made to last
Now we know that three-quarters of the world’s textiles end their life buried in landfill or incinerated into the air, sustainability is the new buzzword in fashion. Lee-Anne Duncan wonders how the future of New Zealand’s industry is shaping up at iD Dune
It’s no coincidence Sally Oh’s new collection for iD Dunedin Fashion Week is decidedly futuristic.
Newly graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design from Auckland’s Whitecliffe College, the 24-year-old was inspired by movies such as
Passengers and Intersteller, where humans urgently search for an alternative planet on which to live.
“The simple fact is, we use too many resources and it’s polluting our planet. That correlates with my inspiration from science fiction films as they portray how humanity deals with planetary changes caused by environmental issues,” Oh says from Sydney, where she’s about to start her first fashion job.
Her collection, gen.α (Generation Alpha), has won a place in iD’s International Emerging Designer Award, the showcase of the fashion event this year, alongside 43 other designers from 18 countries. The awards will be judged on May 3.
As well as its sci-fi theme, Oh’s five-outfit collection is premised on having as tiny an environmental impact as possible. “To create the futuristic and sporty aesthetic, I wanted to use neoprene, nylon and polyester. But they have negative effects on the environment and I couldn’t source sustainably produced materials in the small quantities I needed.
“So I used deadstock fabrics [materials left over from other designers] and upcycled second-hand materials such as military uniforms and accessories. About 80-90 per cent of my collection is made that way.”
Oh’s efforts fit seamlessly with iD’s new ethos, which promotes the awards as “New Zealand’s sustainable fashion event” celebrating designers “whose work takes into consideration environment and social impacts”.
SUSTAINABLE TEACHING
Margo Barton has been working in the fashion industry for four decades, and has been teaching fashion for nearly three. A designer and milliner by trade, she’s the chair of iD Dunedin Fashion Week and the academic leader of fashion at Otago Polytechnic’s School of Design.
Barton says her students are all taught to think sustainably. In fact, she says she’d be most surprised if any finalists in the Emerging Designer Awards didn’t create with a keen eye on the environment.
“It’s our responsibility get the students to understand what sustainability – ethical, social, environmental sustainability – is to them. Sometimes it’s not obvious to the outsider, but we know because with each collection students must write a statement about sustainability.
“We teach it by exposing them to lots of different practitioners who work in an environmentally conscious way, and we question them all the time. There’s a lot of waste in fashion. Sustainability is something we all have to do – it’s a no brainer,” she says.
Barton is jet-lagged from her trip to China for the annual conference of the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes (IFFTI), the fashion education group on whose executive committee she sits.“Most of the globe’s fashion design schools belong to IFFTI and every single member school teaches sustainability.
“We all realise our students will make a huge impact on the industry. Our students know that too. There’s no education in the world that wouldn’t think of sustainability. And if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be much of an education.”
Barton recalls clearly the collection that first made an impact on her in a sustainable way: “In 2007, a third year student showed a fabulous collection that talked about water use, dye, and wastage in the fashion industry. It was a beautiful collection.”
SLOW PROGRESS ON FAST FASHION
Still, the bulk of the fashion industry is far from sustainable. In fact, it’s one of the largest polluters of our environment – in particular the “fast fashion” industry, which produces at least 100 billion garments each year.
Producing the fabric’s raw materials – even the natural ones – consumes too much precious resource. “For example, it takes 2,700 litres of water (or one person’s drinking water for almost three years) to produce one cotton T-shirt, and about 10,000 litres of water for a pair of jeans,” explains Bernadette Casey, Creative Director of The Formary and iD Dunedin Fashion Week committee member.
Most garments are woven, dyed and sewn in developing countries by people paid less than their countries’ living wage. The waste – including toxic dyes – is then often flushed straight into waterways, Casey goes on.
The fabrics used are largely cheaply produced artificial fibres that shed thousands of microfibres with each wash. These flush down the drains into the sea to be ingested by marine life. Recent studies have revealed these microfibres are now a common contaminant of our drinking water and food.
To add insult to all this environmental and social injury, we then wear the garments only a handful of times. “The average Zara garment is worn just six times. Fast fashion is not built to last. It’s meant to be worn and thrown out,” Casey says.
REPURPOSING WITH AMBITION
When we stuff our last season’s cast-offs through the heavy flap of a clothing bin, we may luxuriate in the glow of giving to a charity, but we shouldn’t. It’s likely the charity will receive only a fraction of the profit, says Casey, while the “rag-traders” bank the rest. What can’t be on-sold domestically is then shipped overseas.
“About 70 per cent of our donated waste clothing is sold offshore to developing countries. That’s decimated local textile industries, and created significant social impacts through the closure of local industries and the loss of skilled jobs.”
Casey’s organisation, The Formary, is dedicated to developing new fabrics and materials from fibre and clothing waste, and repurposing them into useful products that don’t pollute the planet.
Two years ago, NZ Post approached The Formary to review its uniform reuse project and develop a scalable system. The Formary’s NZ Textile Reuse Programme grew from that. It now receives uniforms from companies such as Fonterra, Alsco NZ, Air New Zealand, Wellington Zoo and Wellington Council.
“We work with corporate clothing because the volumes are massive and it’s where we can make the biggest impact,” says Casey. “Each type of fibre needs a different type of processing, so first we look
at the uniforms’ construction so we know what percentage is cotton or polyester, for example. Then we decide what best to do with the uniforms.
“Because there’s huge clothing poverty in New Zealand, we first aim to meet the needs of the community. Otherwise we take the fabrics back to fibre form for use within industry or to be remade into products or fabrics. For example, geo textiles, such as materials that support riparian planting, upholstery fabrics and industrial products, such as insulation.”
Most lately the programme is running a third stream where the waste clothing is re-looped back into production in a truly sci-fi sounding way. “We’re working on the feasibility of new fibre-to-fibre technology where you can take a polyester shirt and, using green chemistry, break it down to its molecular form. That’s then reused in multiple ways from molded plastic objects to clothing.
“As well as creating a higher value product, this technology also uses the more degraded clothing, so will reduce the amount of clothing that’s currently classed as unusable,” says Casey.
BETTER YET, REDUCE
The ideal is that we all buy less so there’s less production and less waste. But the drive for profit and consumption is a vicious cycle. “We’ve been on this roll of consumption since World War II,” Casey says.
“As the population increased, the impacts of that consumption has increased, and it’s gotten faster. The companies that own the brands want to increase their revenues, so now instead of having two collections a year, they put out six or more. That accelerates consumption.”
New Zealanders are no exception. We spend about $4 billion on clothes each year, not including online sales. Of course, clothes are essential and even designers who produce for longevity – known as “slow fashion” – need us to purchase their labels.
“We need to change our view. We need to think we’re buying it for life,” says Casey. “We need to buy what we really love and wear it as long as we can. We should wear a piece of clothing for good, then for work, then at home. Then you mend it, then you wear it in the garden.”
All three women – Casey, Barton and Oh – are hopeful the wider industry is changing. Casey points to supply chain overhauls undertaken by giants such as H&M and Australia’s Wesfarmers group, whose brands include K-Mart and Target.
Barton advises her graduates to never dismiss working with fast fashion brands, saying it’s an opportunity for them to take their sustainable practices in with them. “I always say the best way to influence them is to get in there and influence them.”
Oh aspires to be a successful designer while holding firmly her ideals. “It’s about taking small steps but it can be done. Designers such as Stella McCartney and New Zealand brand Maggie Marilyn have shown you can be sustainable and profitable,” she says.
“I have to start out as I mean to go on. Consumers need to play their part, but if producers make sustainable clothes, it creates a virtuous cycle that can be ongoing.” Read and share this story on stuff.co.nz iD Dunedin Fashion Week is happening from May 1-6 – www.idfashion.co.nz for info and tickets.