Virtuous Lifecycles are Always in Fashion

Virtuous Lifecycles are Always in Fashion

Posted By: Adriana

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Over the course of the week we’ve looked at an overview of what factors go into how your clothes actually make it into your closet.  One detail in the design process that is often overlooked by large retail brands is what will happen to clothes when it is no longer in fashion or unwearable.  To date most retail clothing brands design based on the ‘Cradle-to-Grave‘ design philosophy and as a result do not think about the waste unused clothing creates.   With the average lifespan of a garment being about three years lots of discarded textiles end up in our landfills.  Consider some of the textile waste facts we shared during the New Year:

• According the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2008 2.5 billion pounds, about 5%, of all solid waste in landfills was from textiles
• In 2008 the average textile waste per person equated to 10 pounds per person

Depending on what types of materials and dyes a garment includes it will vary in the ways in can be given a ‘second-life.’  Clothing processed with harsh dyes and chemicals will breakdown over the years but are actually toxic to the environment so in order to not create contamination it’s better that they get reused in other ways.

The design process of a  ‘small’ designer and ‘big’ retail brand create a virtuous or negative cycle.  The ultimate factor in how much a virtuous or negative cycle will be perpetuated is our purchase.  Our purchase will reinforce every decision that was made in the creation of the clothing that we buy.  The decisions we reinforce with our purchases include:

• What textiles or materials are selected
• Where the textiles are sourced from
• How the textiles and materials are processed
• Who manufactures/ sews the garment
• How are the people that make the garment treated and compensated
• How will the clothing be packaged and shipped
• Once the clothing is no longer usable how will it be discarded

We all work hard for our money.  When we make a purchase I believe we should have the full picture of what we are purchasing and supporting with our purchase.  Once we have the full story behind the clothes we are interested in buying we can make purchasing decisions that are best for us.  Next time you go to make a purchase take a second and ask yourself ‘If these clothes could talk what would they say?’  Perhaps with that question alone we can begin to make a connection between the environment from which something came, the people that made it, and our purchase.

Tags: Lifecycle, clothes, conventional design, cradle-to-cradle, cradle-to-grave, design process, sustainable design, textile waste, upcycle clothing

Posted in: Protecting Human Rights, Follow the Thread