fabric incubator was founded in 2016 when designers angela johnson and sherri barry faced the lack of manufacturing resources outside of los angeles, and the unsustainable options for entrepreneurs wanting to get into the industry.

according to this un report, the fashion industry is responsible for 2-8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. the un says it takes 10,000 liters of water to grow the cotton needed for one pair of jeans, which is equivalent to a person’s water supply for 10 years. 

johnson says that the lack of resources forces aspiring fashion entrepreneurs to rely on manufacturing their clothes overseas in unsustainable factories. research by the harvard business review found that companies in countries with stricter environmental regulations offshore more often “particularly in countries with laxer environmental standards,” making them susceptible to excess inventory that gets burned or sent to landfills. the research found that tighter regulation results in a 43% increase in emissions abroad.

“by re-shoring manufacturing and making small batches, that is the number one way that we are sustainable,” johnson said.

 as of today, fabric has helped 800 apparel entrepreneurs start their business locally without over-production overseas. they’ve also provided $6.8 million in free and discounted programs and services. 

“that’s the main reason that we started this, is so that somebody with a good idea for a niche product could compete with the industry, with the bigger brands. and we are doing that by providing them with all the resources they need to get through all the complexities,” johnson said.

the company offers many resources to help entrepreneurs start their business and create their product. they have several scholarships that give recipients access to resources and education needed to enter the market. the city of tempe granted the non-profit access to the city’s performing arts center, and it is now a full time event space and runway with a photography studio, makeup room, audio visual equipment, and so much more for designers to bring their designs to the spotlight. 

one of fabric’s biggest accomplishments is that they manufactured 800,000 reusable hospital gowns to help minimize ppe waste during the start of the covid-19 pandemic. they claim this initiative helped keep 80 million disposable medical gowns away from landfills. president biden and vice president harris visited to recognize this effort to minimize waste in the healthcare industry. 

another initiative is their creation of arizona eco fashion week where they feature local sustainable brands. they also started their “refabricate” program where the scraps left over from designs are donated to local designers to be re-purposed rather than sent to landfills. they get turned into new garments, insulation, bedding for dogs, and even art installations. fabric has also partnered with the centers for habilitation to re-purpose arizona state university’s old banners into tote bags that are sold at asu campus stores.

asu’s president, michael crow awarded them the president’s award for sustainability for this effort. fabric was also awarded the az department of environmental quality’s voluntary environmental stewardship program award.

their growth and demand has been evident throughout the years. they have held tours for entrepreneurs wanting to get started every week since fabric was founded. barry even opened a second factory down the street to help keep up with the demand for automated manufacturing for designers that have grown out of fabric. 

johnson says that it’s important for everyone to think about how the clothes we wear every day are impacting our planet.

“the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry on the planet, so if you want to get to the core root of why things are so messed up, that has to be one of the things that we all care about. and all of us wear clothes, so this is all of our responsibility,” she said. 

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disclaimer: as a member of the digital audience lab at arizona state university, i work directly with fabric incubator for their marketing needs. this is not for profit and simply a learning experience offered by the school.

the video includes my experience with thrifting and what i have learned in college about the positive environmental impacts of thrifting. i explain specific facts about textiles and clothes ending up in landfills, creating excess waste on our earth. i also explain my personal relationship with thrifting and how it has helped with my anxiety and friendships. i show my friends in their favorite thrifted outfits and conclude by saying that thrifting is not only good for the environment, but great for the soul.

music by goosetaf – bumblebee – https://thmatc.co/?l=d1299737

sifting through the endless racks of new clothing, customers weave in and out of the maze of shelves at a local store. inexpensive sweaters, skirts and blouses are strewn everywhere, bunched up and tossed carelessly. employees scuttle about making crinkled clothes crisp with folds and restocking shelves.

for northwestern university juniors regina morfin and avantika raikar, this is the fast fashion challenge. morfin and raikar are the co-founders of lura, an online platform that provides small apparel brands with access to sustainable textiles such as recycled pet (one form of polyester fabric) and biodegradable nylon. the two met in 2018 through northwestern’s epic launch entrepreneurship program. after bonding over a mutual interest in sustainability and fashion, they began work on lura.

set to launch in early 2021, lura is a consulting service that connects small fashion brands with textile manufacturers. lura’s primary mission is to make sustainability more accessible. the fashion industry “functions in a really outdated way,” morfin said, and without the right connections, sourcing and producing sustainable clothing is difficult.

companies can peruse eco-conscious fabrics on lura’s website, selecting ones that match specific sustainability and style goals, such as water conservation during manufacture or active wear. they can also schedule one-on-one consultations with morfin and raikar to discuss potential designs, price range, textures, and colors. lura will then send textile samples and either connect companies with the appropriate manufacturers or places a textile order for them. lura’s manufacturers hail from all over the world the company charges a $30 monthly subscription fee for its services, with the first two months free.

for newer, smaller apparel brands, finding  and establishing connections with textile hegemons is even more challenging. morfin and raikar sympathize with these brands, citing the lack of industry connections as the “hardest thing.” to build their current connections, the lura founders spent hours researching, emailing and calling people, searching hashtags such as “eco-conscious” on social media and compiling information.  

“it’s about giving these small businesses accessibility to these textiles that they might not have heard of or might not have found otherwise,” morfin said. “and empowering them to be sustainable and be proud of it.”

synthetic materials used in fast fashion clothing, such as polyester and nylon, are not biodegradable and are filled with unsustainable forms of plastic. they compose 60% of clothing worldwide. polyester manufacture uses large amounts of water and emits 14.1 pounds of carbon dioxide per pound produced. making nylon creates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas far more more potent than carbon dioxide. although relatively small amounts are released, it traps 200 to 300 times more heat than carbon dioxide and depletes the ozone layer, reducing the protection offered from harmful uv sun rays.

because they are not biodegradable, these synthetic materials break down into microfibers that are released into the air, wastewater systems and oceans. according to a report by friends of the earth, washing one load of synthetic clothes releases millions of microplastics into the wastewater system. each year, one person produces 793 pounds of microfibers.

sasha adkins, an ecologist at loyola university chicago, points to fast fashion as one of the “biggest culprits” of microfiber pollution. due to their microscopic size, microfibers are easily ingested by both animals and humans. the average person, adkins said, consumes a credit card’s worth of plastic every week. 

“it’s just common sense that that’s not healthy, right?” they said. “you don’t want to eat pieces of your polyester sweater.”

microfibers, and plastics in general, attract organic pollutants and absorb toxic chemicals from detergents and fire retardant chemicals in waste systems. as they travel through water ways and in the air, they eventually become trapped in colder regions such as the arctic because they cannot remetabolize into the air.

“these chemicals are being released with climate change, as ice and snow are melting and the arctic gets warmer. and they’re traveling around the planet again,” adkins explained. “they’re sticking to (other) plastic. we’re eating the plastic. so we’re also eating all these contaminants in a concentrated form.”

according to haley boyd, a sustainable fashion expert, the fashion industry can greatly reduce microfiber production with greater regulation from the federal trade commission. although the federal trade commission has definitions of “sustainable” and “biodegradable,” they are not specific or consistent enough, granting brands too much flexibility on what is sustainable and what is not. for one brand, sustainability may mean incorporating textiles such as linen in its fast fashion business model. for another, it may mean using 100% organic cotton in all products. 

additionally, brands must obtain third party certifications to claim that a material is, for instance, biodegradable. however, the hundreds of organizations that have the same certification all have different standards for “biodegradable.”

morfin also expressed concerns about  third party certifications, which she and avantikar rely on extensively. “there’s so much we wish we could do about checking if everything is truly sustainable,” she said. “and covid made it worse too because we even wanted to travel to these places and see them for ourselves, but we kinda just have to rely on people’s word, people’s statistics. hopefully they’re not skewed in any way.”

one example is recycled plastic. companies such as the girlfriend collective produce clothing made from recycled water bottles. one pair of leggings uses 25 water bottles, preventing 18.61 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and saving 3.11 gallons of water.

although girlfriend collective uses 100% post-consumer water bottles, some companies do not meet this standard. the lack of regulation and information, boyd said, misleads designers and manufacturers into thinking their sustainability efforts are positively affecting the planet. because recycled plastic textiles have become increasingly popular, the supply of post-consumer recycled bottles is inadequate because not enough bottles get recycled. manufacturers then must make virgin plastic bottles that have no other purpose than to be sold to a company that wants to say they are making textiles out of recycled plastic, according to boyd. 

“recycled plastic is a band-aid; it’s not a solution.” boyd warned. “you are putting off the inevitability of plastic reaching a dead end a few years later than it would have otherwise. someone’s gonna buy those leggings for a hundred bucks, wear them for a couple years, and then they’re gonna go to a landfill. if the plastic bottle had just been landfilled, how’s that differ than reusing that product one more time?”

morfin, meanwhile, thinks that recycled plastic fabric such as polyester (pet) can be a step in the right direction. “at the end of the day, we don’t want to shame anyone.” she said. “if a brand feels like recycled pet is the way that they can make a difference, it does help.”

for kristy drutman, creator and founder of brown girl green, the most pressing issue in sustainable fashion is the threat of greenwashing. seeing the prospect of sustainable fashion, some companies deceptively market themselves as “eco-friendly;” in reality, they have tenuous connections to responsible sourcing or production. “many companies don’t have transparent practices around material sourcing or paying their workers/ producers a living wage,” drutman added. “yet, they’ll push for things like ‘recycled’ or ‘upcycled’ materials, and make money off of that marketing, rather than actually cleaning up their practices.”

the best way to reduce microfiber production, adkins, boyd and drutman agreed, is shopping at second-hand stores. sustainable fashion brands can often be expensive, demanding upwards of $100 for a single shirt.

although second-hand clothing still produces microfibers, they do not fuel the sourcing of new synthetic materials. clothing subscriptions or rental services is another sustainable alternative.

for adkins, fast fashion is rooted in a “narcissistic mentality that mainstream culture promotes.” because fast fashion clothing is cheap, flimsy and trendy, people often buy and dispose of it quickly. 

“if something’s ripped, you can repair it.” they said. “we don’t have that mentality anymore. i think that it’s a cultural issue about the status and prestige people get from keeping up with trends and looking a certain way, valuing that over justice.”

boyd also cautioned that fast fashion’s low cost is deceptive, as it does not quantify the environmental or ethical costs. over the last 60 years, the price of apparel has not risen at the same rate of other consumer goods, and boyd cited sweatshops as one of the greatest factors. 

“it’s because we aren’t paying people a fair wage in developing countries to make clothes, and we should be paying more per item, and we should be buying less.” she said. “and that’s really a hard thing for people to accept.”

adkins and boyd both urge consumers to consider the complete life cycle of a garment, hoping to shift attention away from solely microfiber shedding. tracing a garment’s life cycle — its initial production, consumption, and post-consumption status — is essential when assessing its true sustainability. moreover, working conditions, exploitation, fair trade and animal welfare intersect with sustainability, and are crucial in quantifying a garment’s environmental and social impacts.

“it’s not about what it does to you as a consumer. it’s about what it does during its life cycle.” adkins said. “you have to think about the people and the rest of the planet. the workers who make it and the people who have to deal with it when you throw it away. we need to rethink disposable culture.” 

i’d like to add that most plus size sustainable fashion is quite literally earth tone linen sacks, and not in a chic way https://t.co/t8lmvooh03

— ?????? ??? (@lek_9677) september 13, 2020

it’s no secret that apparel waste, fast fashion, and climate change are linked. research from the ellen macarthur foundation showed that the average consumer bought 60% more clothes in 2014 than in 2000, but kept each garment for half as long. the world resources institute estimates that it takes about 2700 liters (approximately 713 gallons) of water — nearly 9 bathtubs’ worth — to produce just one cotton shirt. in case it wasn’t concerning enough, the fashion industry is already responsible for 8% to 10% of annual global carbon emissions, according to the un environment programme. 

clearly, the adopted solution needs to be one that everyone can participate in. for plus size women, online thrift and vintage stores are innovative options. this trend operates heavily through instagram, where accounts like @luvsickplus and @shop.fatties run “story sales” and post secondhand and vintage finds, asking followers to “swipe up” to purchase. one key advantage is that plus size women can take control of sales and market clothing they know others might actually like because they’ve selected the stock themselves. online thrifting isn’t plus specific, but plus size women are slowly starting to embrace it as an affordable option.

online thrift platforms like depop and thredup, have also begun to accommodate plus size thrifting. these sites use a more formal approach where users can purchase from “shops” or pick from stock like any other online store. there are also filtering tools for searching these sites, which makes it easier to shop the size inclusive brands we know and trust. the long term possibilities are promising, economically speaking. by 2021, the online secondhand shopping sector is set to grow by 69% according to thredup’s 2020 resale report.

still, the online thrift and vintage option is imperfect. it can be challenging to find the right size or pay an affordable price. the clothing isn’t always on trend. mainstream fashion hasn’t included plus size women for very long, so there hasn’t been much time for a large stock of secondhand plus clothing to develop. i fall at the beginning of the plus range and still find it difficult. 

however, i would be remiss if i didn’t acknowledge that this development has its strengths. online thrift and vintage shopping are solutions that when they work, seem to work pretty well. the trend could definitely make sustainable fashion more accessible to plus size women. 

alternatively, so would normalizing the production of sustainable clothing in extended sizes. the growth potential for online thrifting is exciting, but in the same breath we must ask: why are women encountering this issue in the first place? as long as sustainable brands won’t provide for all women, some are going to continue to default to fast fashion even if they’d rather not. most people want to do their part, ideally without a crisis over whether or not they can squeeze into tighter pants for the sake of the environment.

there’s definitely much to unpack within the sustainability movement of design, and it’s becoming increasingly important for designers to open dialogues surrounding what role they play in this movement. throughout my research, i’ve had the opportunity to engage in many such dialogues. in one, i was able to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for both sustainable design practices and the designer’s ethical responsibility. this conversation was with prisca vilsbol, a copenhagen-based fashion designer and researcher who champions sustainable design from two perspectives — the technical research side and the designer’s outlook. i first met vilsbol when she guest lectured during one of my classes. throughout her presentation she encouraged students to dive deeper and question the makeup of what they were designing and the source of where those materials came from. vilsbol’s big picture thinking of justifying every material inspired me to closer examine the intersection between packaging, sustainability, and ultimately the designer’s role. vilsbol’s consideration of both materiality and design provided me with greater insight into the types of questions i should be asking before approaching my own design projects. 

this project aims to provide designers with a basic understanding surrounding sustainability as well as serve as a field guide that designers can use to better integrate as well as advocate for sustainable solutions within their own projects. by unpacking these issues and raising awareness about the more systemic concerns related to sustainable package design, this conversation is just the beginning of a much needed, societal shift.

q&a with prisca vilsbol, sustainable fashion designer and researcher

vilsbol is a copenhagen-based design researcher and consultant who works primarily in fashion. with her former company, vilsbol de arce, she created strong, sculptural and handcrafted collections, worn by the likes of lady gaga, rihanna, and peaches. she has made it her mission to accelerate the implementation of sustainable and innovative processes in the field of product development. whether working with textiles, clothing, wearables or mycelium, her fusionist approach to the technical, theoretic and aesthetic challenges of the medium at hand lead to poetic and futuristic translations of complex processes.

website: https://priscavilsbol.com

q: when did you first start working in sustainable research? how did you become interested in working in this field?  

a: i got into fashion primarily because of the magic of what it could do; the beauty that was in it, but then i soon realized the “unbeauty” of the industry and it “freaked me out.” 

with my fashion brand i analyzed “more about how every piece has an excess that had to be justified and every piece i created had to have a justified role.” i like this idea that everything has excess and designers should ultimately justify each piece’s role.

q: was it hard to make the change from designer to sustainable researcher?

a: yes, it was a hard change to make – when working in fashion “i had always been interested in production techniques and how things work.”

i’ve always been curious about these things, new materials and new technologies, such as 3d printing. “i have a sort of engineering mind, when it comes to these things.”

there’s definitely a big gap between research and the design land, and we need to work on bridging this gap. i was able to combine my two passions by expressing myself through design and fashion, as well as the more technical side of things. 

q: how have you seen the field of sustainable research change over the last 5 years? 

a: yes, big time, it has come into foreground. before it was impossible for sustainability research to get any traction. now everybody wants to know about it and knows that it is important. there is a big change in interest surrounding the field of sustainability. now there is more funding and research within the field as well as a larger focus on bio-materials and biomimicry.

brands like officina corpuscoli and ecovative (using mushrooms to make products) are interesting to follow. 

q: do you think the term “sustainable” has become a buzz word in the field of design? if so, how can designers push past this and start advocating for real change?

a: by being clear about what’s possible and what’s not possible. people say it’s a sustainable product but nothing is a sustainable product. how and what are we doing now and what we’d like to do, being clear about your direction and what is tangible is very important. 

it is important to give the other side of the story — we can do that — by giving both sides of the story about what’s being done and not done. also we need to get away from this is how things have been done and start making people say it’s more complex and there is not a simple answer. people can deal with more complexity than we give them credit for.

q: do you think designer’s have an ethical responsibility when it comes to package design? 

a: definitely i believe there is an ethical responsibility from all sides of the product. there is a sudden focus for sustainable materials — but that is only one tiny piece of the puzzle and  it should also include business models and communication. we need to rethink systematically about how we do things like looking at leasing models versus selling models. it’s not just one company — we need packaging solutions for a bunch of different products.

q: where do you see package design heading in the next year? and 5 years?

a: two directions: one looking into what actually needs packaging and the other to be clear about what can be thrown away especially with food. is it entirely compostable?

q: should designers be solely responsible for creating products that drive sustainable change or do consumers also have a responsibility to advocate for this change? 

a: everybody has this responsibility and this is one of the biggest excuses used in industry right now. big companies like nike and h&m use this excuse and say that consumers want sustainable products but they aren’t willing to pay the price. however, these companies need to realize that they are the ones that created this demand for low prices in the first place — “80% off can’t always be sold and should not be the norm.” blaming the consumer for wanting cheaper products should really be placed on these bigger companies for systematically changing the way consumers see the market. if these companies really want sustainable change they need to be on the forefront of making systematic changes and consumers will respond accordingly. big brands have a responsibility in guiding but designers also have the ability to communicate complicated things in an attractive simpler way — this is a huge part of the switch that needs to be done. designers also have the ability to spark huge systematic change and create something that is easy to use and hopefully has the right kind of incentives and reward systems. 

as designers we have the ability to move something and communicate to the masses by thinking through complex stuff and boiling it down to something that is more accessible to everyone. throughout this discussion about who is responsible, we often mix up responsibility and blame — responsibility is not blame. therefore, we should not blame designers, because there is often more than just one group involved. however, designers do have the ability to do something compared to others — how you see the world can have a large impact — therefore designers have this responsibility.

q: in regards to corporate responsibility, how can designers push companies to take sustainable business risks? is this already happening? if so are there any examples you can give?

a: it depends on which designers and businesses — some designers that are in a place of extreme power and others just have no power at all. for example designers from h&m and ask me all the time about what they can do. but in reality there is an army of people drawing with little power — which can be extremely limiting. however, it is important to note that any one person in a company can be an activist and ask questions surrounding their company’s mission. criticism can often lead to opening people’s eyes and raising awareness about an issue or topic. 

create a list of questions to ask your boss or the company you work for… who made my clothes? where are these materials coming from? and can we more ethically-source these fabrics? the more people that ask these types of questions the more that people are aware. then after the 150th person asks that same question it becomes a lot more pertinent. it is a little bit of ‘snowball’  effect here — every little bit/push in the right direction helps. it is also important for designers to inform themselves and be curious. 

in regards to package design — graphic designers can research on their own — ask questions like what is this packaging made of? can i put in compost afterwards? what resources went into making it?  so ultimately consumers can make the right choice when they are in the store purchasing these products. who knows what can happen when designers take initiative, inform themselves, and start proposing alternative solutions.

a  lot of people in companies feel that it’s not my job or place to ask these questions. i can’t change this it’s too big — but in reality the tiniest person that asks what something is made from — can lead to a much larger subject or discussion. it just takes one person asking a simple question to ignite a larger conversation.

q&a with keely wachs, zume inc., vp of communications & sustainability 

keely wachs oversees zume inc.’s global communications and sustainability agenda for food waste, climate change and ocean conservation. before joining zume, keely worked as director of company affairs for clif bar & company. zume inc. is building a technology infrastructure designed to make the food supply chain smarter and more connected to help brands move food closer to demand, improve efficiency and reduce waste.

website: https://zume.com

q: where do you see package design heading in the next year? and 5 years?

a: i see a lot of nature inspired packaging. at zume we are looking at agriculture waste as a source of packaging material, as well as advanced manufacturing technologies with the goal of driving cycle time and cutting costs. the more you produce in a minute is how to leverage your assets. also, the packaging industry is going to keep expanding. more and more we are consuming especially with the rise of brands like instacart, uber eats, and seamless. packaging helps retain the quality of food as well as the experience. take for example a pizza box — it needs to retain heat as well as keep moisture out. here is a huge opportunity for designers to design packages that can separate the crust from grease. the future of package design lies in these elements that can have a functional benefit.

q: should designers be solely responsible for creating products that drive sustainable change or do consumers also have a responsibility to advocate for this change? 

a: yes, both have a responsibility. some water companies are moving from bottles to cans. one company, loop, discusses using all reusable packaging. however, this is asking a lot of behavioral change from consumers. this idea of a milk carton being delivered everyday goes back to an old methodology of thinking. 

q: considering that packaging is an essential part to every brand, how can designers start raising awareness to promote sustainable packaging?

a: they can start by designing sustainable packaging that gets consumers talking about the product. branding products with color and design elements is harder — and many sustainable packages struggle and resort to using “greyish colors.” sustainable dyes are expensive for companies to use in manufacturing. there is an opportunity to think about a brand’s packaging and for companies to differentiate themselves. packaging is very much a specialty and there is a huge opportunity that ultimately could also have a large environmental impact. 

***

special note

i want to give a big thanks and shoutout to prisca vilsbol and keely wachs for allowing me to interview them and for informing and framing my research for my senior capstone project.

sources

https://priscavilsbol.com 

https://zume.com 

https://informaconnect.com/green-by-design/speakers/keely-wachs/ 

images

http://ciid.dk/education/visiting-faculty/full-faculty-listing/prisca-vilsbol/

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/retail/robots-and-pizza-didnt-mix-what-doomed-zume-to-pizza-boxes-103005 

the not for profit business model of magpies & peacocks is worth talking about because it could be the future of the fashion industry if we properly use the power of our paychecks. if more shoppers supported companies who followed sustainable practices, the demand will increase, and companies and businesses will follow that demand. if we come together and expect more of those whom we give our hard-earned money to i truly believe we can help shape a happier humanity and a healthier planet.

washington, d.c., is one of the participating cities of the climathon, and george washington university hosted the d.c. hackathon. students and professionals  from as far as north carolina participated. participants came from a wide variety of ages, backgrounds, and walks of life — from aspiring textile engineers to first-year undergraduate students. the theme of this year’s climathon was “closing the loop on textile waste,” as textile waste and sustainable fashion are topics not discussed enough in the climate conversation. 

perhaps the coolest thing about hackathons is that most participants enter solo, not necessarily already having a plan. it is during those 24 hours that participants form teams, brainstorm potential project ideas, and finally plan and present their idea(s) to the judges. truly, a day packed with innovation, collaboration, and potential for some world-changing proposals to arise.

the final projects ranged from mobile apps to blankets made from textile waste to clothing sorting services — all of which were truly reasoned, innovative, and creative approaches to reduce textile waste and make sustainable clothing options more available and accessible to the d.c. community — and beyond. 

one project in particular that stood out for demonstrating considerable potential on gw’s campus was “remix your loop” — a reimagined thrift store for gw students that makes a wide variety of clothes accessible to all students on campus. the idea was designed by some of the hackathon’s youngest participants: freshmen iradukunda claudine and alise ndacayisaba, and sophomore brianna reynolds.

claudine finds that the root of the textile problem is that “we are always overconsuming in america, whether it’s food or supplies or clothes, and we get lost in this influx of nonsense.” thus, this overwhelming issue fueled their passion to create a tangible, innovative project like remix your loop.

when pitching their project, these young women emphasized the shocking statistic that gw donates 97,000 pounds of textiles per year, coming from clothing donation bins on campus. oftentimes, these textiles are donated to companies that send the clothing abroad to developing countries, which creates more harm than intended as these clothing imports ultimately hurt local clothing businesses. thus, they envisioned an idea that would not only put these (literal) tons of clothing to good use on campus, but also engage the gw community on the important conversations that we need to have about sustainable fashion, responsible consumption, and other related topics. when they took a glimpse of the kinds of clothes that were donated on campus, they found all sorts of quality pieces of clothing. essentially, they thought to themselves: why not put these quality clothes back in the hands of the students?

from this discovery, came the proposal of their thrifting hub, remix your loop. the ladies explained the various perks and unique characteristics of their “reimagined thrift store”: it would provide students with far more affordable options to a wide variety of clothes, which is especially needed in an area where the majority of local clothing stores are high-end and expensive. the store would also provide students with a creative outlet. remix plans to partner with fashion and art students to serve as makeshift “fashion designers” for the store, who would help customers interested in customizing or revamping clothing pieces they find to their own unique liking. 

team member ira claudine finds potential in all clothing donations to be reused in some capacity, and this is where remix your loop would serve as the creative middleman. 

claudine said: “people always see an item as having use for one thing. but in actuality, you can easily turn an existing t-shirt into a tank top, instead of wasting your money and buying a new clothing item you may just wear once or twice.” 

the designers at remix your loop would help customers with such a process. they even considered having classes open to the student body where students would be able to sew and redesign clothing items — fostering a creative outlet and community that the school currently lacks.

there are plenty of other much-needed functions that this thrift store would serve. for example, for a school with a huge internship and professional culture, students often find themselves needing several professional outfits for their wardrobe, but may not be able to afford them. remix your loop would serve any students’ clothing or accessory needs for any occasion, simply using the existing supply of clothing donations from the gw community. 

luckily, a concept that already sounds too good to be true may just turn into a reality. the remix your loop team won 2nd place in the competition. they will receive a $2,000 grant to kickstart their project, as well as guidance from mentors to support them through the execution process.

interested in participating in this exciting event in the future? climathon is an annual event and can be found in cities around the world. if you’re local, gw has always been the host for the d.c. climathon, and this school certainly does not fall short of innovative minds. who knows? you may just be the mastermind behind the next big solution to climate change.

fast fashion / slow art, showcased at the corcoran school of art & design, was co-curated by bibiana obler, associate professor of art history at the corcoran, and phyllis rosenzweig, curator emerita at the hirshhorn museum and sculpture garden. the film-centric exhibition features pieces from an international pool of artists such as german filmmaker hito steyerl and chinese director wang bing.

“one might think, given the title, that’s a very didactic exhibition saying, ‘fast fashion is bad! lets fight it,’” obler says. “but, that’s not actually the message we want to convey. we want to start a conversation, especially because these issues are so complicated.”

the wasteful nature of the clothing industry has come to the forefront of fashion conversation in recent years. brands that built empires on cheap, trendy clothing, such as the international retail giant zara, are even promising to change their ways.

just this summer, zara’s parent company inditex announced their plan to make their brands more sustainable by converting to 90% organic, recycled, or sustainable raw materials by 2025. however, these steps are not getting to the heart of the problem: the immense amount of clothing that is made from these or other materials. the amount of clothing produced each year doubled from 2000 to 2014 and the amount of clothing purchased by an average consumer rose 60%.

while it is easy to think of sustainable fashion as a consumer issue, fast fashion / slow art forces audiences to face the opposite side of the coin and consider how the garments that line our closets were made in the first place.

the exhibition depicts the issues as largely cultural. martin de thurah’s film “stories,” for instance, plays with the concept of disposability as it shows a model taking off t-shirt after t-shirt and tossing each on the ground as she walks down a city street.

according to obler, the lack of value we place in our clothing is central to the problem.

“i have a certain relationship to shopping and it turns out it’s very different than people of your generation,” obler says. “while i, personally, do shop fast fashion because it’s cheap, i then expect to keep (the clothing) forever. the whole notion that you can buy a t-shirt and only wear it once is totally alien to me. that doesn’t make sense. in talking to my students, who are increasingly conscientious consumers and are increasingly thinking about these issues while they shop, they have a certain expectation of the amount of shopping that they will do in a year that is just completely different than mine.”

zara and many other brands that line our shopping malls and retail streets maintain their low prices by outsourcing to poor countries where sweatshop workers earn as little as 1 u.s. cent an hour. exploitative labor allows clothing items to be sold at the same price as a cup of coffee. as a result, consumers toss their clothing more freely. the average american throws out 81 pounds of clothing each year.

fast fashion / slow art brings the hidden costs of fashion to the forefront with pieces such as “15 hours,” an uncut film by wang bing that shows the grueling 15-hour day of one garment worker in huzhou, china.

other works beg the onlooker to consider the relationship between laborer and machine in modern manufacturing. american textile artist cat mazza created one of the few non-video pieces in the show. in her work, “electroknit dymaxion,” mazza replicates the most popular traditional weaving styles from each continent using software called knitpro, which digitally translates images into textile patterns. the patterns were then knit in cotton by machine.

the result is a massive patchwork that speaks to something beyond the technological age: the timeless similarities and connectedness of humans across continents.

“the goal is that these are not simply things that you can kind of go in and look out and think, ‘oh, what shame that fast fashion is such a problem,’ and then leave again,” obler says. “the idea is that you stay awhile and that you don’t just have an aesthetic experience and that you also really are compelled to think a little further, even if you’ve thought a lot about these issues.”

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fast fashion / slow art is showing at the luther w. brady art gallery at the corcoran school of art & design through dec. 15. the exhibition is open tuesday through sunday, 1-5 p.m. it will reopen at the bowdoin college museum of art in maine in spring 2020.

from a recent clothing swap run by unity charity fashion show to alpha phi sorority’s annual alpha phlea market, students looking to thrift-shop a new summer wardrobe had lots of options at northwestern university. several student organizations hosted an ongoing stream of pop-up used clothing sales throughout spring quarter.

both unity and alpha phi collected donations around campus from students, including members of their own organizations. unity co-president and northwestern junior lilli boice was impressed by some of the trendy pieces they received for the swap, with clothes from high-end brands such as lululemon or free people, as well as some pieces with tags still attached. the clothing swap also allowed shoppers to receive one free article of clothing in exchange for donating.

aside from offering a fun activity and affordable alternative to buying brand-new, shopping resale also can significantly reduce the environmental cost of fashion. according to a report by mckinsey & company, making a kilogram of fabric (2.2 pounds) generates an average of 23 kilograms (nearly 57 pounds) of greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming by trapping heat inside the atmosphere. additionally, the report found that almost three-fifths of all clothing produced ends up in incinerators or landfills within a year of being made, adding to the global problem of pollution. these statistics are especially troubling considering that the last two decades have seen a significant uptick in the sheer volume of clothing produced. the same mckinsey & company report found that clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014, and the number of articles purchased each year by the average customer increased by 60%. 

consumers adopted the term “fast fashion” to describe the mass production clothing trend. good on you, a website that specializes in rating clothing brands by ethical value, described fast fashion as “cheap, trendy clothing, that samples ideas from the catwalk or celebrity culture and turns them into garments in high street stores at breakneck speed.”

the rate at which brands are able to replicate current and ever-changing styles can be a major contributor to the problem. the mckinsey & company report stated that the average customer kept articles half as long in 2014 as in 2000 across all categories of clothing. this can be largely due to the pace of trends in the industry, as the same report found that european clothing brands moved from releasing two collections per year on average in 2000 to five per year on average in 2011.

luckily, sustainable consumer practices such as buying used clothing can help in curbing production at least slightly by reducing the demand for new fashions. the convenience of pop-up events on campus, as well as shopping at the nearby downtown evanston resale store crossroads trading, encourages students to adopt this habit. northwestern sophomore emma healy attended alpha phlea market the past two years, but she admitted that she hadn’t seen thrift shopping as a realistic option until coming to college. 

“back home where i’m from, there aren’t so many thrift stores that are actually close to me and that have things that i would be interested in,” said healy. “but here, being so close to chicago and even in evanston, there’s a lot more options for thrifting.”

other students have also had luck finding thrifting options close to campus. northwestern sophomore emma belanger decided on her birthday this past march that she would challenge herself by abstaining from purchasing any new pieces of clothing for a year. “the amount of toxic waste that’s created by textile production and the different manufacturing processes that are involved in clothing are so harmful,” she said.

in her efforts to avoid traditional clothing stores, belanger has tried to expand her range of used clothing retailers beyond the downtown evanston area. “there’s (a goodwill) that’s kind of close to campus. me and my friends just took a bus,” she said. “i’m trying to branch out into the chicagoland thrift stores.”

university of kansas sophomore adam alani is also a strong advocate for buying resale clothing, finding the current practice of mass clothing production to be unsustainable. “we’re just consuming, consuming, consuming, and things can only go downhill from there,” he said.

alani managed to persuade his sister, as well as some of his college friends, to take up thrift shopping as a habit. “in order to convince somebody of that, i would bring up the monetary aspect of it first, because that’s usually what grabs people’s attention,” he said.

another strategy alani has found is using his style to defy the assumptions many shoppers may make about buying used clothing. “what i’m wearing is, like, cool,” he said. “it’s not raggedy, as some people would think.”

unfortunately, despite alani’s success in combating one stigma about recycled fashion, many consumers are still wary of buying resale items. boice experienced this through interactions with some of her friends from home. “whenever i say i bought something second-hand, (they’re) just like, ‘oh, ew,’” she said. “i do think it’s a good solution, but i think it’ll be a better one when more people are open to the idea of having second-hand clothes.”

this hesitation, combined with limited budgets, can make fast fashion a major temptation for college students. although healy often aims to shop sustainably, she confessed that it can be difficult at times, especially when shopping for a specific article or style. “it’s hard to resist prices that are so low like that, especially with trendy items that you don’t really need to last,” she said.

she found that the likelihood of a piece going out of fashion often contributed to her decision. “you don’t need it to last six years if it’s just a throw-away top that you’re just going to wear for one season,” she said. “it’s sometimes hard to justify paying $50-60 for it.”

healy’s reluctance to spend more on clothing is reinforced by the fact that she usually won’t have to. fast fashion retailers such as h&m often sell full-priced jeans and dresses at a bargain rate of $9.99.

leonela leon, an environmental studies major at the university of california, berkeley, found this price structure problematic. although she acknowledged that the high prices of sustainable clothing brands could at first be unpalatable to the average consumer, she said that the solution lies in adjusting our view of fashion and how we value the clothes we buy.

“yes, a $75-$100 pair of leggings or jeans or a t-shirt is expensive to us now, but that’s just because we’re conditioned to the fast-fashion design, so we’re used to buying $10 t-shirts,” she said. “we need to shift back to how we used to think about clothing, and we used to spend a lot more of our income on clothing. now we spend a lot less than that, so we buy so much more.”

leon’s claim is consistent with a report from the bureau of labor statistics, which found that the portion of consumer income spent on apparel dropped from 12% in 1950 to 4% in 2003, a 66.7% decrease.

as leon mentioned, the steep decline in apparel spending isn’t due to a decrease in clothing purchases. rather, the price of clothing has risen so little in previous years in comparison with other consumer goods that it has essentially decreased over time. or, in the case of the united states, the price has actually decreased, according to mckinsey & company, finding a 3% decrease in the price of clothing from 1995 to 2014 and an average price increase of 55% for all other goods.

although leon expressed a concern for these decreasing prices, she did understand why they could appeal to many consumers. “we do need to shift our way of thinking,” she said. “but also i know there’s a lot of privilege in that, and a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck, and they can’t make those investments.”

still, leon said that low price tags are often the result of a hidden cost that most consumers don’t realize is being paid. “get used to the fact that clothing should not be that cheap and factor in the different costs that we’re paying in social and environmental ways,” she said.

brian leber, owner of the eco-conscious jewelry store leber jeweler inc., also stands by the idea of considering non-monetary costs of production. “fundamentally, if a company is sourcing through means that do not address social concerns, all they’re doing is passing the cost onto those that are being exploited,” he said.

have you ever considered the threads that keep you warm may be contributing to the warming of the planet?

clothing production has steadily increased for the last 2 decades due to fast fashion. and yet, nearly 60% of the clothing produced is disposed of within a year. 

come along with victoria middleton, a student journalist and fashion junkie, to explore various options for dressing sustainably in dc, including stops at reformation, the dc sustainable fashion collective, and georgia avenue thrift store.

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citation

a new textiles economy: redesigning fashion’s future. the ellen macarthur foundation, 2017, www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/publications/a-new-textiles-economy_full-report.pdf.

the price of fast fashion – nature news journal, nature publishing group, 2018, from www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0058-9.

kestenbaum, richard – secondhand clothes are a threat and an opportunity. forbes, forbes magazine, 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/richardkestenbaum/2018/04/03/secondhand-clothes-are-a-threat-and-an-opportunity/#3a7151716fdd.