Or so say proponents looking at ways to make the industry more “sustainable.” The idea is to create products that are durable and composed of materials that are less toxic to the environment, while still allowing for fashion changes that continue to create a chain of supply and demand to keep the industry prospering. So that means that fashion folk want to continue making things that last longer, while encouraging us to continue shopping for things that we don’t need.

The alternative … is disaster, plain and simple.

People could stop shopping. Then manufacturers of everything from shopping bags and carts to clothing racks and hangers would thrown into a downward spiral. This is to say nothing for the fashion magazine, advertising and television industry and all the people who work in such fields.

So let’s just say that eco-fashion is a pleasant compromise. We’ll pretend it’s not an oxymoron and we’ll all try to stay employed.

Fashion Group International and Washington University sponsored a discussion on this very tenuous topic last week and the consensus was predictably inconclusive.

“Sustainable energy is here to stay,” said keynote speaker Jana Hawley, a professor and department head of apparel textiles and interior design at Kansas State University who spoke on “apparel sustainability.” She said that companies can address environmental and social equity concerns and still be profitable. She’s been consulting with Wal-mart and even the retailer known for squeezing pennies out of third-world countries is said to be investing in more environmentally-made products. But we wonder who will win in the war of low-prices and the environment. Sadly, the odds are against Mother Earth.

Lori Allen of the Boutique Chartruese noted that “get the look for less” promotions are the scourge of the industry. You can’t advocate a $50 PVC knock-off of a $500 bag as choice that’s without consequence. But soon after she did a soft sell on Society Jeans from her shop in Webster Groves, check out her views on “Fashion vs. Marketing” on her No More Dressing in the Dark Blog.

Jenn McKelvie and Tina Davis-Noble, co-owners and designers of Miacro Design said that they take umbrage at the notion that “you can shop your way to heaven,” by investing in environmentally friendly products. People have the false perception that shopping is good, if you do it for the right cause. But the truth is that buying T-shirts is not saving trees and buying five pairs of organic jeans is not helping the landfill.

McKelvie admitted that “Fashion is good at symbolism.” But the movement has to start somewhere.

Hawley, who discussed a recent shopping trip to White House Black Market and Chico’s and looked like a woman who has a healthy closet full of clothes, said that people will have to develop some “ethical courage,” and ask themselves “what does it really mean to be well dressed.”

She advocated a regulating body, such as the Sustainable Style Foundation, that would put a stamp of approval on acceptable products. Then she talked about designers like London-based designer Mark Liu, who practices “zero waste design,” in which he uses every scrap of fabric in his finished designs.

She said that fashion is ripe with over-consumption and the well-dressed audience of fashion aficionados nodded in agreement.

But on the subject of what to do next, no one had a viable solution. Just more questions. There’s plenty of textile recyclers, she offered. But that recycling is still dependent on us re-consuming the merchandise. Wal-mart phased out 5 million pounds of blue smocks and created stationary for military vets and things like the poor quality carpeting in cars, she said. I can’t say that either seems like it’s making the world a better place. But I guess they aren’t making the world any worse.

At least one website championing the eco-cause, Ecorazzi, is working to make the green cause as fashionable as any other fashion enterprise with a gossip site. Check out the posting about how Giorgio Armani “double-crossed” PETA by reneging on a pledge to forever shun fur and now they have apparently enlisted Pamela Anderson to help them devise a plan to make him pay. Perhaps, the theory is that if you can’t make sustainable fashion sound logical, at least you can make it sound sexy.