We're addicted to fast fashion
Let's slow our roll.
Simple climate action // I S S U E # 2 3 // F A S H I O N
Fashion is for life, not just for Spring/Summer
By Jemima Kiss
My teen years were spent, like many people, grappling with adjustment and growing pains, and trying to work out quite where I fitted in. Clothes were a huge part of defining my identity, and my friends and I would ritualistically maraud around town on Saturday mornings, if not to buy clothes, then to lust after them. The clothes we did buy were all from cheap high street stores that threw tantalizing new things at us every week, it seemed. We coveted, and sometimes scored, cool new stuff for Friday nights.
Looking back, maybe it felt more important that it was new than it was actually a nice piece of clothing. And at the time, I didn’t realize I’d been sucked into a relentless cycle of buying and discarding things that really deserve far more thought, far more care, and greater responsibility. I had no idea about the provenance of clothing, about where things were made, and who by. I believed what I saw in those glossy magazines: fashion was cyclical, and new things had to be bought every season.
Given the relentlessness of fashion industry marketing and the press that supports it, it’s hardly surprising that many of us are so drawn to it. Clothes shopping has become a deeply ingrained entertainment, a form of self-expression and a way of feeling we are engaging with the people around us. It’s an extremely powerful phenomenon.
My adult clothes habits are, thankfully, very different. During my adventures living plastic free, I read about the extent of microplastic pollution caused by washing our synthetic clothes. Growing cotton, I found, demands a huge amount of water and pesticides. The solution, I concluded, was simply to buy less clothing, second-hand where possible, and make my existing clothing last by buying from responsible companies. Fewer but nicer pieces are now my mantra. I think I’ve also learned that seasonal fashion only exists in the world of marketing. Really skillful dressing is about style, and that’s timeless.
Over the next four weeks, we’ll be speaking to experts in the industry who are working hard to find a way forward, from alternative fibers to community repair projects to companies changing the clothing industry itself. Join us as we explore the alternative to fast fashion — and do share your own experience of changing your fashion-buying behavior by replying to this email.
How the clothes industry turned into entertainment
Kirsi Niinimaki
Luxury traces its roots to the Latin word luxus, meaning a superabundance beyond the satisfaction of any real need or desire. For many centuries, it was the point of fashion. Haute couture creations, sewed by hand in the fashion houses along the avenues of Paris, were meant to communicate opulence and extravagance.
There were clothes, and then there was fashion.
But today there’s something new on the streets of Paris (as well as Mumbai, London, and Beijing): fast fashion. A new design created in Brooklyn can be woven in China, assembled in Bangladesh, and shipped back for sale in Los Angeles just a few weeks after appearing on a Paris runway.
It’s part of an acceleration of fashion going on since the 1800s. The sewing machine and affordable fabrics made fashion seasonal for the first time (Before this, it might take years or even decades before people’s styles changed dramatically). Then came catalogs and mass production. By the mid- 2000s, fashion entered overdrive thanks to the internet, Instagram, and a global supply chain.
Fast fashion brands such as Zara, H&M, Forever 21, TopShop, and Uniqlo now dominate an industry worth an estimated $35 billion. But it’s come at a cost to ourselves, and our future. Emissions from the fashion industry are now one of the biggest drivers of climate change accounting for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, five times more than aviation, and generate about 20% of all industrial pollution.
Psychologically, fashion is no longer something we wear. It’s cheap entertainment. Rather than luxury, we have its illusion through consumption. Many shoppers buy new clothes every week out of habit. Of the clothes we do buy, many remain unworn; the average shopper between 25 and 35 years old wears only 30% of the garments they own. The lifespan of some clothes may be as little as a few weeks, or in the case of some dresses - just once. Online shopping is feeding what has become known as premature disposal: clothes discarded in perfectly good condition. Rather than seeking pleasure in the clothes themselves, we have sought pleasure in the experience of buying new ones.
Can we avoid being seduced by fast fashion? An interesting lesson comes out of US research which gave a ‘fashion detox’ from compulsive clothes shopping to ten volunteers over ten weeks. A common theme among participants was that their shopping habits were costing them lots of money, compelling them to buy more and more clothing, and yet leaving them with the feeling that they had ‘nothing to wear’ if it wasn’t new.
By the end of the study, their clothing choices had become much more imaginative and creative, reusing and reinventing combinations from clothes they already owned. They reported rediscovering and enjoying ‘forgotten’ clothes, planning outfits in advance, and exploring more creative ways of making their clothes last longer, including alterations and dyeing.
Paradoxically, a “limited” wardrobe frees you to be yourself. People who own and buy fewer garments not only express more of their creativity but also know their own style better. When we restrict the number of clothes we buy, the items we do choose then become a more authentic expression of our personality, rather than a brand’s vision. The dopamine rush starts to come from new combinations and accessories, rather than the treadmill of constant consumption.
Fast fashion might be a rush, but “it’s a dirty, unscrupulous business that exploited humans and Earth alike," writes Dana Thomas, author of the book on Fashionopolis. Slow fashion, “a growing movement of makers, designers, merchants, and manufacturers worldwide who...[honor] craftsmanship and tradition while embracing modern technology to make production cleaner and more efficient,” offers another way.
• Kirsi Niinimaki is Associate Professor of Design at Aalto University in Finland
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Hothouse is a weekly climate action newsletter written and edited by Jemima Kiss, Mike Coren, and Jim Giles. Everything we publish is free to read — your donations fund our writers and artists.
Love it all (as per usual!)