28 February 2011 | Luca Del Buono
Climate Change, Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America

 

While standing in front of a wardrobe full of high street-bought clothes of questionable origin, let’s just say I struggled to think of something to wear for my visit to London Fashion Week’s ethical show, Estethica. Unless I went with an elf costume left over from Christmas, I was pretty certain that nothing I wore would be green enough for meeting some of the top designers working sustainably in the fashion industry. But in a society where a winter coat can be bought in a supermarket for under £30 and t-shirts for less than £5, I can’t be the only one who has got caught up in the desire for so called Fast Fashion - clothing so cheap it can end up in landfill before even the second wearing.

“I had a 16-year-old girl in my studio on placement and she was bragging about how she’d bought a piece at Primark that she could wear once and throw away. The whole studio went nuts, went crazy on her. That is the mentality of a young girl, a 16 year old - it has to be stopped.” Michelle Lowe-Holder, a designer based in East London, was as passionate about the state of the industry as she was about her work when I spoke to her for Climate Action at the Estethica exhibition in London’s Somerset House.


Fast fashion

All the designers echoed Lowe-Holder’s passion because the fashion industry, particularly on the high street, has major environmental impacts. According to a report published by Cambridge University in 2006, on average the UK consumer consigns 30 kg of clothing and textiles to landfill every year. That’s equivalent to about 60 pairs of jeans or 150 t-shirts.

Aside from huge quantities of post-consumer waste, there is the damage caused pre-consumer. Polyester, the most common synthetic clothing material, is produced from petroleum in a process that requires large amounts of energy and crude oil that leads to harmful emissions. But massive use of natural fabrics is also a problem. The US is the largest exporter of cotton. The crop requires a quarter of all pesticides used there and the majority is shipped to China and other countries with cheap labour markets to become the clothes that are then sold at rock-bottom prices in western high streets and shopping centres. Aside from environmental impacts, the industry has also been criticised for its social impacts such as poor working conditions and exploitative wages. These elements will be highlighted over the next two weeks during Fair Trade Fortnight.

Tara St James, a Canadian designer now based in Brooklyn, New York, runs her label, Study NY, in a way that reflects her personal beliefs in environmental sustainability and ethical labour. St James is terrified by the culture of high street fashion. “It’s frightening. I can see the appeal. I’m not blind to the instant gratification of buying something cheap and quick but I think it’s terrifying to have that available to people because it stops the thinking process of what you’re buying and why you’re buying it.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) highlighted the growth of fibre, the use of chemicals such as dyes that pollute air and water, and unregulated and inefficient manufacturing as being three of the four biggest impacts of the fashion/apparel industry. The fourth which, is easily forgotten and perhaps hardest to prevent, occurs once the clothes have made it home and been worn.

Washing clothes in hot water and any resulting ironing and tumble-drying have massive environmental costs. The Cambridge researchers found that buying a 250 g cotton t-shirt was equivalent to buying 1,700 g of fossil fuel, depositing 450 g of waste to landfill and emitting 4 kg of CO₂ into the atmosphere, largely because of the energy required to wash and dry the garment throughout its life cycle.

Fashion conscience

Improved efficiency washing machines and advances in nanotechnology and biosciences leading to clothes with so-called ‘smart functions’ such as stain resistance are some of the ideas that have been proposed in recent years to reduce the energy burden caused by doing the laundry. But, by nature of their simplicity, it is behavioural changes that could be most effective. The Cambridge research shows that washing at lower temperatures can reduce the global climate change impact of a particular piece of clothing by 10 per cent.  Abstaining from tumble-drying and ironing while washing at this lower temperature is even more effective – the item’s environmental impact goes down by about 50 per cent.

Estethica showcased designers who provide their customers with the opportunity to buy clothing with reduced pre-consumer environmental impact. Organic fabrics, locally sourced textiles, and recycled or upcycled materials all feature strongly in the pieces.

Milliner, Jacob James, produces hats from innovative materials like felt from recycled plastic bottles and a fabric that blends wool with stinging nettles. The latter being perhaps more the kind of unusual plant-based material people associate with eco fashion but Jan Townsend, the designer, believes this use of planet friendly fabrics does not have to be a niche area of the industry and compared it to the increased focus on the provenance of our food. “I think [sustainable fashion] probably will become the norm because if you look at the way it’s gone with food and Fair Trade coffee and chocolate and organically, locally produced food, if you walk round any supermarket now, those products don’t have their own section – they’re not in the weirdy aisle!”

And it is significant that environmentally sustainable materials and practices are being taken up by the high fashion world, by designers who have not always worked in this way. Orsola de Castro, designer for From Somewhere and also a co-curator and founder of Estethica, is someone who was fashion first and became an environmentalist. “We started off as a normal brand and then we realised the amount of waste that there was in the industry.” De Castro has recently been using the swimwear manufacturer Speedo’s unsold and banned swimwear. New regulations made some of their high-tech materials unusable but she revels in creating pieces from what she finds to be a “very sculptural and versatile” material and you can even swim in them!

Fashion forward?

Michelle Lowe-Holder does not feel there is one easy answer and that blame should not fall solely at the shop windows of our high streets. “It’s societal; it’s a much bigger problem. It makes me a bit angry when people say ‘it’s Top Shop or it’s H&M’, it’s much deeper than that because H&M and Top Shop are just reacting to the needs of people and they’re a business.” Although Lowe-Holder, who has worked with Top Shop in the past, does think there is a role for the high street brands. “If they did sustainability it would be incredible, they could change things, much more so than people like me who are independent.”

H&M recently announced a sustainable range called the Conscious Collection, From Somewhere worked successfully with Tesco and Marks & Spencer have Plan A. There is movement but still a long way to go before the consumer can be confident of the sustainability of the clothing they purchase. But when it comes to clothes, to most people what matters is how they look. Working with only recycled and organic materials can be a challenge but designers at Estethica want this to be a bonus and not the main attraction. Clementine James, designer for Little Glass Clementine sums this feeling up, “I don’t want to be known as just an ethical designer, I think ethics should just come secondary to fantastic design, but should be absolutely integral.”

Estethica is evidence that the fashion industry can move towards sustainability but change cannot be brand-led alone. Just as the consumer has become savvier when it comes to the food he or she eats, the consumer needs to be conscious of the impact of the clothes they wear. In future I may still struggle with what clothes to wear and whether my t-shirt goes with my jumper but it won’t be the colours that matter because hopefully they will all be green.

For further information:

Estethica at British Fashion Council

Fair Trade Fortnight

Well Dressed? - University of Cambridge report

 

Front image: Estethica | British Fashion Council

First image: AW11 | From Somewhere

Second image: AW11 Collection | Michelle Lowe-Holder

Third image: Study NY Fall Collection | Lauren Bilanko

Fourth image: STINGplus Gatsby | Jacob James

Fifth image: Recycled jewellery | Little Glass Clementine