Clothes are unique to humans. When Adam and Eve ate fruit from the tree of knowledge, the first thing they became aware of was their nakedness; in response God created garments and clothed them.
Clothing is an essential part of everyday life today. There are clothes for work, school, working out — going out — and all those clothes say things about us: our age, personality, interests, how “on trend” we are. But in the age of social media, trends come and go at lightning speed. Fashion historians suggest that trend cycles usually last years — 20 years on average — but with social media and globalization, that has changed to months.
How does the fashion industry keep up with the ever-changing trends? Well, with “fast fashion” — a part of the fashion industry that produces clothing items quickly and cheaply. With giant teams of trend researchers and designers, as well as the means for large-scale mass-production, industry titans such as Zara, Shein, and H&M are able to produce more than 100 billion pieces of low-cost clothing annually. That’s 15 pieces of clothing for every person on the planet — every year.
This constant stream of cheap, synthetically-made clothes encourages a “throw-away” mentality. Consumers are encouraged to buy low-cost clothes to keep up with the trends, not to mention that low-quality production makes it easy to justify their disposal. Clothes waste itself is a huge problem, with 92 million tonnes of clothes ending up in landfills each year. Factor in that over 60% of fast fashion pieces can’t be recycled, and now those tonnes of clothes are staying on our planet for thousands of years, releasing harmful chemicals into the environment.
But it’s not just the non-biodegradable clothes ending up in the landfill that’s the issue. Every time synthetic clothes are washed and dried, they release microplastic fibers that end up in our waterways and bodies of water. It’s estimated that nearly 10% of microplastics dispersed in the ocean start as clothes.
What is the solution? Slow fashion is a slower production process often cited as more eco-friendly. Reformation is a popular brand that claims its company will be circular by 2030. Circularity means customers will be buying clothes from the company that are made with recycled fabrics that come from the buyback of their own clothes, creating a sustainable cycle. But are these brands as sustainable as they claim? Beyond the effects of the clothing items themselves, making the clothing is responsible for 20% of wastewater globally and 10% of global carbon emissions. With my beat I want to explore the impacts of the fashion industry. Just because clothing is part of humanity’s original sin, does not mean it should be a burden on our environment.