Slow fashion is a cabaret of faces, a drag show of talents and passions crafted by consumers and creators who want intention behind consumption. If not meaning, lack of waste. If not lack of waste, a curbing of consumption. To sleep well at night, to feel enlivened by the story of your clothing, and to give a shit, genuinely, about our rivers, oceans, forrests, and selfish self preservation.
Even in its dream state, ALITY Designs has always been a slow fashion brand. To ironically borrow from the industrialized vocabulary of drilling down, hitting the nail on the head, and other such get-to-work phrases, the concrete steps to get to sustainability were unknown. We knew ALITY held slow fashion values before we even knew what slow fashion truly meant.
What defines slow fashion?
Slow fashion is an approach to making clothes that considers all aspects of production, focuses on trendless designs, and makes choices in favor of longevity and quality. Slow fashion is the opposite of fast fashion. Slow fashion is a hard choice for some, and a natural, instinctual choice for others. Slow fashion is etching out its pillar in the future of retail.
Slow fashion is a movement and way of life both for consumers and brands who consciously choose to participate. It's an open invite with two distinct coin faces; brands and people. Brands can choose to make ethical decisions about production, fabric choices, partners, and community. Consumers can choose how, how often, and from whom they consume.
Look down. What are you wearing? If you and that garment have locked eyes more than seven times, you've outworn the average garment. Seven — as in 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 — is the average number each piece of clothing is worn before getting tossed in the bin. Three in some parts of the world. One in circles who believe "a look's a look."
Fast fashion numbers are an ugly slap across the chest of a $7.99 t-shirt whose hand holds a no-excuse-for-single-use-cup. They're embarrassing statistics that linger painfully, whispering — quite convincingly — you are not worthy of the earth's boundless beauty.
If each piece on your body says something, speaks of a moment, a message, a place, or a story, you likely participate in slow fashion. For some, there's no other way to do it. The hunt itself for meaningful pieces to adorn our bodies with is life itself. For others, it's a point of moral contention. Waste not want not. Others, it's a battle of intention that takes restraint, an intentional pull away from window shopping the look of the week.
We, as in the collective thinking and minds behind ALITY Designs, deploy a conscious effort to amplify the good. To see the thorn and believe in the rose. To not judge, not cast the first stone, to live and let live. But these fast fashion numbers give us the hold my-beer-vibe, we've got some reckoning to do. These numbers make it hard to hold our tongue.
In 2018, the average American purchased 68 garments. Globally, we humans buy 80 billion pieces of apparel every year. As a luxury fashion brand fresh off the creativity and intention train, new kid on the block with baby oil behind our ears, we're between a rock and hard place. We are in the business of selling clothes. We are peering into the buyer's mind, looking for ways to influence those 68 garment choices, putting ourselves on the Meta stage with the call to action: Shop Now.
The irony is not lost on us.
We want you to buy our clothes and we believe in the slow fashion movement. We believe in sustainable clothing, locally made, stitched with integrity, sourced with integrity, made to last, made to be loved on by more than one person. With this ethos, we find our place on the slow fashion stage.
How ALITY Designs Participates in Slow Fashion
We invest in high-quality fabrics and materials made to last. We consider the partners we work with, their production practices, and adherence to ethical work. And we care about creating timeless, trend agnostic designs.
Longevity and quality
Our fabric holds so much of who we are. The core of our debut collection LAYERS is made of 100% cotton French terry, spun in the USA, colored the tone of jewels under a GOTS certified dye process here in Los Angeles, California.
If French terry is the lead singer, 100% Pima cotton jersey wrote the hook. This fabric choice, domestically produced in Los Angeles, sourced from 93% California-grown fiber, is a sustainable salute to the type of fabric worthy of your skin.
The intention put into fabric and material choices means our clothes are made to last longer. To be passed on generation to generation. To be that jacket you pass down to whoever the next torch bearer may be.
Considerate production
ALITY Designs participates in the slow fashion movement by choosing partners who adhere to sustainable production practices, follow low impact processing, and pay their employees fair wages. We work in small batch production with local design houses out of Los Angeles, California.
Leftover fabric gets upcycled, repurposed, and rolled into the next drop. Scrap material is not easily discarded. A pile of cut jersey on the production floor begs the question, what will you do with me? We answer with rebirth. What was once the edge of a t-shirt is reincarnated into a drawstring.
One of our most significant experiences of direct customer feedback was the outpouring of love for our exclusively run team hoodies. We took undyed fabric leftovers, whose natural color was bone white, and gave each teammate a bone colored hoodie. Customers wanted them too. One part for the story, one part for the dope color run.
Timeless designs
Time is an illusion with a convincing identity. Time’s wallet holds a driver’s license, Home Depot receipt, and a library card all to convince you of its permanent residency on planet earth. Don’t be fooled. It's a front. You own time and tell it where to dwell.
Time's face turns nasty and wrinkled at the slightest societal whim. Those clothes are last season, they say to time. Those colors are outdated, you fanciful being that does not exist. Don't do this, do do that.
We're the forever without the 21. The un-Shein. The jacket that walked fashion week runway back in the dot com boom and will do it again when aliens land. ALITY Designs tells time where to dwell by bringing forward timeless designs, evergreen colors, and wardrobe essentials that know the secrets of a jungle chameleon — low-key, while being the most spectacularly mystic creature in the room.
Those who find slow fashion instinctual are inspiring to, not better than, those who fall prey to the temptation of trends. Fall where you may on the slow fashion spectrum, we want you. No, we need you. It's never too late to do better than you do now.
