Copenhagen Fashion Summit review with Esther from Die Konsumentin
Our dear friend Esther from Die Konsumentin joined us to Copenhagen a couple of weeks back for the Copenhagen Fashion Summit.
"Since its first edition in 2009, Copenhagen Fashion Summit has established itself as the world’s leading business event on sustainability in fashion." (source: CFS website)
She will share her thoughts on the summit with us in a short interview.
For people who don’t know about you and your platform yet, please tell us a little more about you and what your mission with Die Konsumentin is.
A couple of years ago me and my childhood friend Anna started the the Slow Fashion Online Magazine »die konsumentin« (engl. the female consumer). We see the female consumer especially as a powerful contemporary and believe, she is a key in demanding the world's economic transformation towards equality and sustainability. As one of our favourite feminist activists Laurie Penny once said: »If all women on earth woke up tomorrow feeling truly positive and powerful in their own bodies, the economies of the globe would collapse overnight.
Why is sustainability, especially within the fashion industry, so important right now? And what are the key challenges we’re currently facing in your point of view?
Sustainability as a trend is growing, but so is the consumption of fast fashion. And that industry exploits women in particular. For me, sustainability in fashion is a highly feminist concern regarding equality and fair wages for women all over the world.
Do you think that events and conferences such as the Copenhagen Fashion Summit help tackle some of these key challenges?
Definitely! At these conferences, innovators for sustainable materials, new consumption concepts or technologies for more transparency meet global players of conventional, but change-willing fashion brands. In order to think big and make a real global change, these kind of events are essential.
Overall, what were your key takeaways from the meetings, panel talks, pitches and presentations, that you have seen during the Summit?
Change is happening right now, that is for sure! But I still feel that everyone is a little too careful. The Fashion Summit is a business event for the sustainability enthusiasts of the (capitalistic) fashion system – and changing a running system, even if everyone is on the same page, can be scary. My main takeaway of the summit might be that everybody seems to agree that sustainability and reduced consumption are the answer - and the only possible future. But in order to reach this future soon, we need to stop agreeing with one another and start to actually act towards a radical change of the current capitalistic high-consumption based fashion-industry.
Make sure to head over to Die Konsumetin for your daily dose of green fashion inspiration, political activism, fair fashion city guides and much more! <3
