7 minute read
RE-FASHION OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CLOTHES
from The Eye Issue 03
by The Eye
SUSTAINABLE FASHION AND THE IADT SWAP-SHOP
Words: Katie Malone
Advertisement
Out of the large wardrobe that you own, what do you actually wear and how often? Now, picture your wardrobe, multiply this with your family, your friends, and their friends. This adds up to masses of items of clothing barely worn. Currently, we own four times the amount of clothes our parents would have, and that is only a small insight into one individual’s social network.
What does this look like on a global scale? 80 billion pieces of new clothing are purchased each year - with this inflated expenditure on clothing happening annually, it seems that the more we consume, the more we waste. The Copenhagen Fashion Summit of 2018 reported that the fashion industry is responsible for 92 million tons of solid waste dumped in landfills each year.
How have we ended up in this position? The fast fashion industry. Fast fashion is a term used to describe the readily available, inexpensively made fashion of today. The fast fashion model is a scheme curated by the fashion industry and its associated brands, which lures in its consumers by constructing the illusion that you will feel innately happier and more fulfilled by purchasing and consuming fashion trends.
This image can be bought at a cheap price, but at what cost? The mechanisms of the fashion industry are seen through multiple marketing strategies perpetuated by the industry – such as the reconstruction of the clothing seasons, which were originally two seasons; a summer and a winter season. This has intensely multiplied on a large-scale to our current position with 52 fashion micro-seasons visible in the market.
This reimagined season model is one of the many tools used to entice its customers to keep up with the fast-moving trends and consume more frequently. The construction of 52 micro-seasons drives the production of inexpensive clothing. How? The prices are kept down by outsourcing production to low and middle-income countries.
With the rise of globalization, neoliberal practices and the growth of transnational economies, supply chains have been able to outsource the growth of fibres, the manufacturing of textiles and the construction of garments to areas with cheaper labour and resources. Currently, 97% of our clothing is outsourced from developing countries. This has led to the increase of job opportunities arising from the clothing industry, with 1 in 6 individuals currently at work in the clothing industry globally. However, 98% of these individuals are working under the living wage.
The people making our clothes are often in poor working conditions, enduring hardships in textile production factories with unethical employer’s rights and forced labour. This generates a binary opposition of human experience, but both linked to fast fashion. Privileged and westernised societies are gaining the advantages of cheap fashionable items and a large variety of styles at the expense of underprivileged nonwestern societies who are suffering the consequences of constructed capitalistic values and conspicuous consumption.
The textile and garment industries transfer the environmental and occupational burdens associated with mass production and disposal from high-income countries to these under-resourced and low-income communities. This allows the fashion industries to maintain a façade that they are abiding to their governments policies while outsourcing the damage and effects to low-income countries, perceiving their landscape and labour as disposable.
The exploitation of labour and land is evident within the fast fashion model. The clothing industry currently holds the title of being the second highest polluting industry in the world. The clothing industry encourages its consumers to perceive fashion as a disposable product, but our land is becoming more and more filled while we are still buying, wearing and disposing. We are tripling the amount of clothing we buy, but these items are no longer formed from natural, high quality materials, but made from high energy, harmful synthetic substances that are non-biodegradable. The synthetic textile polyester is derived from oil and is nonbiodegradable, while cotton requires large amounts of water and pesticides to grow.
Fashion is a reflection of our times and we are the fabric of the fashion industry. Fast fashion is addictive, exclusive and hierarchal which influences its consumers to make quick decisions and choices. It uses unethical and oppressive methods and disregards safety levels in order to keep the price low to make people keep purchasing which is exploitative of both earth and experience. It sets up a juxtaposition of imagery, on one hand; the images of high street fashion, cat walks and advertisements and on the other hand; the images of landfills and sweatshops.
How do we stop this extremely polarising juxtaposition of images? Slow and sustainable fashion. Sustainable fashion is about deep thinking and making decisions that are responsible and careful. It is about finding creative processes and solutions that value and respects all parts of the supply chain. Sustainable fashion makes you engage with your garments and your relationship with them, while caring for the clothes that you already have.
It is a system that is both ethical and empowering. Sustainable fashion is encouraging the clothing industry to steer clear of a linear system (take-make-waste) and to embrace a more circular approach instead (with a focus on durability and avoiding waste). The movement has seen brands and industries adopting various strategies and to take action against the fast fashion industry to incorporate sustainability into its decisions.
One of the main areas that have been tackled has been introducing sustainable fibres such as recycled materials, hemp and linen. Industries and brands have been making changes in their trade policies and corporate regulations, which is the most effective solution in bringing about large-scale change to the fashion industry.
Examples of sustainable brands include PeopleTree, Everlane, Veja and ABLE. However, the role of the consumer has a role to play in supporting companies and practices that minimize their negative impact on humans and the environment. Ways to do this include buying high-quality clothing that lasts longer, shopping at second-hand stores, repairing clothing they already own, and purchasing from retailers with transparent supply chains.
In Ireland, the rise of sustainable fashion is emerging on a large-scale. The NuWardrobe, which was created by an Irish student Aisling Byrne, has seen the arrival of an online platform to share your clothes free of charge, which is a way of extending the life cycle of clothes and reduce waste. The Good On You app stores data for more than 2,000 brands and allows users to type in the name of a brand, or a type of garment, and instantly see a rating out-of five as well as a summary of how ethical the company is.
Different forms of media are a great way to learn about the fashion industry, the environment and how to change your own personal relationship with clothes. The documentary The True Cost is an eye-opening production which informs its viewers about the cycle of ‘careless production and endless consumption’.
There are also grassroots events happening around Ireland on campuses, in cafes and by communities such as swap-shops and repair stations. Recently, for Fashion Revolution Week, the Dublin branch of Patagonia set up a free screening of The True Cost in their shop. Berlin D2, The Bernard Shaw and The Third Space café in Dublin recently hosted swap-shops for free and were open to the public. These events are becoming more of a regular occurrence.
A culture based on protection of the environment is something that has been encouraged on the IADT campus through the active Student Union members, who recently won the award for the ‘Small SU Team of the Year’ this April. Our students have also always been greatly involved in activism; this was recently shown by student, Stevie Wilson, who has run two swap-shops in IADT this semester. Stevie is in her second year of a BA(Hons) in Art.
I spoke to Stevie, who told me about her interest in environmental activism. She gained compassion for ethical choices in clothing through attending different sustainable clothing events. She attended her first event about three years ago and has been cutting down on buying clothes since, as well as gaining a larger awareness of labels she buys from now.
Stevie is also hugely invested in animal rights and is a practising vegan. I asked Stevie what inspired her to run a swap-shop in IADT, she said after attending sustainable fashion events she noticed that there was a demand for it. Stevie explained she was already used to swapping clothes with her group of friends so opted towards trying to do it on a larger scale. She expressed that she knew it was going to work out because of the ethos of IADT and its students. The first swap-shop was hosted in the courtyard of IADT on a beautiful sunny day and ended up being such a great success that two weeks later Stevie hosted a second event in the chapel.
I asked Stevie if she had any personal advice on how to become more sustainable, and she recommended only buying clothes from second-hand, charity and vintage clothing shops and swapping with friends. I worked with Stevie on the first swap-shop and it was a fantastic experience, I highly recommend students to join Stevie in future swap-shops and to help her grow the sustainable fashion community in IADT and aiding towards a greener campus!
Sustainable fashion communities believe that together we have the power to make a significant positive change that will affect the future of our planet. Through events such as swap-shops, repair workshops and sustainable fashion talks, we can refashion our relationship with clothing by engaging in slow, caring and sustainable fashion choices that eliminate the detrimental social and environmental costs.
The breadth and depth of social and environmental abuses that are evident in the fast fashion industry warrant its classification as an issue of global environmental justice. Let’s continue to explore the possible alternatives to the distribution, recovery and recycling of clothing together as a campus and encourage cyclical and conscious consumption!
