The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How to buy clothes that are built to last
The concept of ‘slow fashion’ has emerged over the past decade.
You may have removed last season’s hot fashion trend from your closet, but the effect of that item still lingers, from the energy used in its production to its continued presence in one of the nation’s landfills. The total environmental impact of our outfit choices are a growing concern because, buoyed by the rise of so-called fast fashion, we’re consuming and discarding more clothes than ever before.
In 2015, the last year for which the Environmental Protection Agency has data, the United States generated 11.9 million tons — or about 75 pounds per person — of textile waste, most of which ended up in landfills. That’s more than a 750% increase since 1960. For reference, that’s nearly 10 times more than the increase in the country’s population over the same time period.
This growth in clothing waste coincides with the dominance of fast fashion brands such as H&M and Zara, whose business models are based on selling lowpriced items at high volumes. Zara, for example, releases 20,000 new designs a year, according to a spokesman. The strategy is designed to encourage customers to shop regularly for new looks.
The company is in step with broader industry trends, which saw clothing production double between 2000 to 2014, according to a report released by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Over the same period, according to the report, the number of garments the average person purchased each year also increased by 60%.
Even though many retailers say they’re addressing sustainability, “the clothing that they make still doesn’t have any greater longevity,” said Elaine Ritch, a senior lecturer in marketing at Glasgow Caledonian University.
Faced with this reality, the concept of “slow fashion” has emerged over the past decade as a kind of counterbalance to fast fashion. The idea: slow down the rapid pace of clothing consumption and instead buy fewer more durable items. It’s an idea championed, for example, by the fashion blogger Cat Chiang, Natalie Live of the brand The Tiny Closet, and Emma Kidd, a doctoral researcher in Britain who launched a 10-week “fashion detox.”
They are sounding the alarm, in part, because the negative effects of clothing extend beyond the landfill. The chemicals used in making, dyeing and treating many fabrics are so harmful that the EPA regulates many textile factories as hazardous waste generators. And overall, apparel and footwear produce more than 8 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions associated with the harmful effects of human-caused climate change.
Which raises the question, how can shoppers select clothes that are built to last?
Here’s what to consider.
Ask yourself: Do I really like it? Does it fit well? Is it versatile?
“I always say if you’re going to buy a pair of boots for the winter, buy winter boots. Don’t go out buying a $2,000 pair of Chanel winter boots that look really cool because that’s not something you want to be wearing in the snow,” said David Mesquita, co-owner of Leather Spa, which repairs shoes and handbags. “It might look like a winter boot, but it’s not.”
We can rewear an outfit
“People feel that if they have their photograph taken wearing a dress on social media then they can never wear that dress again,” said Ritch. Given that even British royalty rewear clothing, and actress Tiffany Haddish wore a $4,000 Alexander McQueen dress so many times to public events that it became a pop culture reference, we can rewear an outfit that our friends saw us in on social media.
Does it feel good to the touch?
“If something feels rough to the touch, it’s not going to feel comfortable on your body,” said Cora Harrington, the author of the book “In Intimate Detail” and the founder and editor-in chief of The Lingerie Addict website.
This is especially true for undergarments, like bras, but it extends to all garments.
Can I see my hand through it?
As a rule of thumb, thicker fabrics last longer than thinner ones. For T-shirts, you should look for
a fabric weight of around 6 ounces per square yard.
“Imagine a 36- by 36-inch piece, and when you put it on a scale, it will weigh 6 ounces,” said Sean Cormier, a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Since most of us don’t go shopping with a scale, it’s easier to simply put a hand between the top and bottom layer of the T-shirt. If you can see through it, it’s too thin. The hand rule applies to things like button-down shirts and sweaters as well.
Is it a good blend?
When it’s appropriate, a lining can go a long way toward helping a garment last. For dress slacks, Cormier recommends a lined wool pair. For everyday work pants, he recommends a pair made of tencel fabric, citing its strength, durability and comfort. (It’s made from dissolving wood pulp.)
When choosing a sweater, pilling is often a major concern. Synthetic fibers and blends tend to pill more than natural fibers like cotton or wool, while loose knits pill more than tighter ones.
But when it comes to things like T-shirts and dress shirts, a tension emerges. That’s because many cotton items are made from shorter-strand cotton, which is more likely to pill. Clothes made from a long fiber cotton, like Pima cotton, tend to be more durable but more expensive. A third option is to buy shirts that mix those short blend fibers with polyester to make them stronger.
Cormier’s recommendation for a dress shirt is to keep the polyester content between 20 and 40% so the shirt is absorbent and soft but reasonably durable.
But the use of polyester can be a problem, said Céline Semaan, founder of The Slow Factory, a sustainability agency and lab, because “polyester is made out of oil. It’s plastic, essentially.”
And that plastic ends up in our waterways when we wash our clothes. Microfiber filters for washing machines (or so-called guppy bags for those of us who use laundromats) can help reduce the amount of microplastics released when we wash clothes.
These steps, when taken together, will not singlehandedly solve the fashion industry’s waste problem. According to Semaan, of The Slow Factory, much of the responsibility lies with clothing manufacturers. Companies need to introduce broad changes, like clothing that is designed to be recycled, reused or redesigned into a circular system where today’s fashion discards are tomorrow’s raw materials, she said. After all, planned obsolescence, or the intentional practice of designing items that aren’t built to last, is not limited to fashion.
But buying fewer, longerlasting items is one way of reducing your impact, and signaling to the industry that those bigger changes are valuable.