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Wardrobe undressed: Why the fashion industry needs to change

Submitted by on Monday, 15 March 20106 Comments

cottonSince 2009, the London Fashion Week features its eco and sustainability cat walk initiative Esthetica. Ethical and sustainable fashion is, much akin to organic food 20 years ago, a development that is spreading slowly but irreversibly across an industry that boasts an environmental impact second only to agriculture. With this is mind, the present article is the first in our new series that explores Sustainable/Ethical Fashion.

By: Pamela Ravasio, @PamelaRavasio, Managing Editor

My wardrobe is probably not very typical for a woman, certainly not for one in her mid 30s: with two dozen t-shirts at its core, and only 3 pair of jeans, it boasts more outdoor gear than city-fit outfits. This rather mediocre list is rounded off by some winter jackets, a small selection of household textiles, and – due to a unexplainable fascination – a fairly large collection of ethnic fabric samples I have brought home from my numerous travels around the globe.

The amount of clothing I own may be minimal by some standards, or plainly ridiculous by others – the footprint these clothes made until they came to form part of my humble selection, however, is rather not. Most of what I own is made of cotton – I’m allergic to man-made fibres – , and mind you, organic cotton was not a buzzword yet in the days when those t-shirts and jeans came to life.

My average t-shirt weighs about 200 grams. But that’s only the physical weight I carry once the garment lies snug on my body.
Each t-shirt I own, required 2000 liters, or more, of clean water and about 150 grams of pesticide only to grow the cotton it is made of. Making each of my t-shirts, dying it, and having it shipped to the UK, adds another 1.5 kilos of mostly harmful chemicals, as well as a carbon footprint of 6.5 kilos to the total. With my buying decision though, the havoc I’m responsible for is by far not over yet: About 75% of the energy involved with the making and life of a piece of apparel, t-shirt in my case, is related to the laundering; some 25% of the dye – mostly heavy metals based colours – will be washed out over its lifetime, and be flushed “down the drains” together with the best-possible but still not exactly ecologic washing detergent. And in the end, all that remains to be done with my much loved t-shirt, is to add it together with other discarded items such as plastic wrappings, pots, pans, bed mattresses, to the top of the rubbish pit.

The story of my t-shirt is, of course, not an exception, but sadly the rule. It is an open secret that fashion – across the whole of its production processes – uses more water than any industry other than agriculture. At least 8’000 chemicals are used to turn raw materials into textiles and 25% of the world’s pesticides are used to grow non-organic cotton. The side effects are, quite logically, irreversible damage to people and the environment, and yet: two thirds of a garment’s carbon footprint will only occur after it is purchased.

In the UK, a total of 2.266 million tonnes of textiles is consumed each year. Taking into account the amount of clothing reused (206’000 tonnes) – the amount of textiles added to the rubbish pit each year totals to 2.60 million tonnes. That is the equivalent of 22’000 average sized male elephants!

The globe, its climate, diversity and people are therefore substantially affected by the way we dress – far beyond high street magazines, fashion shows and trade fairs. Not even logging, mining, and oil extraction does and did have such a profound impact on the planet – and neither on us.

Each of our buying decisions – whether it’s Louis Vuitton or Primark – has a direct, measurable, traceable impact on the planet we leave to our children and grand-children. Each piece of garment we decide to buy influences not only how the garments are designed (think: off cuts and cutting waste), but also the type of fibre grown next season, whether it will be organic or not, and how the garments will be produced, shipped, and finally discarded.

The truth is that fashion is considerable more than just a ‘groovy’ club of VIPs only focused on colours, cuts, designs and pretty, but altered photographs of hungry girls. It is an industry that arches from agriculture, over design, manufacturing, transportation, to marketing, advertising, waste management and recycling. Quite a surprise, considering that we’re only talking of clothes!

If we talk fashion, fibres, fabrics, clothing, we have no choice but to also talk about

  • environmental damage and pollution such as excessive monocultures, deforestation, ground water draining and poisoning

  • human-rights breaches such as child-labour and slave labour

  • carbon footprints and therefore global warming and climate change

  • waste, be it toxic waste, non-recyclable, non-biodegradable goods or diminishing space in land fills

  • social phenomena such as fashion bullying, consumerism and eating disorders.

Fashion is a very fascinating industry. No single one industry, other than food, encompasses an equal range of specialities, from agriculture over design, transport to waste management. Fashion only, though, fulfils both, a basic need, clothing in this case, and our natural instinct for grooming and beauty. This is the reason why it is so important to turn Fashion into a sustainable industry. Organic cotton and ‘No Sweat’! campaigns are only the seeds of the change we really need.

Next time when you buy cheap, spend a brief moment thinking of the children that have carried the water for your garment over miles, and still have to make another trip to fetch their own drinking water. Or for the Chinese teenagers that have sewn them while on shift for 15 or even 20 hours at one time, while using laundry pins to prevent their eyes from closing and themselves from falling asleep at work.

Love these kids, as you do the jazzy colours and cuts of your wardrobe. When you buy your next set of spring clothes – appreciate the new designs and garments as much as the efforts that have gone into making them.

By all means, rely on your conscience when deciding what to buy.

6 Comments »

  • Michael said:

    And here I thought that in launching a new jewelry business the eco footprint of my industry was appalling. When you say this:

    “Not even logging, mining, and oil extraction does and did have such a profound impact on the planet”

    You’ve cited the figures for the British fashion industry. Do you have some comparative figures, for instance, for the amount of wastes produced by mining or the petroleum industry?

    Thanks for writing this piece!

    - 17 March 2010 at 7:58 am
  • Pamela (author) said:

    Michel,
    Don’t get me wrong when I’m saying that logging, mining, oil extraction are “behind” fashion when it comes to their destructive power. One of the main differences is that for all these industries, the effect is – and no doubt about that – profoundly felt in the regions where it takes place. And there’s equally no doubt that some of these areas can be fairly vast. Businesses such as yours are very much needed … because they’re rare within your field.
    The impact of the fashion industry as a whole comes largely due to “economy of scale” meaning, each and every single man, woman and child on this planet needs to dress…
    I do know that the amount of clothing waste generated in Japan (where I’ve lived until mid last year) is substantially larger than in the UK. However, Japan’s recycling system re-channels to other uses rather then dumping it all on the land fills.
    I unfortunately don’t have any figures for the extraction industries at hand – this said, I believe to remember that one or several of Friends of the Earth / WWF / Greenpeace published reports on these industries – and I would think that they likely have the data you need at hand.

    - 21 March 2010 at 11:00 am
  • Roubi L'Roubi said:

    A great thought-provoking article, thanks Pamela. One of the things we love about working in couture is that customers have passion for the materials we use. We get to work with high quality cottons, linens, wools, leathers and other natural fabrics and are able to pay living wages to our suppliers and workers.

    But traceability is an issue, especially when we are sourcing overseas. It would be great to be able to assure customers about the sustainability and ethics of these fabrics as we can with those from our UK supplier.

    Our industry needs to clamor for traceability as has happened in agriculture. And we need to be campaigning to make consumers aware that their choices can change the industry.

    - 22 March 2010 at 3:52 pm
  • Anne said:

    One of the strongest succinct pieces explaining the impact of apparel production I’ve seen. More people need to see this. Any chance to make this into an Op-Ed to the NYTimes or Guardian, Pamela?

    - 26 March 2010 at 2:07 pm
  • Rebecca said:

    Nice piece Pamela, clearly a lot of research & work went into it. Thanks. However, it makes me feel shallow for buying anything beyond basic essentials :-)

    My concerns are not so much over the “‘groovy’ club of VIPs only focused on colours, cuts, designs” (currently my world) since this is an extremely small market which values the beauty and quality of fabrics and drape and the skills required to execute. This is usually fairly traded, often locally, in extremely small quantities and the cost reflects that. This may of course provoke other social comment, but in this context…

    My concern is more about the huge volumes of garments produced for insatiable appetites; the disposable market. Somehow there needs to be a shift back to a ‘less is more’ philosophy by placing greater value on those pieces we do buy – perhaps by increasing the costs to a more realistic level (fair trade – in fibres, fabrics and production).

    That way less is produced and less thrown away, less pollution, less dumping in landfill, less need to ‘do something useful with old scraps of fabric’ (though there are extraordinary things being done!), smaller carbon footprint, healthier local economies, healthier environment. Not to mention greater integrity.

    Regarding the need for fashion or clothing, you mention our natural instinct for grooming and beauty but there is another very important need that fuels our purchases; that of identity & status.
    We recognise & categorise others by what they wear – be it designer wear, street wear, mainstream, anti-fashion. Because we have to wear clothes it is the most obvious way that we express ourselves to the world and we can choose to stand out, fit in or become invisible. Or choose not to be identified in that way! That is why it’s such an extraordinary and complex world – right or wrong…

    On another matter, I’d be interested to learn how Japan recycles it’s garments?

    Roubi, I found a couple of certificating organisations at Premier Vision fabric fair. Take a look at;
    GOTS (global organic textile standard) http://www.global-standard.org
    and
    http://www.ecocert.com.
    These bodies certify those suppliers of organic, fairly-traded organic fibres & fabrics that meet their criteria, therefore giving assurance to our customers.

    More info re interesting finds at PV to follow…

    - 27 March 2010 at 1:46 pm
  • Teresa Labrado said:

    I read the article on the clothing industry by Pamela Ravasio, and it opened my eyes to the amount of waste we humans produce just for the clothes we wear. I can relate to this. What this reminds me of is the lint trap in our dryers. After every load we produce so much lint and after wash after wash we produce more and more waste that ends up in the trash and ulimately in our landfields. We got to think more organic and use less pesticides. The cave people didn’t have this problem. They killed an animal for its skins and used it for clothing. Ulimately, they used every part of the animal, not just the skins. They weren’t wasteful like we are. I thank Pamela Ravasio for this informative article. I’m sure it helped a lot people to understand such waste.

    - 13 April 2010 at 12:09 am

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