Grace Guidera is president of Fair Fashion UGA, a student-led organization dedicated to educating others about consuming fashion through more ethical and sustainable means.

Q: What is your mission as part of Fair Fashion?

We’re dedicated to promoting just a sustainable fashion industry and educating people about ways that they can bring in just more ethical, ethically created clothes. 

Q: What has been the most successful event Fair Fashion has hosted?

Our spring pop-up is always probably our largest scale event. We have so many people from the community come out, and then also just students and it’s so awesome to be able to see the students and student businesses kind of just show off, like, they’re all so talented. It’s so cool to see, and then we have like a band come and all that kind of stuff. So, I’m excited for our upcoming spring pop-up. 

Q: Why is sustainable fashion an important issue for our community?

I mean, nobody needs the amount of clothes that is being pushed on us right now. Of course, everyone wants to be fashionable and, you know, work in their own personal style, which is great, which I do, but it is just a matter of, kind of really thinking about what you need and finding those things in a better way. 

We can’t turn over clothes and just dump them or source clothes in a really, really unsustainable way. So, I think everyone should be aware of the habits that they have. 

Q: Why is sustainable fashion important to you?

Well, I mean the fashion industry itself is just like one of the main pollutants in general. It’s actually mind boggling to see the amount of waste and just the amount of harm done to people themselves, like, especially female laborers around the world — just working and being paid nothing to sustain our, like, quick turnaround trend cycles. 

And, again, just watching people just be able to turn their clothes over and just not care about where that goes. It’s really, really devastating and we can’t do it for too much longer because it’s going to come back to us. 

Q: What advice do you have for people hoping to be more environmentally conscious with their fashion choices?

It’s important to, again, just kind of think about consciously buying and buying things that you’re going to rewear, and you know will withstand wash cycles and, like, being able to wear it out, and just making sure that you can buy things with like a couple years in mind and not just that one event. 

Q: How will you continue to advocate for sustainable fashion throughout your personal life? 

I know that I’ll always get as many things as I can secondhand and rewear them for as long as I want. I think just being able to kind of encourage people in your circle and … really live it and really care about (sustainable fashion) in, like, your day-to-day life I think is the most important thing to show people. 

Comments trimmed for length and clarity.

Hannah Freeman is a journalism major covering sustainability.