Emma Watson Sheds Light on the Pollution in Fashion

As people check items off of their holiday shopping lists and buy new Christmas outfits or clothing items as gifts, Emma Watson is trying to offer some sage advice about sustainability and about which clothing is actually ethical fashion worth buying. The English actress and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador (who is best known for her role as Belle in the live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (2017) and her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films) is already known for both her activism and her private approach to her personal life, but recently Emma took both her privacy and her activism a step further by turning her Instagram account over to an “anonymous female collective”.

So far, the collective has posted informative photos and captions about important causes that are also, presumably, important to Emma herself. Recently, the collective shared a detailed post from Chicks for Climate about why cheap fashion or fast fashion (i.e. the cheap clothes you can find in department stores that are easy to buy but made of substandard material) is bad for people and the planet, making the fast fashion industry’s true cost far higher than its price tag.

“Here’s what the FAST FASHION industry doesn’t want you to know this holiday season,” the post reads. “Fast fashion is cheap and convenient for us, but it spells disaster for the planet. We do have some power as consumers to change this – avoiding fast fashion, telling everyone you know about this, and voting for change are the best ways to help”. There are also several infographics demonstrating how much waste is involved in the fashion industry; the fashion industry is one of the top polluting industries, particularly when it comes to water!

Emma Watson also helped spread awareness in regards to sustainable fashion and ethical fashion during her press tour for Beauty and the Beast, when she specifically focused on using fair trade, vegan, cruelty-free, and/or sustainably made cosmetics and fair trade, sustainable clothing throughout the entire press tour. Her Emilia Wickstead dress above is one of those sustainable articles of clothing!

Her red carpet style for that press tour, and the press tour’s Instagram account, drew thousands of fans’ attention. The press tour also was educational for consumers when it came to cheap fashion, fast fashion brands, slow fashion, and ethical brands!

Jane Fonda and Angelina Jolie have also been promoting sustainable fashion on the red carpet, particularly by simply reusing old clothes for the events, and the Eco-Age Green Carpet Challenge has also started a gradual fashion revolution when it comes to ethical fashion in Hollywood!