Youngsters fashion a market for ‘green’ clothing

As we get older, many of us become fixated or focused on things that become important to us. Our values change and behaviours and ideas we cherished in our earlier years seem more or less important based on new understandings of the world.

For me, I cannot stand a running tap. When I brush my teeth, I only use water to rinse. Accordingly, when I do the dishes I only use a small amount of water and, again, never let the tap run. Added to this is my use of a dishwasher, which I will only put on when bursting at the seams. I’m not sure where my fixation on wasted water has come from but it seems I’m not alone in my sustainability thinking.

Whether it is for environmental reasons, energy saving, sustainability, cost or otherwise, many of us are being more attentive to the resources we consume. Using water for context, more and more of us will refill a reusable bottle now instead of buying plastic ones then sending them to landfill. More and more, we find the use of plastics objectionable.

We now see plastic for what it is, rather than the 1970s miracle of catalytic cracking in oil refineries. But as a new dawn awakens across the globe in response to managing resources and being responsible with the planet, it seems that the next big area of change may be clothing.

I was flabbergasted to find out that it takes 1,800 gallons of water to make one pair of blue jeans. According to Stephen Leahy’s Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products, that includes growing the cotton and manufacturing the garment, but it doesn’t include the water that you’ll use to wash your jeans over time. It does make me think hard when I open my wardrobe to stare at five pairs of jeans. Or to put it another way, 9,000 gallons of water.

This is just one reason that people are making buying decisions that will undoubtedly affect big retailers. So, let me ask you the question: how many of you would consider doing away with fast fashion and buying your clothes second-hand? It’s a fairly big commitment when put that way. And big retailers like Marks & Spencer, Next, Topshop and Primark will no doubt have their radars firmly fixed on this growing trend in the next decade.

Fast fashion, in short, is buying a cheaper blouse or shirt knowing that it will be burst in four to six months and then we buy again. No more purchasing a sweater that will do five winters. But it seems that the charity shop is where the new retail frontier will play out.

Pre-loved, second-hand, call it what you will, but more and more of us are making lifestyle choices built on changing values. Just like my intolerance for wasted water from a tap, thousands of younger shoppers are turning their noses up at fast fashion in favour of never buying new.

It is far more than simply sourcing ethically produced clothing. It is about sustainability and not just expense, as we dump 11 million items a week in landfill. Charity shops, clothing exchanges and “vintage” clothing resellers are where the excitement is taking place.

Granted, the local charity shop is not always a retail heaven. But more and more consumers are turning to them to buy one-off items or small wardrobes that means less is wasted in production and shipping. More “new age” second-hand outlets are appearing on high streets and online.

The millennials are fuelling this change as they are bombarded with discount vouchers and store card debt from traditional big retailers. They are beginning to think differently about their behaviours as the crisis of global resources takes hold.

If I was giving any advice to a budding entrepreneur today, it would be this – get into pre-loved clothing as you have customers ready and willing to buy while they and you do your bit to save the planet. Now there’s an idea…

Jim Duffy MBE, Create Special.

I would advise

a budding entrepreneur to get into pre-loved

clothing