Immense Blue

In the year 2010, the world became widely exposed through the horrors of the denim washing process when major news outlets

such as CNN and Time Magazine featured articles that covered the outrageous method of denim production. In that year, the public was introduced to “The Jean Capital of the World” – Xintang to be exact, a prov-ince located within the Guangdong province of China. While the dyeing of denim occurs in other parts of the globe as well, the reason Xintang has earned its title of the denim output capital is evident both from the statistical data on the community’s denim production and from images captured from as far up as space via satellite cameras. According to Greenpeace, an eco-or-ganization dedicated “to protect and conserve the environment” and “acts to change attitudes and behav-ior,” Xintang is known to output as much as 260 million pairs of jeans annually. To put this into perspective, Greenpeace shares that this equates to 60% of the total denim production occurring in China and to 40% of denim purchases in the United States.

The Trouble with Denim

The Trouble with Denim

Written By Nathaniel Wu

Before divulging into the present-day conditions that are hurting the denim-based community of Xintang, it is a good idea to look into civilization and industrialization processes in general. From as far back as Mesopotamia, civilizations have sprouted alongside rivers or other bodies of water. This common factor in all civilizations occurs because water is such a vital component of living for any organism living on Earth. Water is used not only to quench thirsts and keep clean, but also to irrigate crops, help raise livestock, and support life in general. Jump ahead into the industrial age and history repeats itself when factories, in place of villages, begin to inhabit riverbanks and similar water sources. The new addition along the river should not make much of a difference, but it will and does cause problems for communities that are living downstream from the factory.

the Pearl River is also the location of many hundreds of other factories that produce everything from cell phones to textiles. As noted by both CNN and Time, problems with textile dyeing lay in the harsh chemicals utilized to achieve the dark rich navy blue shade of denim. In order to do so, the cotton fibers are dipped into chemical washes laced with cadmium, chromium, lead, and mercury multiple times. A major consequence of having the cotton appropriately absorb the dye is the amount of wastewater – composed of dye, detergent, and bleach – that is created in the process.When CNN went to interview a factory

While the introduction of the industrial factories has helped propel society into greater commercial and social advances on a global stage, it hurts those in the immediate vicinity – the main problem is the discharge the factories leak into the water source which then contaminates the body of water to the point where it is unsuitable for human consumption or even human interactions such as that of bathing. The issue of downstream pollution is exactly what affects the Xintang community today. “The Jean Capital of the World” sits along China’s Pearl River. The Pearl River has been a boon to the region’s livelihood and has sustained living for many centuries. However, in only a span of the past recent decades, the industrial processes occurring in the area have altered the make-up of the water content. On top of supporting the highest concentration of denim production in the world,

owner, Li Zhongquan, about where the wastewater went, he replied that it was recycled or else the government would severely punish the factory. This does not hold true, however, when one takes a glance at the Pearl River from a satellite image; the wastewater is flowing into the Pearl River and turning it into a dark, murky blackish unusable body of water. The director of RiverBlue (a documen-tary on the textile and denim dyeing process and its harsh side effects), David McIlvride, says it best when he stated that the Pearl River had essentially become a “dead river”, meaning one that is incapable of supporting any signs of life.

“ The wastewater is flowing into the Pearl River and turning it into a dark, murky blackish

unusable body of water.”

Greenpeace

Waste runoff from factories

around the Pearl River

Unfortunately for the locals, this has immediate effects. Inhabitants who were once able to swim and bathe in the river decades ago cannot do so now. With the Pearl River being their only source of water, however, the inhabitants of Xintang are forced to use the contaminated water in their daily life. The town of Xintang is centered

It affects the bigger cities that neighbor Xintang and ultimately can even have a global impact should the situation not be addressed. As mentioned by the environmentalists referred to by CNN, the chemicals can poison an entire ecosystem. Nearby fishing villages that send off their catch to the big cities may be shipping off contaminated products to those who aren’t

Inhabitants of all ages, even the toddlers and elders, participate in the production process in some shape or form but earn as little as 0.15 yuan for each loose end snipped off a pair of jeans. For as little as they earn a day, they are unjustifiably exposed to chemicals that “are neurotoxic, carcinogenic, they disrupt the endocrine system,” (Greenpeace).

directly within the contaminated region. What happens in Xintang and along the Pearl River is a global matter. While the factories should be acting to try and fix the damage done to the river, it is not just them that need to act. It isn’t enough for the government to pass a law that caps the amount of waste either; the law itself needs to be enforced. The denim pollution should be a more pressing global issue. The exposure this sustainability issue has received in the past should make fashion consumers at least give a second thought as to where their denim may come from and how

“Other possible damages for having dealt with the water include reproductive and

fertility problems or even certain cancers.”Other possible damages for having dealt with the water include reproductive and fertility problems or even certain cancers. The waste that comes from denim production isn’t a contained contamination however.

it may be possibly affecting the lives of others. The problem here is that the coverage of the story happened in 2010 and it is now five years later – unfortunately, this topic has already been forgotten by most of its original viewers. RiverBlue is an upcoming documentary once again covering the issues of denim production, but the general public should not have to resort to media outlets and documentaries just to be informed. China’s Insitute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) has records available online detailing the amount and the different kinds of pollution affecting a certain region or even city in the nation. A brief look at the records reveals that in 2013, there was 10,000 tons of wastewater in area surrounding the Pearl River.

Satellite view of the contaminated wastewater

Having this information easily accessible to the public is a step in the right direction. While it is great that major brands such as Levi’s and H&M, at least according to Greenpeace’s “The Detox Catwalk” scale, are taking small steps in the sustainable direction, the amount of proposed change is occurring at a rather miniscule amount. Until the general consumer has become more informed and there is a greater demand for sustainability, the market is only going to see continual small steps. Change begins with the knowledgeable consumer.

T-shirt Project

Jasonpaul McCarthy

Dala Eido

Nour SassineNour Sassine

Sam Ibanez

Jaqueline Banting

Isaiah Cargill

Gabriela BPerez

Charlotte Nord

Zara Kanaan

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Sanie Irsay

Catherine Jiang

Claudia Poh

Azul Diaz

Alice Mueller

Yuxuan Li

Joanna Fann

Maria Jean

Wing Lam

Written by Amanda Lewis

Sustainable Students at

Parsons Paris

Parsons prides itself in its efforts to create an environment promoting sustainability

to students inside and outside of the classroom, and it shows in the work

coming from the student body. Students such as Keith-Patrick

Marlin, Amina Sulejmanagic, and members of the Installation

Club have created projects which embody the Parsons

commitment to creating an actively sustainable

community.

Amina Sulejmanagić Koutré

Isata Yansaneh & Amina Sulejmanagic won the first Cathay Foundation Prize for

Strategic Design & Management students with their project Koutré.

Koutré is a design based collective encouraging the advancement of cultural preservation and sustainable growth. They wanted to pair existing French textile designers with traditional textile makers in Southeast China. They were inspired by the Chinese textile making traditions which are slowly declining because fewer women are being taught the weaving techniques of textile making. Amina and Isata believe that connecting the textile craftsmen of China with the consumer market in Europe can help to preserve these traditions by creating a larger market to support the creation of these beautiful fabrics.

An innovative work in design, Koutré includes a concrete application to the real economy with an entrepreneurial perspective bearing on relations between China and Europe.

Rustproof

“It’s beautiful, because it’s not mine and it has a story... it’s like a piece

of art, just handed down.”

During her time at Parsons Paris, Amina took a course in Economics and Ethics in Sustainable Design, with a focus on clothing production. She chose to create her final project about vintage and second hand clothing to illustrate how clothing production can move from linear to a cyclical form of production, defined as cradle-to-cradle products.

In Rustproof, Amina records the interactions between a Parsons student, or the consumer, and the owner of a vintage store. The video is a documentation of separate conversations with each of them, discussing the art of creating a sellable collection of vintage clothes. Because each piece only comes in one condition and in one size, there is a uniqueness and a timeless quality apparent in the clothing which cannot be bought fresh and new, but only comes from recycling treasured pieces. Shopping at vintage stores not only creates this “cradle to cradle” cycle which advocates a more sustainable model for the clothing market by encouraging shoppers to buy used clothing instead of brand new clothing, it also creates a greater sense of personal style with more unique singular pieces with an sense

The Installation Club NetWt.The newly founded Installation Club, including students Justin Booz, Sanie Irsay, Margaux Salgado, Emma Moore, LeeAnne Shaffer Osborne, WonJik Yang, Katia Porro, Barnard Smit, and others built NetWt. in the very middle of Parsons Paris. This project was developed after noticing the amount of plastic water bottles Parsons goes through and was created to raise awareness within the community in hopes to reduce our waste and adapt to a more sustainable lifestyle.

By building a way to creatively display our waste and have it continuously visible, Justin is asking us to constantly reconsider how we regard our waste products every day.

To get the water bottles into the net, you must throw it out the window and watch the bottle cascade into the net stories below. By asking us to actively consider how we dispose of our bottles, Justin presents us with the opportunity to realize and quantify how we deal with our waste and why it is important to consider this outside of what Parsons asks from us as members of a sustainably-oriented community.

Keith-Patrick Marlin Energized!Created by Fashion student Keith-Patrick Marlin and Chelsea Galinos, Energized! is a fun, interactive game designed to help just about everyone learn more about sustainable forms of energy use. To play the game, everyone chooses a piece representing Solar, Electric, Hydro, or Renewable Energy and make your way through toxic factories and wind farms on an educational journey to higher powered, clean energy.

Each player will take turns picking up cards with scholastic facts concerning energy consumption. When answered correctly, game pieces are moved the number spaces dictated on each question card. The first player to make it to “Energized” will be crowned the winner. Questions on the cards have varying levels of difficulties so that anyone can play, Questions on the cards have varying levels of difficulties so that anyone can play,

and they challenge your knowledge of different forms of energy, what kinds of energy you use in everyday life, and how that energy is transformed when you use it.

Check the tag on your t-shirt. What does it

say? 45% cotton, 55% polyester? Perhaps you think that’s all you need to know about what you’ve bought. What you feel is what you have. But what brands and companies conveniently leave out on the tag is: 700 gallons of water, 1500 kilojoules of energy, and of course almost 50 years in landfill dumps. The price we pay for our t-shirt does not reflect all the negative externalities that it leaves behind. We live in a culture and time where what we wear defines our personas. As fashion and labels take greater precedence in our lives, we start to forget the consequences of what we buy and wear.

The current culture of fast fashion is defined by massproducing industries and brands spread all over the world. Their low prices and glitzy advertisements have made us ignorant to the long-lasting toxic effects of the fashion industry. Take H&M, a leader in the fast fashion world that collaborates with the biggest names in the business, including high-end luxury brands. What is the reality behind their exponential growth and production? A part of it is hundreds of gallons of toxic waste dumps in the Yangtze River each day. And, they are not alone. Adidas, Nike, and countless other commercial brands that all of us know and purchase have contributed to the massive pollution of chemicals into the rivers in China and other countries. Why is this not in the news? Why don’t we see them brought to court, or at least the as a subject of protest? It’s because their vast influence and net worth has made them immune to any scrutiny. We are guilty of falling prey to such company despite their practices. The growing demand for cotton has had hazardous effects on land, which is being increasingly deforested for cotton cultivation. Its thirst for water as well as the carbon emission by factories have made this industry the second most pollutive in the world, after the oil industry. Imagine every t-shirt you buy having given off around 6.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide in its production--a staggering amount enough to have a significant effect on human health and the atmosphere. The deforestation of nature and the pesticides and fertilizer involvedeventually leave the land worn out and wasted. High street brands are not the only ones that exercise this constant lack of environmental

sustainabilityvs.fashion

Written by Eman Muhammad

Their vast influence and net worth has made them immune to any scrutiny.

aiming to maximize profits and keep their status quo. In efforts to keep clientele and target customers limited and high class, Louis Vuitton burns the expensive leather bags that are leftover from the shelves at the end of the sales cycle insteadof reducing their prices and making them more available. In fact, most brands in the LVMH group have zero policies for sustainability regarding the leather and chemicals they use. It is a vicious cycle. Not only are they guilty of using materials such as crocodile skin leather and other

products extracted from animals, they are ultimately wasting resources and creating excessive amounts of pollution during their manufacture. This is not the end of the story. All the pollution, toxic waste, and CO2 emissions that are continuously generated are affecting our lives directly. The contaminated water affects the soil where food is grown and areas where people live. Bangladesh’s Buringanga River and Cambodia’s Mekong River are so full of chemicals that neighborhoods that depend on the river for farming and drinking water are now sick and dying. Is fashion really worth the cost their lives? Finally, our clothes leave carbon footprints on our environment not only during their production but also at the end of their lives. Synthetic fibers in almost all of our clothing bought in the last 10 years cannot biodegrade. This means our thrown out clothes are likely

Most brands have zero policies for sustainability.

And these are just a fraction of the impacts. The impact on the labour and health of people working in these industries is an entirely new set of discouraging factors all together. Of course we all want the latest trends and dress with the newest designs. Fashion is a very important part of our lives. Thus it is even more important to care for what goes on behind the things we spend so much time and money on. Most of us cannot rid ourselves of the need to buy and indulge in clothing. And the garment industry itself is nevertheless an employer of over 26 million people worldwide. There is no easy fix to change the world when it is so deeply ingrained in our lifestyles. So what can we do to improve the situation? The simplest solution: resist, recycle, and reconsider. Resist the urge to constantly buy new products, especially from massproducing brands that don’t have a transparent policies about their productions. Recycle what you have or try to reuse it in a new way instead of throwing it out.

Reconsider and fulfill your needs by purchasing from brand have greener sourcing, production, and manufacturing practices.Need a few names to get started? Freitag is a European fashion brand that cares about the impact of every single step of its production process, makes its garments biodegradable and compostable, and designs great upcycled bags and accessories. People Tree is a small-scale British brand for everyday womenswear that keeps both environmental production and ethical labour practices in mind.

Other designers such as Svilu and Kowtow are relatively more careful about their productions as well. French brand Base Range and designer Maria Cornejo also use recycled materials for the clothes they create. There is a huge variety brands all over the world with different levels of sustability, and the list continues to grow.

The problem that remains amongst us is consciousness: the lack of thought we put into the things we use everyday. If we can change the way we think about our consumption, we can begin to shift the function of the fashion system. All it takes is the desire to change our awareness, our habits, and our purchases. If we make the change within ourselves, we can certainly impact the big picture.

The simplest solution: resist, recycle, and

Vintage shopping

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Here are a few vitnage stores where you can shop for goodies, and they are all located close to each other. The key is to have patience, dig a little deeper and look through all the racks of clothing, you never know what you will find!

Vintage Désir

FREE’P’STAR Odetta

Mam’zelle Swing

8 rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie

Be ready for the 1 euro bins because that is what they are famous for!

32, Rue de Rosiers

Be ready for bargin finds! The price is fair, and with some patiance, you might find treasuress!

35 rue du Roi de Sicile

This is perfect for those who like the elegant styles of 40s-60s old movies! The quality is usually great too!

76, rue des Tournelles

This place may be on the more pricy side, but they have quality clothing from named names that are worth keeping.