Is Fashion Week Ever Sustainable?

Fashion week - Why Madia & Matilda is against fast fashion

What is slow fashion?

In recent years we have seen a wave of change wash over the fashion industry. Consumers and companies alike have become more aware of the effects of fast fashion on workers and our environment.

Slow fashion is how we approach and raise awareness to the way fashion is produced – taking the time to consider the processes and resources. The term Slow Fashion came about quite organically. It was coined by Kate Fletcher of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion. Slow fashion is necessary to save our environment as well as workforce welfare. In 2018, brands such as H&M reportedly burnt 12 tonnes of unsold garments despite launching their Garment Collecting programme – a global initiative to prevent customers’ unwanted items from going to landfill.

The slow fashion movement has been increasing exponentially in recent years as consumers demand higher sustainability and ethical standards.

Why we only design collections every 2 seasons

Here at Madia & Matilda, we pride ourselves on our sustainability and ethical ethos towards fashion. We only use fabrics that are end of roll, end of line or recycled from previous garments. Our items are designed and produced in house without the need for a factory or cheap labour. In order to keep our sustainable promise we only produce collections twice a year for spring/summer and autumn/winter. By producing biannually we are able to invest more time and money into our designs and quality, thus creating items that are ethically sound and adhere to our high standards.

Why we don’t participate in fashion week

Madia & Matilda consciously chooses not to participate in fashion week so as not to support the fast fashion trend. Many fashion weeks and catwalks feature garments that are produced quickly and cheaply to capture the most recent fashion trends. Not only does fashion week inspire fast fashion production but it also encourages consumers to buy into trend fads that only last a few months.

Charity fashion shows

Instead, at Madia & Matilda we dedicate our time and energy to producing eco-friendly garments that can form the basis of any wardrobe. Rather than partaking in mainstream fashion week catwalks, we only feature ourselves in charity catwalks. This year see our brand join the Durham University Charity Fashion Show - The UK’s largest student fundraiser and the biggest event in Durham’s social calendar. This year the fashion event is supporting the Environmental Justice Foundation, a charity who works at the forefront of global environmental politics to secure the rights of climate refugees and the future of our planet. If you want to attend the event you can find more information about the event here.

Madia & Matilda have also featured in many other charity fashion events including St Martins in the fields, Empire Casino London and Brighton Fashion Week.

Sincerely Madia & Matilda

NEWS - Alterations

Are your comfiest pair of jeans starting to show how often you wear them? Do you want to restyle a new garment to make it new again? Simply need a zip stitching? HELLO!

http://www.madiamatilda.co.uk/alterations

At Madia & Matilda, you might be aware that we do lots of upcycling of old garments, as well as our seasonal collections. Pop in or give us a quick call or email to give you a quote for an alteration or you can even book in online.





All of our alterations are priced individually, check out our price list! We are sure they will prove much more economical for you than buying new items for your wardrobe.

Sincerely Madia & Matilda

Thoughts on value

Have you ever wondered why there is often such a big price difference between your average high street garment and a seemingly similar product from a sustainable brand?

People often say sustainable/eco fashion is too expensive, but is it? Or is fast fashion the costly one?

It depends how you measure it. Yes you can purchase a top for £15- £20 from a big high street brand, wear it a couple of times, throw it away, and as a consumer it hasn’t cost you much. However, it’s easy to forget that garment was made by a human being and the amount of labour and energy that goes into it staggering. For example, to turn a piece of cotton into a garment, first it must be planted, harvested, taken to a factory to be processed and spun into yarn. Then it’s taken to another factory, woven into cloth, sent to a dye mill, dyed and finished. Then it is sold to a manufacturer who must create an original design and pattern, test for fit and performance, cut and make the garment, ship and then market it, all before reaching the customer. People are involved for its whole journey, people who deserve a fair price for their labour. But unfortunately, to produce a garment with all of those processes involved and still sell it for a price we are willing to pay; someone along the line is missing out. 

The sad truth is what we class, as a reasonable, average price, is in fact, artificially low. These cheap prices shouldn’t be the norm; they are wrong, not the more ‘expensive’ eco brands. They are the ones causing costly damage to the earth and to the workers. For fashion to be sustainable it’s not meant to be fast, throw away and cheap. We’ve been trained to buy quantity over quality. Somewhere along the way we’ve lost sight of what is best for us and the environment.

This is where sustainable fashion comes in, as it tries to change perceptions of what is expensive and go back to valuing the right things. 

Sustainable fashion tends to be more expensive due to a number of factors:

Time – As a small brand it takes time to create new and original designs from scratch, develop a pattern and manufacture in a smaller environment.

Fair trade- It is cheaper to employ people abroad to make clothes, where minimum wages are a lot less than here in the UK. For example, an employer in China only has to pay their garment worker 60p an hour, whereas in the UK the minimum wage is £6.70. When buying from a sustainable clothing company that manufactures their clothes in the UK, you know the workers have been paid a fair wage for their labour.

Economies of sale- It’s cheaper to produce mass quantities of clothing if you are a large company. Small scale companies have to pay more to produce smaller quantities.

Quality – Finally, when buying from a sustainable brand, the garments have longer life spans and are well made.

To find out more about our thoughts on value, check out our youtube 

Sincerely Madia & Matilda

e::  info@madiamatilda.co.uk       w::  www.madiamatilda.co.uk/