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Much of the pain and deflation detailed here by Woolf lies in the gulf between the private pleasure of a garment and its public reception. How many of us have looked at ourselves in the mirror at home and felt delighted by a new outfit, only to have that joy punctured when we realise we are underdressed, overdressed, or somehow out of step with everyone else at an event? The feelings that result from these apparent 'fashion disasters' are awful and intimate: at once speaking to some of the deepest fears we hold about ourselves, and a symptom of the changing messages around what (and who) is considered fashionable and beautiful. Polyester is essentially fabric that’s made from plastic fibres. It is now the most commonly used fibre in our clothing. As plastic is made from petroleum, it requires seriously enormous quantities of oil. 5. Polyester takes more than 200 years to decompose An extensive enquiry and 2019 report by the UK Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) led to a series of impressive recommendations – all of which the UK Government rejected.
Despite their skill, it takes an entire lifetime of toil for a garment worker to earn what a fashion CEO makes in four days.
The RSA (the royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce) is an independent charity, committed to a future that works for everyone. A future where we can all participate in its creation. of Mitumba imported to Kenya is of such bad quality that it cannot be sold anymore, meaning in 2019, Kenya had to deal with 150–200 tonnes of fashion and textile waste per day. When it comes to the environmental impacts of the industry, fast fashion is often blamed. But high-end brands originate trends and generate demand for new styles, which are then mass produced by fast fashion companies for a fraction of the cost. And they’re often made in similar factories with similar conditions–and even similar materials. When I was there, I thought, This country is relying too much on one industry to support the entire economy. Eighty-four percent of its exports is garments, and it’s an export country. You have a new crew of young executives [at major fashion companies] who all just counted on the Chinese consumer for the luxury industry, and young consumers in the U.S. and Europe for the fast fashion industry, and it was just: volume, volume, volume, and pushing us to buy more and more and more, not ever thinking something could happen like 9/11, like SARS, like this, where boom—we just stopped shopping. Recycling textiles can be difficult and expensive. Take a look at any clothing label – fibres are often so mixed up, they’ll never be separated and reused in any useful way. And again, with such large volumes, made with massive amounts of cheap materials, wastage in factories is also high.
An extensive enquiry and 2019 report by the UK Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee(EAC) led to a series of impressive recommendations – all of which the UK Government rejected. When it’s left to break down in landfills, it pollutes the air, soil, and water with plastic microfibres and hazardous chemicals. What we do know is that the unnecessary overproduction of clothing is a leading cause of climate change and plastic pollution. The demand for oil to make polyester is even fuelling Russia’s war, according to the Changing Markets Foundation. These materials often do not break down or can’t be recycled, which creates a massive plastic waste problem. We probably know this. But it’s become too easy to ignore. Dangerous, low-paid work for ‘disposable’ clothesEvery single second, 2,625 kilograms of clothing becomes waste that needs dealing with in some way. This is enough to fill the Empire State building one and a half times every day, and Sydney harbour every year. 4. Nearly 70 million barrels of oil are used each year to make the world’s polyester Boohoo – whose parent company also owns PrettyLittleThing – set a target of using 100% recycled or more sustainable textiles in their manufacturing by 2025. The report’s authors warn that they have a ‘mountain to climb’ if they are to meet this, and must reduce their overall volume of clothing sold. A 2019 enquiry found that Boohoo and Missguided are among the least sustainable companies in the entire UK fashion industry. A 2022 Greenpeace report found massive fashion waste exports pouring into Kenya and Tanzania. In 2019 alone, 185,000 tonnes of second-hand clothes were imported into Kenya. In East Africa this second hand fashion is called “Mitumba”, a Kiswahili word meaning bale or bundle, because it is typically sold to retailers in bales.
Fast Fashion’s Plastic Problem, a new report from the royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce (RSA), looks at some of the biggest online brands in ‘fast’ fashion: Asos, Boohoo, Missguided and PrettyLittleThing, analysing 10,000 recently-listed items, balanced across different product categories. Tiny bits of polyester that shed from our clothes account for 85% of all human-made debris found on shorelines around the world. In 2017, Greenpeace even found microplastics in the waters of the Antarctic. 7. It takes around 10–20,000 litres of water to produce a kilo of cotton Why is there so much clothing now? What’s it made of and who made it all? And where does it all end up when it’s no longer wanted?
The industry literally burns its own clothes
Textile production generally requires chemicals which need to be diluted through washing, and eventually disposed of – making water pollution another huge issue. Look out for standards like “Oeko-Tex” that provide reassurance that health- and environment-harming compounds haven’t been used in the production of certified fabrics. 9. Growing cotton uses 18% of pesticide 25% of total insecticide worldwide The constant push for cheaper manufacturing traps skilled garment workers in extremely unsafe working conditions. Deadly fires frequently rip through clothing factories around the world. March 2020 alone saw 66 fires in factoriesacross the industry – that’s two per day. It’s a cliche to say that we can’t shop our way out of a climate catastrophe but it’s absolutely true,” said Pham, the professor at Pratt. “The popular emphasis on individuals knowing where their clothes are made and who made their clothes–as ways of buying ‘better’–obscures the reality that the problems with the global fashion industry aren’t individual bad brands that just need to be called out. The problems are structural and systemic,” she said. We all need to wear clothes, so the massive reductions on fashion in the sales are certainly tempting. But how much will end up in the charity shop bag after January? Giving new meaning to the phrase ‘fashion victim’, a 35-year-old Australian woman had to be cut out of a pair of skinny jeans after developing a condition called compartment syndrome. It’s not the first time someone has succumbed to a dangerous style trend: “They’ve always been around, since the Stone Ages,” says Summer Strevens, the author of Fashionably Fatal. “It’s when fashion is taken to an extreme; I call it vanity insanity.” Here are five of the deadliest fads in history.
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