Fashion and Sustainability
‘The fashion industry produces 20 per cent of global wastewater and 10 per cent of global carbon emissions – more than all international flights and maritime shipping.’ [1]
This was an unbelievable statistic. While awareness about the fashion industry and its unsustainable practices is slowly becoming more apparent to the general public, the statement above shows that there is more immediate action required. Bringing your own coffee mug to Starbucks or ditching plastic straws is not nearly enough to cleanse the conscience when you’re still purchasing endless outfits from the thousands of unsustainable big brand fashion companies every month.
After the lectures from Kate Fletcher and Katelyn Toth-Fejel I decided to asses my own wardrobe and shopping practices I was pleasantly surprised, I had not previously considered it but my wardrobe consists of clothing from three main sources, charity shops/secondhand, homemade and small independent ‘indie brands’ that are both eco-friendly and practice in fair working conditions. On examining my family and friend’s wardrobes I realised that the majority of people do not have the time, money or interest to change their wardrobes to head in a more sustainable direction as society doesn’t currently promote a lifestyle or identity that practices ethical consumerism.
However the blame is not solely on the major retailers but on the consumption of fashion as a whole.
‘If a manufacturer decreases resource use and pollution by a fifth but sells twice as many garments as before, the negative impacts will have still increased significantly-rendering the whole exercise distressingly futile.’[2]
The realisation that in order to make any difference at all to this problem we not only need to work to shape a future where large retailers completely alter the way I which they produce clothing but we need to start to initiate a much larger social change that will alter the way that consumerism is structured as a whole.
However successful people are about bringing awareness to the fashion industry the primary issue still remains that if there are cheap clothes available people will buy them and wear them and then dispose of them in a very short space of time due to the lack of quality and lifespan of the garment.
We need political intervention and government policy as the base of this change, policy that will heavily restrict and regulate the large companies on how many garments they can produce as well as the quality of said garments.
To take the three pronged approach of government regulation on large brands, large scale promotion of small independent ‘indie brands’, and and increased effort from the fashion world to bring awareness and attention to the issue is the only way we can expect to see a real change in time to turn the climate crisis around.
The lectures brought awareness and realisation of the severity and time limit on the issues that the fashion industry has caused and has shown that we really are running out of time to sort this out.
References
- UN Environment Programme. (2018). Putting the brakes on fast fashion. Available: https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/putting-brakes-fast-fashion. Last accessed 20/2/20.
- Amy Twigger Holroyd. (201u). Introducing Folk Fashion. In: Amy Twigger Holroyd Folk Fashion . London & New York: I.B.Tauris & Co.Ltd. 14.