By Shonglin Gaekwad

With the growing awareness of sustainability in the fashion industry in the past few years, fashion is not just about creating new and innovative designs anymore. Being the second most polluting industry in the world, sustainability in fashion and sustainable thinking is on a rise in the fashion industry, globally. Even though there are several celebrities talking about campaigns for sustainability and promoting eco-friendly choices and living on more than one red-carpet events of Bollywood, the same awareness is not extended to the garments they wear in these events.

Recently such an incident took place at the IIFA awards 2018 held in Bangkok, Thailand. Actress Dia Mirza gave an interview promoting the social message of reducing the use of plastic and how it is adversely harmful to the environment and then went on to wear a dress covered in sequins which are basically made out of plastic. She was seen donning a Monisha Jaising creation at the event, a dress covered fully in sequins. The fact that she spoke about a cause which is very important, and then went on to wear a dress that contradicted her own statement was baffling. There still persists a lack of awareness of the impact that fashion makes through celebrities, be it in these events or other general instances as well. What they wear influences thousands of people and trends.

For the longest time, the red carpets for award functions have been a major platform for designers to showcase their designs and masterpieces. Bollywood being a huge industry, we have many celebrities walking the red carpet. All of them wear different designers and talk about their respective creations, many of which try to promote even social messages at these events and not just their collections.

There are several designers coming up with new sustainable methods of creating clothes every now and then. If celebrities opt for such designs, maybe they can convince the audience that follows them in a better way. On the other side there are several well-established brands that are improving their pre-existing production methods by making them more sustainable. H & M is one such example, they encourage and promote recycling. Giving the customers discounts on new purchases if they bring in their old clothes. Then recycling and using these old clothes to make their collection that supports this cause.