‘SustainableAF Closet’ – Shop Till You Drop While Giving Back To The Environment

As we plunge deeper into the abyss of consumerism, our resources cry out for help. Our synthetic alternatives, like plastic, have already become a burden for the environment, and the need to look for alternative resources is at an all-time high. While some are finding creative ways to upcycle scrap, others are actively engaged in exploring eco-friendly alternatives or trying to undo the damage done by fast fashion. SustainableAF Closet is a collaboration that believes in “making fashion truly circular and extending the life of an already produced product” as opposed to creating sustainable fashion.This collaboration is a result of the coming together of fashion label SUI and India’s first fashion swapping platform This for That (TFT).

SUI is an initiative by the 50 year old heritage Indian brand - Sue Mue. The brand works on a made to order basis, helping reduce over production, which is one of the main pollutants in the fashion industry. Also, the fabric used by the label is sustainable. While TFT, founded by Nancy Bhasin, is not only the country’s first clothes swapping app, but also organises swap parties across Delhi NCR to familiarise people to the concept.

“SUI has joined hands with This for that closet, to take this first ever initiative by a fashion label to try and extend the life of things already produced but not sold, AKA, dead stock. We are committing dead stock from our first collection to TFT. This stock will be available for the end user to swap exclusively on the TFT app. Typically, how swapping works is that people swap something, use it a few times and upload it again, thereby increasing the shelf life of a product. So, chances are that good quality fashion will get multiple uses and will last far longer. In the age of mass consumerism where brands want to produce quicker, cheaper collections, every 15 days and offer ‘NEW’ designs at a huge cost to the environment, the Sustainable AF badge becomes a badge of honour to say that, “We believe in sustainable over new”,” reads a statement issued by SUI.

Not only is this collection sustainable, it also gives consumers and opportunity to take these exquisite pieces home for 10% of the original cost. SustainableAF Closet allows you to shop till you drop while giving back to the environment - “Large amounts of non-renewable resources are extracted to produce clothes every season and at the end of the season, a lot of the clothes produced don’t make it to the end consumer and eventually end up being landfilled or incinerated, producing methane, CO2 and highly toxic leachate, which filters into the ground and surface water systems. The TFT X SUI collaboration aims to address this problem of the fashion industry and resolve it to an extent by ensuring produced clothes reach the end user.”

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