Years ago, I used to have a packed wardrobe with nothing usable wearable inside. The reason was that every item I used to buy only lasted for 2-3 wears and lost its shape after washing. I did a major edit, took aside the clothes that I liked the most and are wearable, I shared them between myself and my sisters. The rest, I donated, believing that the good pieces will end up with people in need, and the rest will be carefully recycled and reused in new garment production. The reality is so far from that.
Fast fashion chains claim to have sustainable production just to ease the conscious of their customers but in reality, it is nothing but a marketing gimmick. The truth is, fast fashion can never be fully sustainable, because recycled clothes can never be 100% used in production of new garments, instead they end up in the landfills or they end up being cleaning material or insulation material. The most sustainable garment of all, is the one which doesn’t have to be newly produced.
Since 2000, new clothing purchases have doubled, over 120 billion garments are produced worldwide annually (Considering we are only 7.9 billion people on the planet earth, 120 billion pieces of garment is quite unnecessary). What used to be 4 new collections is now 52 micro collections every year. Moreover, due to pandemic online shopping gained pace and reached its highest levels. This is partially due to social media, seeing the same top every day on influencers with a link to the online shopping page, it is easier than ever to binge shop online.
Fast fashion chains produce faster and cheaper than ever, the quality of garments produced is really at its lowest levels in years. The items you buy from a fast fashion brand, used to last 2-3 wears, now doesn’t even last that long. The big news is: it is all done on purpose. You need to wear the clothes once and get influenced by something new and buy a new item the next day. Whatever you have in your fast fashion wardrobe will only last couple of days. This way, without knowing you become a link in the cycle, contributing the global mess we all created collectively by supporting fast fashion chains and by overconsuming.
Firstly, let me explain more about the problems with fast fashion industry and why some of them are not sustainable as they claim.
What is sustainable fashion? We think that it is recycled used garments put back in the production, but no it is not. The standards available today to measure and grade the recycle activities are very vague. When you see on the label a statement like: “100% recycled polyester is used” it is not recycled clothing, but it is in fact recycled bottles.
Around 70% of the textiles today are made of synthetic fibres (crude oil based). Majority of the textiles today also have a mixed composition of different synthetic and natural fibres. This makes it impossible in todays technology, to break down and recycle each fibre separately. For a garment to be fully recyclable, it must be composed of a single fibre; 100% poly, 100% cotton, etc. If there are accessories made of metal like zippers or some beads on the garment etc, then the garment becomes again un-recyclable.
Knowing this, you can understand that if there is sustainable label on a garment, it is merely recycled garment, but its recycled bottles or other materials.
The big question is, where does the 120 billion garments that are produced every year, actually end up going? The answer is mainly to the landfills.
Landfill in Ghana is only one of the many landfills in the world where clothing is dumped.
Fast fashion: The dumping ground for unwanted clothes - BBC News - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHnDqelUh-4
According to a German textile collector, a part of the collected textiles ends up being cleaning material or insulation material. But before that step, sorting companies select and send good quality second hand garment for sales in east European countries like Bulgaria. The problem is, there is no control of the last step of the cycle and most of the time garments sent to poor countries end up being burned as fuel at home of poor people.
When garments with mixed synthetic fibres burn, it exposes chemical compounds, such as elastomers, plastics, volatile organic compounds. It affects people’s health due to increasing air pollution. In the specific village of Bulgaria where people burn clothes as fuel, the hospitals record increased blood pressure, respiratory lung infection, increased number of strokes, all linked between 1h-24h exposure to pollution of burning clothing.
Unless the governments set the rules for textile production to be really recyclable, the excess of 120 billion garments produced every year, will end up either in the landfills, or in the air we breathe.
The second big impact on the environment is the water consumption caused by textile production. If we consider producing only cotton due to recycle capabilities, we will soon run out of drinking water. Cotton a natural fibre but it is still a chemical and water intensive crop. WWF for Nature says 20,000 litres of water is used to make 1 kilograms of cotton, which is 1 t-shirt and a pair of jeans. (Side information: 11% of the worlds’ pesticides are used on the cotton fields)
Organic cotton is better than normal cotton due to less water intensive production and less impact on environment around the fields. But don’t mistake it with the “ecologically grown cotton”. Ecologically grown cotton is only a marketing statement that doesn’t certify the organic cotton production.
Recycling or returning used clothes is not a solution to overconsumption or overproduction. The cycle is easy to break: Just. Stop. Buying.
So what can you do as a consumer, to change the way you experience fashion, and dress yourself in a way that is less destructive to earth.
1. Go seasonless
With 52 micro seasons that fast fashion chains push forward and with trends changing every day, we lost touch with the most important thing about fashion: projecting our personal style.
Fashion is the perfect tool to dress yourself, to express your personal style, convey your message. You can decide on your own, how you present yourself to the world. While doing so, you don’t need to buy new clothes every other week. All you need to do is to define your personal style and choose staples that you will want to wear repeatedly. This means going seasonless.
Going seasonless is the way to go in the future. The concept doesn’t mean sacrificing style but instead making clothes to last rather than be thrown away. It puts less pressure on the environment but also preserves creativity and well being of artists and designers who are pressured to create a new collection every other week.
Only the end consumer has the power to balance the brands and push them, give them pressure to make real changes. The next person who does that might be you.
2. Buy high-quality second-hand clothing
Second hand is a lifestyle of the environmentally conscious customers. Vintage has become a new industry with global turnover of 36 billion USD in 2021 and expected to grow further in the future.
Buying second hand doesn’t mean wearing old clothes, because you can find so many barely worn or very well-preserved garments that look almost like new.
Personally, I choose to buy certain designer clothes on the second-hand market, due to high quality, durability and good preserved conditions. I choose garments with fabrics like silk or wool. Here are some outfits that I collected from vintage shops that are high end designer brands. They are really good quality garments that I can wear in my personal life, or in professional life.
Another good thing about buying second hand designer is, once you experience the luxury feeling of the silk or wool clothing, you want that feeling to last long, so you push yourself to preserve the quality of the garment. Since I started buying second-hand clothing, I became very conscious about how I treat my clothes, and how I care about the textiles to preserve their condition.
Another good thing about second hand designer is, once you experienced the garment fully and you are ready to let go, there will be someone waiting on the next corner to buy it from you 😊
3. Make your own garments
This is the part where I believe the biggest impact can happen. Learning to make your own clothes can truly change the way you experience fashion. The freedom of creating garments that will represent who you are, and that you will wear repeatedly.
That is power! Power of not depending on the fast fashion chains, power of being your own muse for creation, power of telling your story, in the language that you create.
Making your own clothing can sound intimidating but there are so many easy ways to start and build your knowledge as you go.
While making your own clothes, you will gain the habit of questioning every garment you see in a store. You will question their quality, the way they are made, or even if you can make it yourself or not. Soon you will realize that you don’t want to buy that nice jacket you see in the store, but you want to make it yourself. This way, you will buy less and less ready-made clothing.
The choice of fabric also determines your impact on the environment. Like finished garments, there are so many excess fabrics produced and discarded every year. Corporate waste side of fashion waste is 40 times more than the household waste. It is up to you to find these deadstock fabrics, what I call rare gems, and make your clothing out of them. Better the quality, better the finished product 😊
4. Choose wisely
It is not easy to change the habits from one day to the other. If you need to buy a new garment from a store, educate yourself to choose good quality garments that will truly last you a lifetime.
If you need to buy basics, such as T-shirts, choose organic cotton instead of standard one. Learn about labels and what they mean. Educate yourself on the certifications and standards available and try to get to know the brands you buy from. If you can, choose smaller brands with conscious production practices. Don’t hesitate to ask questions if you see a statement about sustainability and do challenge the brands to tell you more or justify their claims.
Remember, you and only you can decide how the future will look like.
Choose wisely.
Cheers,
Idil
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