An Introduction to Sustainable Fashion
Fashion is what we use to present ourselves to the world. It is expressive, individual, artistic, everchanging. It reflects our culture and who we are. However, it is also corrupted. The pacing of the fast fashion economy has left much abuse in its wake. As the demand for more clothing at lower prices increases, so does the exploitation of garment workers and the destruction of the planet. Our production and consumption habits have caused endless hurt, waste, and strain on our resources.
The Industry at Large
Everyone is a consumer of fashion. There are endless options of what to buy, who to buy from, and how much you want to pay. There are no limits to how you can style yourself—especially with the advent of fast fashion that brings runway looks to market in record speed at low prices. On the surface, this seems like a great thing. Some may even say that’s progress. But if you dig into the story of how a garment is made, these endless options turn out to be problematic for everyone involved.
Let’s take a look at some of the facts and figures of the fashion industry.
THE PEOPLE. There are approximately 75 million garment workers, a majority are women and living in poverty. These women are subject to exploitation, low wages, abuse, and horrible working conditions—evidenced by the catastrophic collapse of the Rana Plaza building in 2013. This building in Bangladesh housed 5 garment factories that supplied big global brands. Its collapse killed 1,138 and injured over 2,500 people. All at the expense of fashion. This building collapsed because the fashion brands that were using the factories turned a blind eye to the conditions of the building and the workers. The brands prioritized a larger profit margin rather than pushing the factory to follow ethical procedures to ensure the safety of the workers. This is happening all over the world. The costs to produce clothing are rising yet the prices we pay are continuing to drop. The systems are inherently broken, and the people making the clothing are the ones that lose.
THE PATTERN. Fast fashion rips off designer styles to create popular looks with new style drops by the week. Instead of the traditional fashion market that functions in two to four seasons, fast fashion creates 52 seasons a year with how often it introduces new styles to the market. Ultra-fast fashion has normalized hundreds or thousands of new pieces every single week. This puts pressure on the factories to produce quickly and at low costs. These retailers are charging low prices and turning over trends very quickly. It creates a consumerist culture that is impossible to keep up with. With such low prices, clothing is seen as disposable. 150 billion articles of clothing are produced annually. 30% are never even sold, 40% of purchased clothing is never used, and over 50% is thrown away in the same year. Americans throw away 14 million tons of clothing a year. As a society, we buy 400% more clothing than we did 20 years ago.
THE IMPACT. Not only is the fashion industry harmful to the people who make the clothing, it hurts our environment. The production of clothing pollutes and consumes massive amounts of our water and is responsible for 3% of CO2 emissions. It takes 700 gallons of water to make a single shirt. So many resources and textiles are wasted throughout the process of making clothing. In North America, 10.5 million tons of clothing goes to landfills every year. Only 20% of what is donated to charity is resold, and 20% of clothing is recycled. Less than 1% of recycled clothing can actually be used for fresh textiles due to the technology available. 40% of the clothing in our closets is rarely or never worn. In other words, we have a huge waste problem. We consume large amounts of clothing without considering the consequences.
What is Sustainability?
The movement towards sustainability is a response to the destructive habits in the industry. But what exactly is sustainability? There are many terms surrounding sustainable and ethical fashion that get thrown around and confused. Ethical fashion tends to be the umbrella term, referring to all the practices of a brand in regard to the working conditions, trade, production, and environment. Basically, ethical fashion is designing and producing clothing in a way that cares for the people involved and minimizes environmental impact. Sustainable fashion focusses on the environmental impact, from design to materials to processes. Sustainable fashion also includes the habits of the brands and consumers after the clothing is made, from marketing to use to repair and recycling. A sustainable fashion brand considers how to eliminate waste in the design process and where exactly their resources and materials come from. The most sustainable brands pursue circular design and practices that better the end of life processes for clothing. Circular fashion means that all materials used in making the clothing can be recycled back into the production of clothing, creating no waste. Sustainable practices extend to how clothing is used, cared for, and then disposed of. Sustainable practices by the consumer would include washing clothing less, repairing, extending the life of clothing, reselling, and recycling clothing instead of throwing out. It’s about buying and consuming less. It’s about using what already exists, either in your own closet or shopping secondhand. There are many avenues to pursue sustainability, but it all comes down to eliminating the harmful waste of the fashion industry.
The Case for Sustainability
Clearly, there’s a lot of work to be done by brands and consumers alike. Yes, clothing retailers are responsible for how they employ factories and oversee working conditions. Yes, they are responsible for their design processes and how their manufacturing and materials impact the environment. However, as consumers, we must face our own responsibility. Our shopping habits create the demand that the retailers answer to. Our mindset on the disposable nature of clothing creates so much monetary and physical waste that hurts the environment. The burden of change is on both the consumer and the retailer. Who we shop from indicates where our values lie. Our dollar is our vote for the future. The brands will pay attention to where consumer dollars are going—that’s business. It’s time we demand better of ourselves and the brands we shop from.
Our habits really do make a difference. Doubling the life of clothing reduces emissions by 24%.You can extend the life of clothing by taking care, air drying, repairing, repurposing, swapping, or reselling. There isn’t one singular right way to be sustainable. It often comes down to our behavior. For example, you can reduce your carbon footprint by 700,000 tons of CO2 by washing clothes with cold water and line drying. The industry is responding to our behavior, too. Fast fashion retailers are closing stores and starting environmental initiatives due to consumer demand. Fair trade retailers are able to pay their workers living wages and often make a higher quality product that lasts longer.
Secondhand Sustainability
There is no perfect solution. The technology doesn’t exist to be able to recycle everything we make. A completely circular supply chain isn’t possible yet. No brand is able to be completely ethical and sustainable. The reality is that some brands are great at the ethical part but less sustainable and vice versa. We should all be striving for better. Perfection isn’t possible. The true solution to sustainability would be to not make anything, displacing the jobs of garment workers. Clearly, the path to sustainability is hard. However, it is necessary and worth pursuing. Now that you know the truth of the fashion industry, don’t be complacent. My hope is that I can give you actionable tools and practices.
I believe that secondhand fashion is the most accessible step towards sustainability. To ethically and sustainably source and make clothing is more expensive. Thus, brands who are doing the right thing are often priced higher than we are used to with fast fashion resalers. Buying secondhand is a great way to purchase clothing at the same price point as fast fashion without contributing to the harmful systems. We need to change our mindset about shopping. Invest in sustainable pieces that will last when you need to, and fill the gaps in your wardrobe with secondhand items you love.
Written in July 2019.