Contrary to the fact the global fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world, we have no idea how bad fashion actually is for the environment. As new apparel constantly tempt us in shops it is proving tough to love our clothes and wear them longer. But millennials, despite being broadly wasteful, are driving a new movement in a thriving resale market.
The truth is more and more people are shopping second hand than ever before. Consumers are shopping smarter and thinking second hand first according to James Reinhart, CEO and Co-Founder of leading resale site ThredUp, who quotes in its 2018 resale report:
“There is powerful transformation of the modern closet happening and resale is a key driver.”
Resale is growing at a fast pace, in fact, it is growing 24x faster than retail. Based on ThredUp’s new report, the growth of resale market - especially online - will reach $41 billion by 2022, with 49% contributed by apparel.
But even with the rapid growth of the resale market, fashion is still one of the most resource-intensive industries in the world both in terms of natural resources and human resources.
“If we are thinking about fashion, fashion and sustainability do not go hand in hand at all,” says Sarah Klymkiw, Education Programmes Manager at TRAID, a UK charity working to reduce the environmental and social impacts of clothing waste.
“Personally I believe there is not enough happening. There are things but a lot of it is hot air. A lot of it is a lot of money being spent on fantastic PR campaigns, but actually, if you look deeper into what companies may be doing it is not ethical or sustainable.”
London-based TRAID has been operating for close to two decades since opening in 1999. The charity is unique in the way that it only fundraises through clothing donations. Essentially diverted from ending up in landfill, the resale of second-hand clothes at Traid stores fund projects that are targeting the exploitation in supply chains that make our clothes.
“At TRAID, we are trying to reuse those clothes,” Sarah says. “We are trying to value clothes again to tackle waste but we are still sadly throwing a lot of our clothes in the bin.
“Clothes are still ending up in landfill or they are being incinerated. Of course, if they end up in landfill, if it is made out of natural fibres, they start to break down and produce methane gas which we know is 21 times more potent than CO2.”
Sarah explains how there are a lot of mixed feelings towards incinerators. In the industry they call them energy recovery centres, so you can produce energy from them which can be seen as a positive. But Sarah says: “ However, we are losing those resources, and for me, that is a real shame.
“If we are thinking about sustainability and the future, those resources, we need them. We are using 1.7 times the planet's natural resources. In that respect, we are consuming more than the earth can replenish.”
Fashion’s need for raw materials and labour intensive production processes make it an industry particularly vulnerable to environmental disruption. According to World Resources Institute, resource consumption is set to triple by 2050.
This is where TRAID help educate people of all ages about buying more secondhand clothing and how we should try and buy less new clothes. We need to be more thoughtful and conscious about our clothing purchases.
Sarah said: “I like to think of it as a circular approach to clothing. You could donate an item of clothing to TRAID that someone else would wear and then they would donate it back.
“It's almost like sharing or renting clothes for a period of time and making sure they pass on. The money that it generates through that tries to improve new clothes.
“Secondhand is an alternative consumption. The clothes already exist, why not buy them.”
At TRAID, new stock goes into the shop floor all the time and is selected by the shop team and expert sorters. The charity has 11 stores in the London area and all stores have four seasonal sales and restocks per year.
TRAID has over 1000 textile banks located around the country on pavements and in car parks proving a really convenient way for people to drop off their clothes. In addition to that, TRAID offers a free home collection service where a TRAID driver will come and collect the unwanted clothes straight from your door.
In the United Kingdom, a study by sustainability not-for-profit organisation WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) found that although the amount of clothing sent to landfill has fallen by 14% from 350,000 tonnes in 2012 to 300,000 in 2016, a staggering one-quarter is still binned rather than recycled.
However, the volume of clothes bought rose by nearly 200,000 tonnes to 1.36 million causing 26 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions putting clothing fourth after transport, housing, and food in terms of its impact on the environment.
Similarly, organisations are encouraging the resale of second-hand items in the fashion industry. Peer-to-peer social shopping application Depop released data that searches for vintage items had increased by 132%.
Across the application, there are over a million vintage items listed on Depopeveryday. Depop also has over 8,000 shops dedicated to sourcing unique vintage items.
Reworking fashion
Alternatively, to reselling apparel, fashion designers are repurposing vintage pieces into one-off original products. The common thread between these brands and designers is the idea that old can successfully become stylish again.
Subversive fashion designer JJ Hudson, otherwise known as Noki (an anagram of IKON) is one of fashion industry’s renowned artists. The upcycler working out of his studio in Brighton is widely recognised for the masks he wears and the ‘one-off’ garments the artist produces through customisation.
The art brand of Noki’s customisation serves as a statement against the mass-produced fashion branding. Noki takes a DIY approach to secondhand branded garments reworking them into ‘one-off’ pieces of clothing.
Asked about his thoughts on the current climate of sustainability in the fashion industry, Noki replied: “I feel it is all very well and it is a very valid ‘industry’s’ reaction to the design world it has created for itself. However, its purity and focus on the direction of actual change comes across a heavy inability to really function.
“I find it very very interesting to see and hear from the important minds as this exposure to the global climate problem evolves.
“All I know is it makes customisation more relevant than ever.”
Noki’s customisation spawned into his SOB Masks which the artist is widely known for. SOB has two meanings, sexuality of branding and suffocation of branding.
“I create them to see what it would be like to get behind the brand, the actual brand identity, and stare at people looking at me and see what would happen if I just moved the brest identity to the face. Becoming a gimp/terrorist using the brand, playing with total anonymity hiding completely behind it.
“I also like my actual anonymity. It is a precious commodity I hear in these modern days.”
Noki’s creative state of mind stems from his experience of the acid house rave scene in 1988 in Edinburgh where he studied fashion design.
The customisation artist is inspiring the upcoming generation of fashion creativity. “I want to see new creative customisers take their addiction piled up in their wardrobes and make wild style pieces for their mates and Instagram followers.
“Making hench street couture pieces that take that take design from 20th into the 21st century. Where custom style goes local, where it goes hand in hand with the music and the attitude of the street corners the youth actually stand in, not dream to be in.
“And as I said, more importantly, I am inspiring a new breed of customiser for the local postcode generation.
“I get it all, I just like my sportswear on my terms now and to customise the found garment is the creative wall I wish to graffiti upon."
Another renowned artist of the fashion industry, Christopher Raeburn has established his eponymous brand with sustainable and intelligent fashion design for a global audience. Christopher's brand embodies his ethos of the four R’s; Remade, Reduced, Recycled and Raeburn.
The fashion designer reworks surplus materials, artefacts and products into completely new designs which are limited edition pieces out of his Raeburn studio in Hackney, London which was previously home to the Burberry textile factory.
Christopher seeks the most sustainable materials around while working alongside responsible manufacturing partners. When developed, his designs are considered for their impacts on the environment from reworking surplus materials to minimising the carbon footprint.
Christopher Raeburn has collaborated with the likes of Disney to create Mickey and Minnie bags cut from organic, European milled indigo cotton as well as producing large-volume duffel bags from reused and recycled materials with American worldwide lifestyle brand Eastpak.
Take a look below at the designers most recent collaboration with Palladium Boots below.
Perhaps next time you look in your wardrobe, spare a thought for the environment and think about donating clothes you don't wear to TRAID. Or maybe, follow the innovators of today's fashion industry such as Noki and Christopher and give your clothes a purpose again through reworking.
