how sewing helped me see fast fashion’s true cost

During 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 see how I could ever match some of the brands I saw online for value.

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 –

Abigail Howe

whether for manufacturers or at-home sewers like myself. The ‘pure’ fabrics are often saved for once you truly know the nuances of a pattern (unfortunately, just as stores have inconsistent sizing, so do pattern manufacturers). Polyester blends also dry quickly and develop fewer wrinkles than pure cotton. This makes them simpler to care for as a consumer and easier to quickly pack and stack on shelves or send to shoppers for fast fashion companies. However, even natural materials can carry hidden depths. “Natural fibers go through a lot of unnatural processes on their way to becoming clothing,” Jason Kibbey, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition told Newsweek. He continued: “They’ve been bleached, dyed, printed on, scoured in chemical baths.”

Painting or bleaching your own clothes can be a great way to reinvent them if you’re feeling the urge to buy new items. Making old garments feel fresh increases the likelihood they’ll be worn in the future, which is better for the planet and your wallet. Customising clothes also ensures they’ll be unique, no matter how many others were originally on the rack. At-home adjustments can range from applying acrylic paint to the back of an old denim jacket, tie-dyeing an unworn workout set or adding patches to a sweatshirt. While changes can be based purely in aesthetic value, there’s also the potential for fixing damage. Embroidery can cover up holes in garments while patches may serve as a solution for unsightly stains or uneven fading. However, the industrial treatment of fabric in such a manner has consequences for its eventual disposal.

The dye and chemicals used in the creation of clothing can leach into the soil, contaminating the surface as well as potential water sources. One top of mine was accidentally damaged by bleach. A quick run through with fabric dye led to the pale green (unattractively speckled with bleach) transforming into a much more uniform navy. It also meant the washing machine had to be run three times to avoid accidentally dyeing the next batch of washing. On an industrial scale, the added strength and amount of dye leads to terrible environmental impact when it runs into water sources – particularly those used by local communities. In China, for example, 70% of rivers and lakes are contaminated by wastewater from the textile and dye industry. To get a distressed look, denim jeans are subject to up to 20 chemical-intensive washes, which mean that chemical residues, heavy metals (like manganese, cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead and copper), bleaching and oxidizing agents, various pigment dusts, fine particles of pumice (literally eroding the denim), and destroyed fibers pollute the local environment and local rivers. At conception, these chemicals have an awful environmental impact. Their decomposition only continues the cycle; often, these are the same countries which were involved in the creation of the clothing.

Ultimately, it’s the disposal of clothes which is the issue here. Previously, many clothes were bought for functional purposes – explaining the success of Levi’s. Old denim hunters today have even found pairs of jeans which are over 120 years old and still wearable. Currently, the average consumer buys 60% more items of clothing than they did 15 years ago so durability isn’t a priority, Instead, the overabundance of clothes allows for microtrends and to dictate our purchases. When clothing today falls apart, the low price point also means it’s often cheaper and more convenient to buy new items rather than repairing them ourselves or outsourcing the labour within our local area.

When we treat garments as disposable, the workers also become disposable. They’re the human cost of our fast fashion addiction. 60% of Bangladeshi workers have faced sexual harassment while Global Labor Jus-

tice found that physical abuse, sexual harassment, poor work conditions and forced overtime were all commonplace in factories across Asia. For all this, they don’t even earn a decent amount; less than 2% of clothing workers globally earn a fair living wage. In the UK, the discovery that garment workers in Leicester were being paid significantly less than minimum wage caused uproar – yet consumers were aware of and comfortable with worse conditions for workers abroad. Dr. Gisela Burckhardt, director of FEMNET, an NGO that works for women’s rights in the garment industry in Asia, told DW: “Women are sexually harassed and the payment is very, very low. Even though in Bangladesh the minimum wage increased from about 60 euros to 85 euros (per month) in December, it is not a sufficient living wage and women need to work overtime to survive… If women try to organize themselves in trade unions, they are normally threatened by the management and have to leave the factory.”

The sheer amount of information regarding fast fashion is paralysing. With overwhelming knowledge of its environmental impact and its human cost, why am I still drawn to 50% off sales from brands which I know are perpetuating fast fashion? There’s an obvious convenience – I can’t make all my clothes myself, no matter how much I’d love to – and financial accessibility. The immediacy of online shopping or the dopamine rush of picking up new clothes in stores are also incredibly compelling. Still, once you’ve hunched over a sewing machine for hours at a time for enjoyment, it’s impossible to justify the idea that someone should be forced through vastly worse conditions. And once you’ve seen how much dye leaks out of a washing machine, the idea of someone drinking that water is horrific.

There isn’t a quick fix to this. A circular clothing economy has been cited as the soluosition, then nothing will change. As individuals, we cannot single-handedly alter the course of the fashion industry. Even trying to conceive of such a system as an individual consumer is exhausting; it’s simpler to return to fast fashion and repress the knowledge of its harm.

Instead, we can all make small shifts – trying to wear our clothes more by following guides like the #30Wears rule, coined by Livia Firth (before buying anything, ask ‘will I wear this at least 30 times?’), caring for garments better by researching mending methods and thinking of ways to repurpose old garments, renting rather than buying statement items or redirecting attention towards more ethical brands where possible.

Small, consistent changes can encourage us to become more mindful consumers, aware of the cost of our clothing. And, just like the nervous first stitches on a sewing machine, you never know quite what can flourish from such a beginning.

Abigail is a final-year English student at Magdalen College and the editor-in-chief of Through a Glass Darkly. When she’s not sewing, you can find her in one of Oxford’s libraries (scrolling Twitter) or in the queue for the Alternative Tuck Shop.