The equivalent of a rubbish truck’s worth of clothes is burned or dumped into landfill every second, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation report of 2017. Fast fashion has only grown exponentially since 4 years ago, making the issue of waste even more urgent. It’s also important to think of clothing as part of a whole cycle: of creation, to use, to end of life disposal. A huge percentage of new clothing is made almost entirely of plastic fibres, which cannot be easily recycled. The recycling of textiles is also still frustratingly ineffective. According to the Fashion Revolution White Paper of 2021, less than 1% of textiles and clothes are genuinely recycled into new textiles and clothes.
This all makes for pretty bleak reading, and this is a very large problem which requires policy change and big business responsibility. Alongside this, your buying habits can and do make a difference to assist this change. My name is Charlotte Vinsen and I run a vintage and reworked label of the same name. I focus on selling handpicked vintage I know has a chance of a second life, and one off refashioned clothes and accessories made from vintage and reclaimed materials. By choosing to reduce your fast fashion consumption and instead put your budget to a smaller number of sustainably made or second life garments, you reduce water wastage, unnecessary plastic production, and unethical work practices.
It might sound strange to hear a clothing seller telling you to consume less, but I genuinely believe the fashion industry will continue to cause irreparable harm to the planet if it continues to encourage this level of unsustainable buying practices. A recent Vice article discovered that boohoo.com uploads an average of 116 new garments (more than the average wardrobe size) a day. A study with 18,000 heads of households in 20 countries (conducted by relocation and removals company Movinga in 2018) showed that households only wear up to 27% of their wardrobe in a 12 month period. So these garments are made to be sold quickly and rapidly, but on average are sitting in wardrobes, unworn.
If we don’t wear our clothes they shouldn’t have been made at all. If you want to shop sustainably you should buy clothes sparingly, as ethically as you can, and wear them a lot! On my Instagram, I post photos of the outfits I wear and I make sure to show the same garments again and again, to reduce the stigma of rewearing clothing and posting it to social media.
My collections are currently small, to keep with my pledge of sustainable growth. I love colour, and that’s reflected in my work! My most recent collection was pastel themed, and used vintage and reworked garments to create a little pocket of hope for the fashion industry.
THANK YOU CHARLOTTE FOR SHARING YOUR RESEARCH AROUND THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY WITH US. YOU’RE BUILDING YOUR BRAND WITH CAREFUL CONSIDERATION AND IT’S GREAT TO HAVE YOU CHAMPIONING SUSTAINABILITY SO STRONGLY FROM HERE IN MANCHESTER.