utilising traditional craft practices and creating meaningful livelihood opportunities.” They are preserving traditional crafts and their cultural heritage, empowering women and manufacturing and selling sustainable clothing. Saheli partners with 20 global fashion brands to date, which she told the audience they created through Instagram.

Garment factories can be very bad workplaces for women – and are bad for the environment

Women make up 80% or more of the garment factory workers. Nearly 97% of them are in China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Cambodia, and Laos and they earn meager wages. In Bangladesh. For example, some women workers are paid 33 cents an hour. Their wages cover about a fifth or so of their living expenses and they work excessive working hours, 14 to 16 hours a day, often in dangerous conditions. For example, there was fire in a Bangladesh factory that killed about 1,000 workers (women) and there are reports of violence against a lot of these women. There are reports of female garment factory workers being underpaid and overworked in England and Italy as well.

The fashion industry is ranked as the second most polluting business in the world by the UN and 7% of landfills is garments. In addition, the garment industry is responsible for eight to 10% of global CO2, and 500,000 tons of micro plastics are dumped into oceans each year.

Teaching women sustainable fashion and business in New York City

Another women-owned business in sustainable fashion that earned a recent Fashion Impact Fund grant, and another large grant from New York State, is Custom Collaborative, whose Founder and Executive Director, Ngozi Okaro also spoke at this UN session. It’s a training program supporting marginalized women in building careers and businesses in sustainable fashion. Okaro, an attorney by training (Georgetown Law School), has received numerous recognitions, including as a 2022 Goldman Sachs Black Woman Impact Leader, Crain’s Notable Women Business Owner, and Kate Spade “World-Changing Women in Conscious Business” awardee.

“There are three parts to Custom Collaborative’s work,” Okaro explained, “Our training institute, which is a 15-week, 30 hour per week program that teaches women to design and sell sustainable fashion. So, they learn about concepts of sustainability, actually practice it, all the materials that we use are upcycled and, and recycled. Women learn personal finance. There is a 10-part business curriculum in addition to them learning how to actually create and understand the design and production of clothing.” Some of the program’s alumni return to mentor the new classes of students.

“The work that we do with companies like PVH or Chanel or, Theory or others, it’s really about them coming in and providing maybe services and support on more specific issues like resume writing or public speaking or career discernment.” Custom Collaborative also has a business incubator and production co-op.

Custom Collaborative recently received a $1.1 million grant from New York State, which “relates to revitalizing downtown communities,” Jeanette Rausch of New York State Office of Planning, Developing and Community Infrastructure told the audience. These funds have to be used for “capital dollars,” she clarified, “so they can’t use them for operation or ongoing costs or deferred maintenance, or things like that.”

With these funds, Custom Collaborative moved from their small temporary space to a 10,000 square foot space, and will build out its infrastructure. They are also going to buy new equipment, including a new high-capacity felting machine, “Where you can take old fabrics and make it into a new textile or weaving things, or even like 3D printing and 3D design, which allows people then to make prototypes without going through a sampling process that wastes a lot of fabric,” Okaro explained.

“We want to make sure that the women who come through our programs are trained for the jobs that are available today and the jobs that will be upcoming.”

Advice for how to purchase clothing sustainably and that supports women?

Okaro suggested, “buying less,” because, she added, “part of the problem is there’s this like rampant over production. And so if we buy fewer things, but nicer things and take care of them for longer, that would definitely I think help women.”

She also suggested “thinking about like how to extend the life of your garments,” and shared a story about how she is doing that, repurposing a skirt from her grandmother.

Naturally, they suggested supporting women-owned businesses and buying locally as well.

Vaishnav insisted that we be conscious shoppers. “We really want the consumer to really understand where they are buying from, why they are buying. And if something is super cheap, just think, ‘wow how it could be possible?’,” because it took a factory worker’s time (likely a woman) and materials. “So, always be careful what you’re buying.” She reminded us that, “every single consumer is equally very, very important.” Therefore, to make purchasing decisions responsibly.