The environmental costs of fashion
The throwaway nature of the global fashion industry is reaching alarming proportions: Experts
Are you the type to wear the same two or three outfits to different parties through the year? Or do you ensure you have a new outfit for nearly every party you attend? In all probability, a majority of people fall into the latter category. After all, it is the fashion dictum of our age.
As fashion consumerism expands its footprint, many voices are being raised about its impact, leading among them being UK designer Stella McCartney who joined a campaign by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, highlighting retail fashion industry’s alarming production and consumption rates, which she said have led it to be “incredibly wasteful and harmful to the environment”.
McCartney joined the move started by environmental campaigner Dame Ellen MacArthur, whose foundation exposed the industry’s scale of waste in a report.
Calling for a systemic change in the way clothing is produced and used, the report pointed out that the “throwaway nature of fashion has created a business which creates greenhouse emissions of 1.2 billion tonnes a year — larger than that of international flights and shipping combined.” And that “a truckload of clothing is wasted every second across the world”.
MacArthur, who gained the support of industry leaders including the C&A Foundation, H&M, and Nike for her report, is calling for a circular textile economy to be created to make fashion more sustainable.
“We need a new textile economy in which clothes are designed differently, worn longer, and recycled and reused much more often,” said MacArthur.
‘A tragic epidemic’
Dubai-based fashion designer Ragini Nagu, co-owner and designer at Ragmatazz, describes fast fashion as one of the world’s “most tragic epidemics”.
Nagu, co-founder of a fashion line of handmade tribal and ethnic pieces, endorses the responsibility designers around the world must have towards protecting the environment.
“As someone who works in the industry, we know full well the sad results of this movement and we take responsibility for the products we put out,” said Nagu.
People succumb to social pressures to buy new clothing for every new event in their life, she said. Many feel embarrassed to be seen in the same clothes more than a few times.
“Buying quality clothing is expensive, so they go for cheaper versions, which lack quality, eventually adding to the problem of buying more than you need and having to discard it sooner than usual,” said Nagu.
Addressing the importance of recycling, Nagu said the practice should not be considered a cure to the cause, but as a cure of a symptom.
“With the help of a few YouTube tutorials, anyone can transform an old T-shirt or a pair of pants into something totally different. This can help people develop a healthier relationship with the things they buy,” she said.
“The process of overconsumption of low quality products due to ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is what’s causing this huge imbalance in our societies.”
She described the fast fashion movement as one “that preys on self-esteem” and makes people feel inadequate if they choose not to follow trends.
Discussing her own business, Nagu said she incorporates the ideas of recycling by collecting her own waste fabric in boxes and then using those cut pieces for patchwork in her dresses and jackets.
“We also offer our customers the opportunity to repair their clothing with us for a minimal price so they don’t discard them sooner than they should,” she added.