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Waste Not Want Not – How To Help The Environment
The fashion industry now: The fashion industry could benefit from the circular economy by almost $560 billion and help improve the environment. Currently the industry relies on ‘fast fashion’, with quick turnarounds on the production of new styles and smaller price tags. Fast fashion depends on the rapid production and sale of different styles, providing customers with a wide range of choice. However, this means that there is much more clothing produced now, and combined with clothing usage dropping (clothes are on average worn only seven to ten times), means that the fashion industry produces a lot of waste. Most of these clothes are also produced by using non-renewable resources,…
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Circular Fashion and How It Can Be Accomplished
Globally an estimated 92 million tonnes of textile waste are created every year. With new fashions for different seasons and fast fashion being a click away, it is easy to see why people can be unaware of the wider impacts of fashion. Circular fashion is starting to rise. It is hoped with individual consumer awareness and industry changes that circularity fashion can become a new normality. What is a Circular Economy? Put simply, circularity is fashion that can be sourced and produced, whilst circulating for as long as possible. Then, can be safely disposed of and reused for future garments. The term was coined by Dr Anna Brismar in 2014…
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Easy Steps to a Circular Fashion Economy
In the 21st century, fashion is an endless cycle of buy, wear, waste. In fact, the average consumer throws away 70 pounds (31.75kg) every single year, making the fashion industry the second most polluting in the world – but it doesn’t have to be that way. Whilst we all want to upgrade our wardrobes, there’s no need for the harmful pollution it creates in the process. Fast fashion is a modern-day phenomenon, enabling clothing companies to mass-produce, manufacture and market garments that follow the latest fashion trends and allow consumers to level-up their style for cheap. Though this may not sound terrible, the true cost must be considered – textile…
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To Buy or Not to Buy – the Concept of Circular Fashion
Over the recent years, the detrimental effect on the environment exerted by the fashion industry, overproduction of clothes, and, consequently, consumerism, has been commonly addressed in the media. For this reason, a community that is making new sustainable purchases on an ongoing basis without potentially threatening the environment deals with no guilt. It is even considered a manifesto of some sort or, in some cases, a sacrifice. What is this about? I am referring to a quite novel concept called circular fashion. “Circular fashion can be defined as clothes, shoes or accessories that are designed, sourced, produced and provided with the intention to be used and circulate responsibly and effectively…
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Unlocking a Billion Dollar Opportunity
Approximately 85% of textiles end up in landfills each year, which is the equivalent of 31.5 million truckloads. The scariest part – clothing produced by fast fashion, that has only been used for less than one year, makes up a huge part of those numbers. You are now probably asking the same question as many others have before. What can the industry do to stop this? And why are we not moving away from the current linear fashion system’s take-make-dispose model? What is Circular Fashion? Good news: the fashion industry has actually started to realise just how urgently the world needs change and what could hopefully outgrow, or even replace,…
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Fashion Will Never Be Circular if Consumers Don’t Change
The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions; 73% of garments produced every year ends up in landfill; washing clothes releases 500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean each year. But that’s not new information, right? Since climate change became climate emergency and sustainability entered our day-to-day dictionary, we all have learnt about the dark, polluting side of the clothing industry, but what about the solution? According to many fashion industry high profiles, as Ellen MacArthur, McKinsey company, and H&M, there is a solution and it is called circular fashion. Principles of circular fashion Anna Brismar, owner of the consultancy firm Green Strategy, coined the term circular…
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The Forbidden Beauty of Age in Fashion
Everybody ages, that’s a given. Yet the image of age is very rarely represented in the fashion world and is sometimes frowned upon. OK, you’re right, there are symbols of older beauty in popular culture, with people like Idris Elba and George Clooney winning the title of Sexiest Man Alive in their older years. But although they may have had a grey hair here and there, they hadn’t even reached 50 when the earned the title. The absence of age in beauty standards In the age of representing diversity, the fashion industry is performing poorly. Most brands that we see and consume have standard for their models. Their models are…
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Sustainable fashion: The community you want to be a part of
2020 has been a chaotic year; politics has become so polarised, the world has gone into lockdown, and our climate is descending into madness. But in reality, this could be our future if we don’t act now. 2020 was the year to save our planet and to hold the big industries accountable. 2020 was the year to redeem ourselves, but the pandemic has diverted our gaze to the immediate threats we’re facing. It’s time to make our consumption sustainable. Climate crisis Environmental activists have been flooding the media with statements trying to draw the world’s attention to our planet’s cry for help. We are rapidly depleting our resources and most…
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The Horror Story of the Fashion World
Simply put, we are killing the planet. And one of the big contributors to this is the fashion industry. It is the third biggest pollutant on the planet and it continues to rip through our natural resources on a daily basis. We have the solution right under our noses, yet we still do nothing. We, as consumers, need to become more aware of the impact this industry is having. Our money is single-handedly funding our planet’s demise and the majority of us have no idea how. The life cycle of fashion The life cycle of your typical fashion garment is probably a bit of a mystery to most – other…
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It’s All About Inclusion
Over 1 billion people of the world’s population are diagnosed with some form of disability. Almost 20% of working age adults in the UK are disabled, according to the British Disability Quality Charity Scope. Yet despite this, disabled people have long been ignored and excluded from the fashion industry. The fashion industry might be quick when it comes to trends, but it is slow to represent people of different abilities. Disabilities come in various forms which can demand several specific clothing needs, such as adjustable waists, one hand zips, magnetic closures, and extended openings. For example, buttons can be difficult for those with dexterity issues and regular cut trousers can…
