Australian’s ‘clothes library’ fights the throwaway culture of fast fashion
● In a small shop along one of Sydney’s busiest streets, Sarah Freeman is encouraging Australians to slow down and break their addiction to fast fashion.
Shocked by the speed at which Australians buy and throw away cheap garments, she is trying to harness an ancient concept — libraries — to persuade shoppers to rent instead of purchase clothes.
“Today’s society just seem to wear clothes like condoms. They wear them once and they throw them away,” said the vintage garment aficionado at her Clothes Library in the inner suburb of Potts Point. “That’s not how clothes are supposed to be designed. The clothes nowadays are manufactured for six wears, I think, which is terrible.”
Globally, clothing production doubled from 2000-2014, with the number of garments bought each year by consumers soaring by 60%, says consulting firm McKinsey.
A booming part of the industry, also in Australia, is fast fashion, which quickly turns catwalk designs into apparel that are sold at low or ultralow prices and are easily accessible via online sites.
In Australia, where demand for textiles is one of the highest per capita in the world, the fast fashion sector grew by 19.5% over five years to $1.4bn in 2017/2018, says research firm IBISWorld.
A YouGov survey found that almost a quarter of Australians have thrown away an item of clothing after wearing it once, and four in 10 admitted binning unwanted garments, adding to landfill.
At the Sydney distribution centre of St Vincent de Paul Society, a charity recycling clothes, manager George Blakely has seen the longevity of some donated items decline in recent years.
“Some products only last two or three washes, which is not favourable. The volume they get through here is usually increasing, because people are turning over products in their own home more quickly,” Blakely said.
The rock-bottom prices for consumers contrast with the high cost to the environment. Tons of cheap clothes are churned out every year in developing countries, using copious amounts of energy and polluting waterways near factories with toxic chemicals.
The materials used are often synthetic and nonbiodegradable, meaning even washing can be hazardous, with some textiles shedding plastic microfibres that make their way to water catchments and oceans in consumer countries such as Australia.
In recent months, the devastating impact of waste has made headlines after China, Australia’s biggest market for recycling waste, cracked down on foreign imports. Beijing’s restrictions on “contaminated” recycled materials including fabric have forced Australians to think about how much waste they produce.
Retailers including major player Cotton On are pledging to make their manufacturing chains transparent and ethical.
At Melbourne’s Deakin University, researchers won support from Swedish megaretailer H&M to develop “circular denim”, where old jeans are used to colour new ones, reducing the effect on landfills and of dye run-off.
Although the efforts could lead to significant change in the fashion industry, Australian Fashion Council CEO David GilesKaye believes the key to solving the issue ultimately lies with consumers and their desire for even quicker and cheaper clothing.
“It’s still very much a fringe movement. When consumers continue to want more product at a lower price, it really drives the producers into less sustainable areas of manufacturing,” he said.
Freeman is convinced that if concepts such as hers allowing shoppers to borrow and return quality second-hand clothes for a small monthly subscription fee take off, people power can make a difference.
“Hopefully it will catch on and people will start being more conscious and just make an effort to not go out and purchase the fastfashion items,” she said. — AFP
They use clothes like condoms: wear once and throw them away