I love fashion more than I love Jesus.
Which is why today, with two weeks to go until Christmas, I’m not thinking about babies in mangers; I’m not buying presents (I did that in October, anyway); I don’t even have a tree: I’m fantasizing about a building a better fashion world by Q1 2024.
But, I realize that when we say “build a better fashion world” or even “fix fashion,” it’s not always clear what that looks like.
So, in addition to the vinyls, Tabis, and at-home kombucha kit I want this year, here’s what I hope fashion gives to me.
Circularity
Fashion, at all levels, is a fairly linear system: raw materials are turned into garments, garments are sold, then worn, then—for the most part—trashed, oftentimes while they’re still useable. Circularity—based on philosophies from many, many (I mean most, if not all) indigenous cultures that encourage one to “take only what you need, leave some behind so it can regenerate itself, and to think seven generations ahead”—can be boiled down to one basic tenet: made to be remade.
This means designing products durable enough to be reused for a long time, and recycled at the end of their life cycle, and using the resources needed to produce those products more efficiently. Eco-friendly fabrics and high quality garments are just the start: brands can offer repairing and mending services, as well as start their own resale platforms for their products but it’s important that both of these things accompany reducing both production and waste.
Degrowth and Localization
Remember American Apparel? I feel like people either loved them for their 70s disco hipster aesthetic, or hated them for their oversexed ads and their creepy, sexually-harassing CEO. Still, they were aspirational for many—including my 16 year old self—in a way that many brands would kill to be, and they did it despite selling shirts for, like, twice as much as people typically paid for a basic tee at the time.
Plenty of articles have been written about AA’s branding, but, what always stuck out to me was how much attention they placed not just on their clothes and how great their hot, young employees looked in them but also how they made them: specifically how they paid more than minimum wage, manufactured everything in Los Angeles, and were entirely vertically integrated.
Vertical integration—a lofty goal for any brand of any size—refers to a business’s ownership over its entire supply chain, from the production of materials to the storefront. In American Apparel’s case, all operations were located in a single building in downtown LA: fibers were knit and woven into fabric, the fabric was dyed and treated for garments, and garments were sewn all under one roof. Now, even in my wildest dreams, I can acknoweledge that that isn’t feasible for every brand, but, you know what is? Degrowth.
Zara produces an estimated 450 million garments per year. H&M? 3 BILLION. The average small-batch clothing brand might produce 1000-5000 garments in a year. Fashion’s biggest brands are huge, combining to produce enough clothing yearly to dress every single human on earth for the rest of their lives. And most of those clothes go unsold, dumped into places like the Atacama Desert in Chile, Kantamanto Market in Ghana, Panipat in India, and Gikomba Market in Kenya, among others. Degrowth is a call to reject the capitalistic desire for astronomical growth at all costs and reduce both production and the consumption of resources.
Complementary to the concept of degrowth is localization. The average garment now is sewn in China, but the cotton could’ve been grown in India, the actual fabric could’ve been woven in Pakistan, it could’ve been “finished” (a button or hem may have been sewn) in Italy in order to legally justify a highly coveted “made in Italy” tag, and it may have been shipped to a distribution center in America before making its way to you, wherever you live. Localization, at the very least, brings all of these steps to the same country, and sometimes the same region of said country. While things like materials usually must still be imported, keeping goods produced and consumed in the same place is a huge step toward strengthening communities and combatting climate change.
Integrity
I’ve saved the best and most unrealistic ask for last.
Let’s be real, caring about the environment, about laborers, even just about making something nice that your own customers will love and cherish for years to come—basically anything other than profit—is a hefty request. That’s not to say there’s no brands attempting it, only that they’ll never, ever be the global forces that all the other ones are. But, you know what? That’s a good thing.
Fashion brands shouldn’t be a “global force,” in the first place. Fashion brands shouldn’t be able to both produce and trash millions of tons of anything. Fashion as an industry shouldn’t prop up fossil fuels and slave labor. And fashion artists shouldn’t be forced to create for investors whose only interest is how well something sells and not how well it communicates something.
To address any widespread issue in the fashion industry—or, indeed, any industry under capitalism—we need integrity at every level. Like I said…it’s unrealistic. But we, as consumers can try our best to only support the companies that are doing good and be vocal about the ones that go out of their way to not, even as we are forced to participate in this unfair system. Part of that, for me, is making the effort to avoid the behemoths like Amazon and actually seek out ways to vote with my dollars and support small businesses.
Let me know if you know a good place to get an at-home kombucha kit.