I’m a first year Fashion student and it hurts me to see that the field in which I’m striving to make a

career is the second most polluting industry in the world. In my college, the professors are so open
to change that they actually encourage us to be more fashionable and experimental with our outfits
and accessories and hair, etc. One of the professors even went to the extent of recommending one
of the students to dye their hair with a unique color. That seems fine- but what doesn’t is the fact
that to be experimental with our outfits, we actually need to possess those outfits to wear them,
right? Obviously, there’s the option of borrowing them from your peers, but that doesn’t seem to
fulfill your innate desire of possessing it, does it? So now I’m confused as to what is it that I can
actually practice to be a minimalist when my wardrobe is concerned. And then, I want to share that
practice with others too, because the way we spend excessively on clothes- it is just horrifying! And
the condition of our planet today can surely not support this kind of mass production for much
longer.

As a fashion student, I want to make a change in the industry so that people associate this industry
not with pollution, but with what it actually should be- a form of self- expression! And if we can take
it beyond that, then maybe even a step towards a sustainable clothing industry.

I recently watched the Netflix documentary ‘The Minimalists…. Less is Now’… And this 53-minute
documentary has got me thinking the whole day of the things we can do as a responsible person to
make things better for the future of the planet. The documentary also speaks of a #Lessisnow
challenge, wherein you discard one item on day one, two items on day two and so on. It removes
the clutter off of your living space. This challenge really excited me, but unluckily I can’t be a part of
it since I’m not at home. I had to shift to a new city for my college. And here, I’m having a hard time
because many of my belongings are still at my home. But I guess it’s a new start for me, so I can keep
my space clutter-free right from the start.

It's actually true that minimalism is not an easy job- in fact it’s the most difficult one. To live with just
optimum possessions is tough because you need to become objective while answering the question
of whether you need a particular thing or not. And the emotional side of ours makes us want to hold
onto everything that we gather during our lives.

But as one of the narrators of the documentary also mentions that if we keep just the few things
that remind us of our loved ones, we are able to connect more with them. Firstly, because it doesn’t
become a dump inside our homes, and secondly because now, we’ve created space for memories in
our minds and not in the closets or the storerooms.

These were my views on this fascinating topic…. If you have an answer to the fashion problem I
discussed above, do comment and let me know!