The weight of clothing
Together we can make Fast Fashion so out of season!
Fashion and fast fashion have a significantly negative impact on our planet. Today’s fashion industry in no longer organized around only two seasons a year; instead of spring-summer and autumn-winter we actually have 52 seasons a year: it’s like there’s something new out every week. All this comes at the expense of the lives of the workers who makes the clothes, as well as of the environment. Most of the clothes we wear are in fact made in developing countries around the world, on the principal that the more production is outsourced, the smallest the cost will be.
We’re constantly being bombarded by marketing campaigns telling us to shop more and that what we already have it’s not good enough. What we are not informed about, however, is the human cost of fast fashion, which causes disaster like the one of Rana Plaza, a garment factory in Bangladesh, which only in 2013, collapsed killing more than 1,130 people and leaving thousands more injured. Most of the victims were women, that are more expose to these dangerous situations within the fashion supply chain, also due to the increase levels of violence, negligence, and oppression.
Whenever we throw away a piece of clothing we don’t give to much thought into it, especially if we didn’t pay a lot for it. For example, in USA there are 25 billion pounds of textile waste every year: only 15% of that gets recycled, the other part goes straight into the landfill. However, one rarely realises that to make one T-shirt it takes around 2.700 litres of water and if it’s made with not organic cotton, it means adding water pollution caused by runoff of the pesticides into local waterways.
It’s easy to always appear fashionable and to be more aware about your clothing choice at the same time: look up for brand that are transparent in their supply chain and that tell you who made their clothes. Make sure those brands pay fair wages and give dignity to their manufacturers while using technology and strive for quality standards. Otherwise you can shop at local second hand shops (for example Humana Vintage and Oxfam), or on online platforms where you can simply find a wide choice of clothing and accessories well-priced, like Vinted, Depop, Etsy and many others!
🏫 Learn more🎥 Watch "The True Cost"