In the News…Throwaway Fashion
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There’s an interesting piece today on fast-fashion vs. luxury investment pieces in the International Herald Tribune.
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Some key points and my thoughts:
Lucy Siegle, a writer on ethical issues and a visiting professor at the London College of Fashion, said: “The buzz is about eco-luxe and sustainable luxury. The glossy magazines are talking up investment pieces. But when you spend upwards of £250 on an item you want to be sure that you can get it repaired by an expert.”
But…
The Ecologist magazine has estimated that only 2 percent of wardrobe budgets are spent on repairing garments.
Sometimes it’s a challenge for me to remember that part of promoting an environmentally-friendly lifestyle and wardrobe can’t always be about BUYING organic cotton or other eco-friendly clothing items, but should also incorporate vintage shopping and simply repairing and taking care of the treasured items you DO have so they’ll last longer. Noted. But the buying is so much fun…
the science and technology committee of the House of Lords condemned the throwaway fashion mentality for adding to Britain’s swelling pile of domestic waste. Of the 30 million tons of waste that the local authorities collect from households annually, textiles make up 3 percent, the committee’s statement said.
The statement was unequivocal, fuming about the culture of fast fashion that “encourages consumers to dispose of clothes which have only been worn a few times in favor of new, cheap garments which themselves will also go out of fashion and be discarded within a matter of months.”
Honestly, I have never been a fan of fast-fashion (Forever21, Topshop, H&M, etc.) for myself, but understand why some love it; it feeds the desire to own a trendy piece at an affordable price that you don’t feel too bad discarding after the trend/season is over. This has just never worked for me…and neither has sale shopping. Every time I clean out my closet of things I don’t wear, most of those items end up being things I bought on sale; I have in the past had a very bad habit of buying things because of the price, not because I LOVE them. WASTE OF MONEY. I would rather pay full price for something I love and will wear for a very long time than sale price for something I never wear. This has been my personal philosophy for years, but I think it’s a sustainable one. It encourages me to really think about what I’m about to buy, and means I have to be aware of what I need, and what I don’t need in terms of clothing & accessories.
According to ethicalconsumer.org, ethical consumption in Britain has grown by 49 percent every year since 1999
I think our purses wield a great deal of power when it comes to making changes in the retail industry; we decide what we buy, why, and from who. Those of us who DO care about what we buy need to continue to make informed choices, support ethical businesses, and also NOT BUY when that is appropriate. (I’m working on this one right now!!)
But it might actually be the struggling economy in addition to a growing consumer focus on ethical spending that forces more designers to do what Graeme Black has tried to do:
meet a sustainable fashion idea by providing clients with a wardrobe that fits together, one season to the next, rather than sharply changing styles from season to season.
Hopefully this trend will pick up and more designers will emerge from the isolated world of Fashion Week to give women what they really need and want - quality garments, unique design, and pieces that work in their wardrobes. In the mean time, I will continue to shop Independent for my eco-friendly clothing and accessories. They know exactly what I want…
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2 Responses to “In the News…Throwaway Fashion”
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Hey Grechen! Love your thoughts. Your comment — “Sometimes it’s a challenge for me to remember that part of promoting an environmentally-friendly lifestyle and wardrobe can’t always be about BUYING organic cotton or other eco-friendly clothing items, but should also incorporate vintage shopping and simply repairing and taking care of the treasured items you DO have so they’ll last longer” — is something I’ve thought about a lot. I’m a massive proponent of the latter, and as an eco-fashion blogger, I would love to promote only vintage wares. (Obviously, there are problems with that — the fist being that only one person can have any given piece. Anyway.) But the reality is that people will keep buying new things! And we want them to know what gorgeous socially responsible fashion options there are out there, for the times that you genuinely do need something new. It’s like the question of teaching sex ed to teenagers — abstinence-only is a wonderful idea, but the reality is, they’re gonna do it and need to know were to get a condom.
Worldchanging’s Alex Steffen has done a ton of writing about this general idea, across many industries. Check out this ridiculously long article he wrote about cars, http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007800.html, posturing that even a car with 150 mpg won’t solve the problems we face, because our problems are well beyond the cars themselves: we’ve “paved a lot of paradise” to make way for where we drive and park them; almost half of energy a car uses in its lifetime goes to manufacturing and disposal; etc. We need a change in thinking rather than just trading inefficient cars for efficient ones. In terms of fashion, Worldchanging is the No. 2 green content site on the web — but they don’t even cover fashion, because it’s basically superfluous. Why promote buying unnecessary things?
As eco-fashion bloggers, we definitely have a responsibility here. I hope that what we write can help gradually change people’s shopping paradigms: Buy vintage; buy classic, high quality items; get things repaired; don’t always look for the lowest prices ($8 for a shirt made in China? That wouldn’t even cover the transportation! SOMEone is getting taken advantage there).
LONG comment — but let’s keep the dialogue going. I’m so glad you added a green fashion blog to your work! It was only a matter of time.
[...] started with Green Grechen’s original post, In the News…Throwaway Fashion. Check it out. From me: Hey Grechen! Love your thoughts. Your comment — “Sometimes [...]