Cheap fashion and factory collapses have led to an emerging slow fashion movement that hopes to make people think twice about the clothes on their backs.
After I had my first child, I was housebound and online shopping came easily. It broke the monotony of the day, and I figured it was a treat for myself. Clothes were cheap and often on sale. Returns were free, shipping was always included, and there was no need to even comb my hair.
After a winter that saw a constant stream of packages delivered to my door I took a look at my closet. Was there anything in there I actually loved? Why did I have so many clothes that didn’t really fit? I started questioning the money I had spent.
Then disaster struck. The Rana Plaza in Bangladesh collapsed killing over 1,000 people. It was horrible and sad and I saw brands that I wore in the rubble. I could put the clothes I bought to the actual faces of the garment workers who made them. I opened my closet again and looked at the piles of pilling fabric. It was a depressing sight.
It seems I’m not alone with my consumption of cheap clothing. According to the American Apparel and Footwear Association, on average every American, including every man, woman, and child, spent $898 to purchase 62 garments in 2012. That’s on average $14.48 per article. And shoes? Seven pairs each, at an average of $32.85 per pair.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of that ends up in the garbage heap. According to the 2012 book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline, every year Americans throw away an average of 12.7 million tonnes of textile or 68 pounds of textiles per person. It seems that wearing our clothes more than a few times isn’t really in fashion. In fact, it makes celebrity news when a starlet wears an outfit more than once.
So what’s to make of all this? It seems that we’ve lost our connection with clothes. Mathieu Mudie is the co-owner of Lowell, a boutique in Montreal that focuses on well-made, high-quality clothing—the very opposite of fast fashion. “The fashion industry is where there’s the highest disconnect between the real value of an item and the price that people are willing to pay. If you think about a $20 jacket and the shipping and material cost, it means there’s nothing left for the people who are making it.”
Adrienne Butikofer, designer behind the Skinny Sweats line of clothing, wishes that people would start thinking more about their purchases. “I hope people develop a more thoughtful approach to what they buy. I prefer quality over quantity and my heart lies with creating one-of-a-kind pieces that timelessly disregard current trends.”
With people now thinking more about where other goods, like their food, come from, there’s hope that fashion will also be more heavily scrutinized, but it seems that it still has a long way to go.“The concept of ‘slow fashion’ has emerged and just that the word is now out there shows that yes, more people are aware of the issues behind fashion and are talking about it. At the same time, fast fashion is not in trouble,” says Maudie.
Jenny Wong, a savvy shopper and fashion follower is one of the new generation thinking about where their clothes come from and how they are made. “As I get older I try to become a little more ethical in my choices and I find if I buy things that are ethically made and of a higher quality they will last longer.”
Indeed, it makes sense that if you buy timeless quality pieces you will actually be spending less than buying new cheap clothes, which are worn once or twice and thrown out. It’s a difficult message to sell though. Consumers love the thrill of the buy, and no one I spoke to predicted any sort of demise in fast fashion. For myself though? You can bet that I will slowly be slimming my wardrobe and making sure all my new purchases are made with care.
Cheap fashion and factory collapses have led to an emerging slow fashion movement that hopes to make people think twice about the clothes on their backs.
After I had my first child, I was housebound and online shopping came easily. It broke the monotony of the day, and I figured it was a treat for myself. Clothes were cheap and often on sale. Returns were free, shipping was always included, and there was no need to even comb my hair.
After a winter that saw a constant stream of packages delivered to my door I took a look at my closet. Was there anything in there I actually loved? Why did I have so many clothes that didn’t really fit? I started questioning the money I had spent.
Then disaster struck. The Rana Plaza in Bangladesh collapsed killing over 1,000 people. It was horrible and sad and I saw brands that I wore in the rubble. I could put the clothes I bought to the actual faces of the garment workers who made them. I opened my closet again and looked at the piles of pilling fabric. It was a depressing sight.
It seems I’m not alone with my consumption of cheap clothing. According to the American Apparel and Footwear Association, on average every American, including every man, woman, and child, spent $898 to purchase 62 garments in 2012. That’s on average $14.48 per article. And shoes? Seven pairs each, at an average of $32.85 per pair.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of that ends up in the garbage heap. According to the 2012 book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline, every year Americans throw away an average of 12.7 million tonnes of textile or 68 pounds of textiles per person. It seems that wearing our clothes more than a few times isn’t really in fashion. In fact, it makes celebrity news when a starlet wears an outfit more than once.
So what’s to make of all this? It seems that we’ve lost our connection with clothes. Mathieu Mudie is the co-owner of Lowell, a boutique in Montreal that focuses on well-made, high-quality clothing—the very opposite of fast fashion. “The fashion industry is where there’s the highest disconnect between the real value of an item and the price that people are willing to pay. If you think about a $20 jacket and the shipping and material cost, it means there’s nothing left for the people who are making it.”
Adrienne Butikofer, designer behind the Skinny Sweats line of clothing, wishes that people would start thinking more about their purchases. “I hope people develop a more thoughtful approach to what they buy. I prefer quality over quantity and my heart lies with creating one-of-a-kind pieces that timelessly disregard current trends.”
With people now thinking more about where other goods, like their food, come from, there’s hope that fashion will also be more heavily scrutinized, but it seems that it still has a long way to go.“The concept of ‘slow fashion’ has emerged and just that the word is now out there shows that yes, more people are aware of the issues behind fashion and are talking about it. At the same time, fast fashion is not in trouble,” says Maudie.
Jenny Wong, a savvy shopper and fashion follower is one of the new generation thinking about where their clothes come from and how they are made. “As I get older I try to become a little more ethical in my choices and I find if I buy things that are ethically made and of a higher quality they will last longer.”
Indeed, it makes sense that if you buy timeless quality pieces you will actually be spending less than buying new cheap clothes, which are worn once or twice and thrown out. It’s a difficult message to sell though. Consumers love the thrill of the buy, and no one I spoke to predicted any sort of demise in fast fashion. For myself though? You can bet that I will slowly be slimming my wardrobe and making sure all my new purchases are made with care.