see how I could ever match some of the brands I saw online for value.
D
uring summer, I got so sick of constantly being online that I dusted off an old sewing machine. Whether I became a top-notch couturier or just whipped up a few face masks, at least I knew my screen time would drop. It started off with a lot of dodgy stitching – wobbly lines across old tea towels or bedsheets (nothing valuable, of course). Too tight and the material scrunches in on itself, as if ashamed, perhaps even ripping under the pressure. Too loose and you’ve got a tangle of thread pooling on the fabric, utterly useless. Even once you’ve conquered the machine’s settings, there’s the art of gently guiding material through, holding layers together without anything extra stuck in the seam. Always hasty, I’m typically tempted to shove it through and pray it all holds – though the memories of previous hours spent unpicking messy seams force caution. There are only so many times you can sew a garment inside out, with faded cotton coming to the fore. My status as an amateur has remained but I’ve seen a gradual improvement – much like a hand-wound sewing machine, creeping its way across fabric. However, no matter how much I can imagine improving, I couldn’t
The answer is fast fashion – a design, production and marketing method which focuses on high volumes of clothing at inexpensive price points. According to Fast Company, “apparel companies make 53 million tons of clothes into the world annually. If the industry keeps up its exponential pace of growth, it is expected to reach 160 million tons by 2050.” Tasha Lewis, a professor at Cornell University’s Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design explains further: “It used to be four seasons in a year; now it may be up to 11 or 15 or more.” In a world where Topshop features 400 new styles every week and Zara releases 20,000 designs each year, it only makes sense that quality must be sacrificed for quantity. More than 60% percent of fabric fibers are derived from fossil fuels – synthetic fabrics like polyester, spandex, or nylon. This means that when clothing goes to landfill (and almost all does; about 85% of textile waste in the United States will do or is instead incinerated), it will not decay naturally. While these synthetic fabrics will eventually break down, this process may take between twenty and two hundred years. Even apparently more biodegradable fabrics like cotton or linen are often blended with polyester or coated, which impedes their natural decay process. Such fabrics are often cheaper –
how sewing helped me see fast fashion’s true cost Abigail Howe 13
