The organic trend
What do Tesco, Ralph Lauren and Bono have in common? The Financial Times gave the answer in the article ‘The cotton wars’ last week: they all sell organic clothing.[1]
Is this a sign of growing consumer awareness, a marketing tool or just another trend? The increasing use of the word organic is questionable. For example, a pair of jeans might be made of organic cotton, but it still contains nylon as well. Most consumers do not care about this. As long as a product is labelled organic, buying it makes them feel good about themselves and usually no further questions are asked.
So the organic wave is definitely a trend that has been picked up by marketing. However, this is not the whole story. As Julie Gilhart, fashion director of Barneys New York argues: “I think it is the beginning of a major shift in consciousness in the fashion business.” Apart from the fashion business, the eco/organic/fair trade shift occurs from clothes to food and as far as holidays. Trend or not, this is good news for the environment. Companies first follow consumer demands, but as soon as it pays of they will do their best to make more consumers follow, often with results. For example, in many countries consumers do not even have the option to buy non-free range eggs anymore.
A complete shift to organic clothes will take a while, though. Only one percent of the cotton on the current global market is organic and it is forecasted to take till 2015 to rise to 10 percent. To contribute to this rise, we will have to follow the trend.
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References
[1] ‘The cotton wars’, in: The Financial Times, 01 March 2007.
Is this a sign of growing consumer awareness, a marketing tool or just another trend? The increasing use of the word organic is questionable. For example, a pair of jeans might be made of organic cotton, but it still contains nylon as well. Most consumers do not care about this. As long as a product is labelled organic, buying it makes them feel good about themselves and usually no further questions are asked.
So the organic wave is definitely a trend that has been picked up by marketing. However, this is not the whole story. As Julie Gilhart, fashion director of Barneys New York argues: “I think it is the beginning of a major shift in consciousness in the fashion business.” Apart from the fashion business, the eco/organic/fair trade shift occurs from clothes to food and as far as holidays. Trend or not, this is good news for the environment. Companies first follow consumer demands, but as soon as it pays of they will do their best to make more consumers follow, often with results. For example, in many countries consumers do not even have the option to buy non-free range eggs anymore.
A complete shift to organic clothes will take a while, though. Only one percent of the cotton on the current global market is organic and it is forecasted to take till 2015 to rise to 10 percent. To contribute to this rise, we will have to follow the trend.
____________________________________________
References
[1] ‘The cotton wars’, in: The Financial Times, 01 March 2007.
posted by Let @ 11:38 am
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