What do you plan to wear today? A simple work outfit, a glamorous dress, or a casual fit? Do you have a standard on what kind of clothes you wear? Well, arranging your outfit and picking clothes are exciting and fun if you are into fashion, but are the clothes in your wardrobe sustainable?

Sustainability is one of the important things the world pays attention to for the sake of our mother earth’s condition and the well-being of everything that lives in it. Sustainability is now considered for every sector and industry, including fashion. 

Sustainable Fashion is a movement and process of fostering change to fashion products and the fashion system towards ecological integrity and social ethics. It refers to the clothing that is designed, manufactured, distributed, and used in ways that are friendly to the environment. Or in short, the production of fashion items is ecologically and socially responsible. 

Sustainable Fashion is getting normalized lately and campaigned by the global market giants like Lacoste, Zara, Levis, and many more. In Indonesia, Sustainable Fashion just entered the market and attracted more conscious customers at the beginning of 2020. Local brands like cotton ink, rupa haus, imaji studio, and many more started to shift their clothes production to be more sustainable. That is a sign that we are actually making pretty big progress towards conscious shopping. 

As one of the countries that has the largest Muslim population in the world, Muslim fashion industry is a big deal in Indonesia. More Muslim fashion stores, both online and offline, are thriving in the market. But very few have raised their awareness about the importance of sustainable Muslim fashion.

Realizing the issue, the committee of the biggest annual sharia festival in Indonesia, the Indonesia Sharia Economic Festival (ISEF) campaigned sustainable Muslim fashion industry in Indonesia for economic recovery after the pandemic. The festival has “Magnifying Halal Industries Through Food and Fashion Markets for Economic Recovery” as their main theme and tagline. One of the main purposes of this event is to give Muslim fashion industry’s businesses and workers an encouragement to stand out and compete on the international market. That is why the event was also supported by the Deputy Director of Sharia Economics Department of the Bank of Indonesia. 

ISEF campaigning the concept of sustainable fashion as a new lifestyle that should be followed by many. ISEF encouraged the participants, both the producers or the consumers, to be more aware of the daily personal choices they make and their effects on the earth’s sustainability. Fashion Muslim product is a very potential commodity in the international market, and as the center of the global halal industry, Indonesia should promote the concept of sustainable Muslim fashion strategically and consistently. Aside from the economics, sustainable fashion is actually in line with one of the sharia values in Islam known as thayyib or goodness. That is why sustainable Muslim fashion is one of the foundations of this festival.

The massive festival was held both online through the ISEF’s virtual platform and offline at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) on the 29th of October 2021. The event conducted several activities to promote sustainability. For instance, fashion shows, exhibitions, talk shows, and competitions. The fashion show was held in two locations, at the Assembly Hall JCC as a fashion parade, and at the Lower Lobby JCC as a fashion presentation. There were at least 157 designers, 41 accessories brands, 797 looks of clothes designs from Indonesian fashion designers, and the members of Sharia Creative Industry Indonesia. 

The festival campaigned for sustainable Muslim fashion to be more known by Muslims in Indonesia before they market their products. Switching our habits from buying many cheap clothes to buying a single sustainable clothe might be a challenge, but the result of a more liveable mother earth and a just economy practice is worth the struggles.