Fashion in the 90s was all about slip dresses and scrunchies, while the turn of the millennium brought metallic streetwear, Juicy Couture sweats and layered singlets.
In this hyper-consumerist age, fashion trends are more fractured, with social media influencers prompting ever-changing microtrends.
But the fashion industry has become one of the world’s biggest polluters, with the industry being responsible for 10 per cent of annual carbon emissions and leading to over 200,000 tonnes of clothes entering landfill in Australia every year, according to the organisation Clean Up Australia.
Some Christian fashion labels are holding their own, promoting ethical practices as well as the unchanging faith.
They include Sydney-based Project Sainthood and Catholic Apparel, Melbourne label Madida, and Nashville designer Youssef Nagib.
Project Sainthood, run by Paula Tannous, is a family business operating out of Sydney’s southwest who provide hoodies and shirts for faithful of all ages to “evangelise without speaking.”
“Having a shirt on your body and you’re walking around, and you have a saint or a quote from the Bible on the back, you’re basically preaching,” she told The Catholic Weekly.
“We want the saints to speak to people, we want these quotes to speak to people.”
Tannous also keeps environmental sustainability in mind, reusing samples and repurposing items with misprints or other errors.
“We either wear it ourselves or we’ll just have it in the shop, and we’ll reprint on that same shirt to test out other designs,” she said.
“We always like to reuse, and nothing goes to waste.”
She said her shirts were especially popular with young people and children, who wear them until they wear out.
“They’re religious items as well so we don’t want people chucking them out because it’s a sacred thing,” she said.
Tannous said the company was looking at ways to repurpose pieces no longer fit for wear, including using them for print sampling.
The late Pope Francis often spoke about the environment and the need for stewardship and mindfulness of the earth, writing his second encyclical Laudato Si’ on the “urgent challenge to protect our common home” in 2015.
That was followed by apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum in 2023.
While he did not directly mention the fashion industry, water usage and plastics are crucial to the textiles industry, and there are established links to modern slavery practices and animal cruelty.
These matters are increasingly important to consumers, with many seeking fashion designers with similar values.
Catholic Apparel’s Andre Abouharb takes his mission of running a faith-based label seriously and he looks to Scripture to inform his sustainability practices, which include minimising plastic use and waste, with a standing goal to “continually seek more sustainable options.”
“The Bible teaches that creation is entrusted to humanity and it is our responsibility to care for it and develop it wisely, so it provides for everyone now in and the future,” he said.
“Our apparel is made from high-quality cotton for durability, and we encourage customers to pass items onto siblings or donate to people in need.”
Athony Lual, co-founder of Melbourne-based Madida, and Youssef Nagib, owner of the eponymous brand Nagib, are proud not only about their pieces but their reputation for eschewing the pitfalls of fast fashion. Both uphold robust sustainability practices and are passionate about minimising the environmental impact of their work.
Madida refers to a drink made for women for healing in her native Sudan. Lual says it is an apt descriptor of her label.
“It’s about self-love and really embracing your wardrobe and making sure that it’s not just serving what you want it to look like but is also practical for everyday life,” she said.
“As a plus-size woman, it can seem impossible to find something that loves you, clothes that look good on you, and that you can keep for a long time.”
She said this informed her decisions when she built her brand, with sustainability being a core foundation of Madida.
“Everything that we’re doing comes from a labour of love in a way that considers not only the customer but the environment,” she said.
“I know my customers care about the environment in not just what they consume but what they wear and how they live.”
Lual said she makes samples mindfully so they can be altered instead of needing to be remade and repurposing off cuts from dresses into covers for journals, tea towels, or incorporating them into new designs.
Nagib, an up-and-coming young designer with an eye for beautiful dresses and shoes, says his focus as a designer is “hyper-femininity” and reclaiming femininity as woman’s beauty and strength.
Nagib said there was a practicality to sustainability as it was unrealistic to ship items from different designers and sources to make new pieces.
“We always make sure we know where the product is coming from because we don’t want to pour into a system that hurts people in any way, shape, or form,” he said.
Nagib said he looked for factories with good environmental practices but also took from other, older pieces as well as visiting fabric stores and searching for what could be given new life.
“A lot of the pieces that I create come from pre-existing garments because we don’t want to waste them,” he said.
“Whatever we can get our hands on to recreate and reuse, we put the amount of energy that we can into it.”
Pope Francis urgently appealed for “a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet.”
“We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.”
He condemned the “throwaway culture” humans have created which, without the ability to regenerate new products from old, “quickly reduces things to rubbish.”
“We have not yet managed to adopt a circular model of production capable of preserving resources for present and future generations, while limiting as much as possible the use of non-renewable resources, moderating their consumption, maximising their efficient use, reusing and recycling them,” he said.
“A serious consideration of this issue would be one way of counteracting the throwaway culture which affects the entire planet, but it must be said that only limited progress has been made in this regard.”
