Death by fashion
I (re)started this newsletter in part to motivate myself to get more involved in political actions that align with my ideals and (maybe) ease my climate anxiety. I thought that a fortnightly cadence was very doable. Turns out that’s not the case for me right this moment, but I promise to keep doing better.
Once again I’m feeling overwhelmed by things I cannot control: The White House let us down on Line 3, Congress seems fated to let us down on the climate/infrastructure bills, Joe Manchin sucks turds, and billionaires continue to exist, and sometimes when their companies experience a little whoopsy entire countries lose their primary means of communication. Ugh!
So today I’ll just talk about something I can control: my clothes.
We are wearing too much
I’ve been vaguely aware of the negative effects of the fast fashion industry for the better part of a decade. “Disposable clothing,” as my mom called it when I dragged her into a Forever 21 in 2010, is destined for the landfill. Clothes produced within a fast-fashion model are cheap and tantalizing, but they are poorly made — they fall apart after a year or so and end up in the trash. And it’s not just one going-out top sliding into a landfill once in a blue moon: it’s 62 million metric tons of clothing every year.
Before I continue, I want to state unequivocally that poor and working-class people for whom fast fashion is the only feasible option are not contributing to this slice of the climate-crisis pie. If you’re poor or broke, you can't afford the virtuous $50 organic cotton T-shirt — you're buying a $10 shirt and you’re making it last as long as possible. The problem is that the global wealthy prop up the fast fashion industry by buying more clothes than they could ever possibly need, in hyper-consumerist frenzies being accelerated by social media.
The average American, for example, purchases 68 new items of clothing every year. Each garment is worn an average of seven times before it’s discarded, and despite our noble intentions to donate or resell, over half of our castoffs will end up in a landfill.
The consequences of this whole operation are enormous but hard to quantify. There are the emissions from manufacturing and shipment; there is the water used for production, the water poisoned by chemicals and microplastics; there are the heaps of brand-name trash suffocating countries on whom we inflict our hand-me-downs. The human consequences are also devastating, and would honestly require their own newsletter. Let me instead recommend this video, which does a great job outlining how our current model of clothing consumption is dependent upon an economic system that does not pay people for their labor. (Guess where that started.)
Fast fashion exploits people, it burns resources, and it clogs our planet with immortal trash. Lasting, effective solutions will have to involve policy — only governments are powerful enough to tell corporations to stop being shitty — but greater public awareness and consumer pressure can help turn us in the right direction. And public awareness requires, well, individual awareness.
Taking a good hard look at myself
After I read that the average American buys 68 new garments a year, I thought, “That cannot possibly be right.” Sixty-eight things? Every year? I was feeling a little smug because I think of myself as a conscious consumer, an almost-minimalist, so I counted up all my recent purchases to prove it and oh boy! Turns out I'm still a slave to the fashion machine!
Since September 2020, I’ve acquired 41 new items of clothing. (A pair of shoes or socks counts as one item in this list.) I’ve covered my whole body: pants, shirts, shoes, underwear — yes, there’s a wedding dress in there. Of these purchases, 23 were new and 18 were secondhand. Some items are new favorites that I’ve worn at least a dozen times by now; some I already regret buying, either because they don’t fit right or because they simply didn’t make me happy in the way my lizard brain hoped when I saw them in the store.
Technically I also wore the wedding dress when I had it fitted.
Taking stock like this has helped me recognize how much stuff I’ve acquired in the past year (not to mention how much stuff I already had), and it has also reminded me that buying clothes is not always a magic recipe to make me feel better. After I took this inventory, I emptied a few of the online shopping carts that I’d been flirting with for a while. My stuff is enough for now.
I’d honestly recommend this process to everyone. It’s harder than you think to remember all your clothing purchases, but it helps you see how quickly and how easily these things can pile up. As the holidays loom ahead, it might be useful to take stock in measurable ways that help us resist the pull of rabid seasonal consumption. (So hey, if you haven't bought a Halloween costume yet, maybe... don't?)
What else can we do?
In the last couple years I’ve begun to practice a more critical awareness of the clothes I buy. While there's still a long way to go (as you saw above) I've learned a lot so far. Here are some of the highlights:
One of the best things you can do is extend the lifespan of the clothes you already have. This benefits your wallet as much as the planet, since you’ll see the cost-per-wear of an item decrease every time you use it. You can hang-dry your clothes, since tumble drying is hard on the material. You can learn to sew, patching up those worn thigh spots on your favorite jeans rather than just bidding them farewell (I can tell you from personal experience, this is so satisfying). You can probably also just wash your clothes way less often, trust me.
When you must buy new clothes, try to shop secondhand. It takes something like 1,800 gallons of water to make one pair of blue jeans, which is about 100 average American showers. So if you buy a used pair of jeans instead of a new pair, you are essentially saving 100 showers worth of water, alongside other eco virtues.
You can also choose natural fibers as much as possible (your cottons, your wools, your linens, etc.). They last longer, get smelly slower, and do not shed microplastics into the water system each time you wash them. I’ve become a much smarter shopper by watching these informative videos from Justine Leconte, a fashion designer who shows you what to look for when you’re trying to buy ethical, sustainable, long-lasting pieces.
And, of course, we can all avoid brands that are shit. Unfortunately, that is a lot of brands! I always try to learn about a company’s production processes before I shop there. Usually, if a brand isn’t completely transparent about where their clothes are made, who makes them, and with what materials, it means they’re being shifty about something. Here are just a few of the shifty folks I would recommend avoiding:
This is by no means comprehensive.
If you want to make a practice of buying more ethical and more sustainable clothing, then you’ll have to do your own continuous research. See what you can learn about a brand’s manufacturing processes; see if they’ve ever been in the news for shifty stuff; at least see if Good On You has anything to say about them. It’s a bit of extra work, but hey, so is saving the planet.
And of course, the final rallying cry of every newsletter: Talk to your friends about this! Individual actions become collective actions by spreading the word. Organize a seasonal clothing swap so that you can refresh your wardrobe, reduce your impact, and have fun with friends all at once. Encourage your man friends to shop secondhand, because this is a pretty feminine space right now. If you get any of those insufferable unboxing videos in your social media feeds, consider leaving a little comment: "Hey, fast fashion is a big environmental problem and videos like this only make it worse." (Something like that. You can be nice. Or not. I bet Zara's CEO isn't nice.)
That's all today! Happy not-shopping!
Further reading and viewing
Articles
As Dems race forward, Manchin pumps brakes: ‘There is no timeline’ (Politico)
Biden's silent climate betrayal (Heated)
Congress Is Debating Its Biggest Climate Change Bill Ever. Here's What's At Stake (NPR)
The Impact of Fast Fashion On the Environment (Princeton Student Climate Initiative)
The High Price of Fast Fashion (Wall Street Journal)
The sustainable fashion conversation is based on bad statistics and misinformation (Vox)
Ocean plastic pollution: why our clothes are part of the problem (Vox)
Videos
Fast Fashion Is Hot Garbage (Climate Town)
U.S. exports of used clothing creating waste nightmare (CBS)
tiktok is kind of bad for fashion (Mina Le)
Natural fibers and what they're good at | FABRIC GUIDE (Justine Leconte)
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