Casa Italiana Hosts Sustainable Fashion Panel

The New York University School of Professional Studies (NYUSPS) hosted leaders in the ethical fashion movement at Casa Italiana.

The April 5 Panel was titled Sustainability of Ethical Fashion in our Brave New World and was the second panel of an NYUSPS-hosted initiative called Dialogues in Languages and Humanities. The panel, moderated by the founder of the Ethical Fashion Initiative, Simone Cipriani, focused on brands and designers making a conscious effort to reduce the fashion industry’s role in environmental degradation and human rights violations.

The problematic effects of commercial manufacturing have led to the fashion industry’s involvement in some unethical practices, from child labor and low wages to pollution and contamination of drinking water. But the industry leaders on the panel—and others like them—are working to create a newer, better industry that is considerate of both workers and the environment.

“We speak today in this sense about the engagement of business about conscious capitalism,” said Cipriani. “This is to say a form of capitalism that embeds social issues in its business model. It’s capitalism with a higher purpose in which the purpose is people and the profit is the happy outcome of doing good business.”

-Maggie Utter