Walking the talk

THE Instagram bio of 22-year-old sustainable fashion advocate Seri Mizani describes her as a “Nurturer of Nature. A wanderer with an array of secondhand clothes and filled with whimsical gardens of hue”.

She explained: “I’ve always loved dressing up, but after two years of studying fashion and seeing endless rejected garments and wasted fabrics, I felt that I was not aligned with my core values, as my mother who was an environmentalist always taught me to recycle and reuse my clothes ever since I was young.

“Hence a year ago, I decided to take a break from school and use my platform to raise environmental awareness through fashion.”

She added: “There are people who have not acknowledged the importance of sustainability in fashion to start shopping consciously. In fact, the disastrous effects brought by the fashion industry only came to light not so long ago compared to other pollutants.

“I guess we can all agree that Gen-Z is environmentally ‘woke’. We seem to be more interested in thrifting, reconstructing, swapping clothes, and handing things down to our friends rather than buying from retail stores. It has become a way for us to express our own unique individuality through sustainable clothes.”

If one really thinks about it, sustainability is nothing but another way of consumption cheered on by the same unbridled capitalist class.

It’s clear that there is an apparent disparity in consumer dissonance; where everyone gets behind you when you write about buying, but as soon as you write about not buying, no one wants to hear you.

“Everything I do today is still a learning process. I now restrain myself from buying more thrifted clothes, while constantly practicing how I can reuse the clothes I already own,” she added.

Seri has started to slow down the process of truly seeing herself wearing, or in a more euphemistic expression, ‘living’ in a garment by being mindful of her purchase decision.

Ultimately, we as human beings are naturally attracted to beautiful things, it’s not inherently a bad thing, but perhaps protracting that infatuation at first sight can really go an extra mile.

Reevaluating the superficiality of clothes and enhancing their aesthetic for added value is one way to breathe new life into old clothes, and that is exactly what Seri did as she dexterously crafted sumptuous pieces from thrift stores with an utilitarian approach.