The wardrobe. You’ve each got one, so this is a conversation you’re all invited to, and frankly, really ought to stick around for.
My own one makes me pretty happy, at least on the days my mums done a wash and there's a few nice outfits lined up for me. It’s also fairly dynamic; pieces filter in and out periodically, nothing excessive, but still the typical, 2020 happenings of a teenage girl’s closet.
We’ve heard talk about fast fashion before, words like sweatshops and landfills cropping up in papers or podcasts or documentaries. But it’s background noise, an inconveniently guilt stirring notion that's easiest shoved under that growing pile of cheap bikinis and happily ignored. And maybe that’ll work for you, soothing a sore conscience with a truckload of retail therapy.
But after a while, the nasty truths I’d forced to the back of my own wardrobe became too loud to ignore. It began with a short documentary I watched on environmental impacts of the fashion industry. A bitter taste manifests between your teeth as the figures and facts roll out. In an age of serial production, we’ve become serial wasters, guilty of a 60% increase in clothes consumption since 2000, with people keeping garments for only half the period of time. Factories are churning out an endless stream of clothing (as well as a mountains of CO2), which take a short stay in our wardrobes before a much more permanent vacation to the dump. In the UK alone, 1.5 million tonnes of textiles go into landfill each year.
More Ted Talks and articles down the hatchet, and you start unearthing the real grim parts. Even if you can stomach the environmental damage, the human suffering is a whole new continent of horrors. I’m not talking landfills or gas emissions or ice caps; this is about the real people who churn out your cheap fast fashion, the pregnant mothers and underpaid fathers and children of 7 or 8 who work up to 16 hours a day in cramped and reeking factories, sleeping under their sewing machines and earning a measly fraction of the living wage.
Change, however, is entirely feasible. We feed and fuel the apparel industry and therefore as consumers, have the power to redirect and reshape it. By boycotting brands who do not meet decent worker rights, demanding brand transparency and researching where your clothes come from, we can cultivate a sustainable fashion industry, which is both humanely and environmentally morale.
If you’ve made it this far, then let us get back to where we started, to the wooden cuboid in your bedroom which houses colour and corruption in equal parts. The good news is, you don’t need to sacrifice all your pretty clothes for an ethical gold star or wear the same 3 outfits for the next 10 years. Start with the things you don’t need or want, and send them en route to a salvation army bin or charity shop. And whilst you’re there, why not have a look around? You can find truly unique pieces when buying second hand, with the added plus of giving your money to a worthy cause. And if charity shops just really aren’t your ball game, then you can still satisfy the shopping addiction without the guilty conscience. Sites like Depop offer immense varieties of clothing, much of which is branded or in new condition, but entirely disassociated from the fast fashion industry. Another alternative is researching ethical and sustainable clothing brands or small independent businesses that can be found on sites like Etsy.
It’s time to improve all our wardrobes, and not in the way we’re used to doing. Ignorance is bliss, but the cost of it is too heavy for the rest of the world to carry. This is the moment for consumer empowerment, and with that, responsibility; here’s to clearing the skeletons out of all our wardrobes.
For a deeper insight into sustainable fashion, have a watch of the attached video.
Kayleigh Lennon, year 12
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