Fashion Design Certificate Class of '19 Anna Koutelas Published an Article for PAGE Magazine
“Check your tag — the one inside the shirt you’re wearing now. But wait. Before you reach for that small piece of fabric resting against the back of your neck, let me suggest a path less traveled.”
On March 8th, 2021, Fashion Design Certificate class of ’19 Anna Koutelas got her article, Check Your Tag: Why We Should Pay Attention to the Make of Our Threads published on PAGE, a magazine where fashion and sustainability are intrinsic partners.
In her article, Anna Koutelas offers basic knowledge of the types of fibers that make up the fabric of our clothing, so that, as she says, we can leave “equipped with the tools to determine the quality (or lack thereof) of garments as you navigate the wild west of clothes shopping.”
She describes the different types of fibers and highlights the differences between natural and synthetic fibers, explaining why some are better quality than others but also their contrasted impact on our skin and the environment. In her nuanced argumentation, she sheds light on the reasons why synthetic fibers often rhyme with cheap, relying on historical facts and case studies to denounce the reality behind fast fashion and brand pricing.
Offering us advice and tips without ever being moralizing, Anna invites us to study more carefully the tags of our clothes, not to throw away all those containing synthetic fibers — the majority of fashion being synthetic anyway — but to know exactly what we’re wearing. As Anna says, rethinking our consumer habits is, just like rethinking the whole fashion industry, a work in progress.