Have you ever wondered why you buy a product?

Normally the answer would be: because I need it! but this answer does not always seem so obvious.

You buy for the desire of possession, the desire to show what you have just bought and many other times you buy because it is cheap.

"Very often we buy without thinking, we buy for impulse, without knowing if this item will really serve us or not"

Have you thought about the quality of the product you want to buy? how it was built, by whom it was built, do you know if the production of this object could have left a trace in the environment? For its construction have been exploited and underpaid by workers, Do you know if during its use can somehow create health problems, because inside it contains toxic substances?

These and other questions, are the ones you should take whenever you decide to buy any product. 

Fashion has also made a negative contribution in recent decades, moving towards massive production and even overproduction, an uncontrolled and sick mechanism that has even led to greater quantities than actual needs. 

The direct consequence, if not the real mission of this way of operating, was the rush to quantity and low price, compared to quality.

"Large chains of clothing, accessories and electronics have saturated the market with large quantities of products without quality, designed to last little, be thrown away and then replaced in a short time with other new ones".

Years ago I was in the Catalunya region a few kilometres from Barcelona, Spain. I was visiting a large textile factory that also produces for very big brands. As we looked at the various textile production environments of this company I found myself  inside a department store, about 1000sqm, this part of the factory was entirely dedicated to the failed garments. Clothes produced and then selected because they can not be sold because with some small defects, sometimes imperceptible. A skipped stitch, quietly repairable, a seam point of different color and only a few times of unresolvable production problems to be able to save the garment. I asked the salesman who accompanied us during the tour, what happened to all that "failed" goods, he told me that it was sold in bulk to distributors in Morocco, Tunisia or other countries where in turn it was sold to small local stockers who sold at the stalls of the local markets.
 

This results in double production for the number of all failed garments and an entire production sold out for small defects. 

At other times, however, unsold stocks are donated to charity, recycled, but unfortunately other large companies destroy and burn unsold stocks with a consequent waste of resources, without considering the pollution that results from its disposal. 

Now I ask you a few more questions: do you spend more if you buy a quality product or if, over time, you buy a lot of cheap and poor quality? Do you get tired of a cheap product or a high-quality one? 

Once you have the actual need for your purchase, you should try to understand if the product in front of you is a product that can last over time for the purpose for which you are buying it and if it can also be used for other purposes.

"Products with less quality deteriorate in the times and manner in which they were designed, cannot be repaired and need to be thrown away"

One of the pioneers in terms of respect for the environment, during the production phases and for the invoice of durable garments, is the American outdoor brand Patagonia. The policy of recycling and restoration of products characteristic of the Swedish denim brand Nudie Jeans is also very interesting, fortunately in recent times they are not the only ones.

When we thought of creating the Lava Sportswear brand, with previous experience in quality textile production, we put the quality of products as the main mission to marry with".

We want to know that our products have been certified in accordance with the rules in respect of fair and solidarity, environmental protection and health. 

Knowing the provenance of the production, knowing who packaged the product purchased and whether they are productions with little environmental impact, characteristics that together with its quality (including the fact that we do not understand substances harmful to health) we think are the basis that today a production must have and that a consumer can no longer ignore. 

Brands with sustainable and smaller productions, these are the productions that we should all support. It will be a "hype of the moment" but, stemming from an urgent need for the health of our planet and therefore ours, we believe that it will not be "passenger" like all trends but that it will be part of our contemporary DNA.

Il world is now "changed", so we hope that there will be more and more awareness towards smarter production and less fortuitous consumption.