Rethinking Fashion｜Trend or Trash：A Game-Changing moment in Fashion Industry

Climate change is the greatest threats facing humanity today. Hot on the heels of the United Nations’ Climate Conference in Paris this summer, Donald Trump, the president of the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter, has confirmed that he will withdraw the US from the agreement, all eyes are on the world’s leaders as they attempt to set more ambitions targets for helping to slow climate change. In light of ebbing of the international effort to address dangerous global warming, we should undoubtedly pay more attention to the ticking clock, the clock ticking towards a climate change catastrophe.

Photo Credit to Instagram @viviennewestwood 2013

A Single T-shirt = 2,700 litres of water

Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity today. As a billion dollar industry and one of the most polluting industries in the world, fashion inevitably has a direct on environment and its deteriorating state. The threat is real and urgent. According to ethical fashion site, Gather & See, which noted, “The processing of raw materials required for textiles and the vast amounts of water used (2700 litres per single t-shirt) contributes to the emission of greenhouse gasses which are causing climate change.” This notion was echoed by the Danish Fashion Institute, which stated, “Fashion is one of the most resource-intensive industries in the world, both in terms of natural resources and human resources.” Fast fashion and the massive increase in the number of clothes that we are buying, and of course, quickly discarding, means that this hazardous threat to our mother nature can only be worse.

However, the complexity of this fashion manufacturing and retail ecosystem is a challenge for climate change. Faster-fashion model by brands ranging from high fashion houses to fast fashion retailers depend on the consumption and the discarding of garments and accessories of customers. The more customers buy and discard, the more profits fashion companies can make. Unfortunately, fast fashion always sacrifice way too many on natural resources. The paces toward sustainability are wobbling because of the tension growing between lucrative ideas and the ethical concepts. For instance, according to a striking investigation Danish television channel TV2’s Operation X program, has accused H&M of buying approximately 12 tons of garments every year over the past several years. TV2, which began looking into H&M in June, a waste disposal company called KARA/NOVEREN has increased incinerated over 60 tons of new, unworn apparel from H&M since 2013. What’s worse is that the hundreds of thousands of garments consist of recyclable and reusable materials. As also noted by FashionUnited, “This is not the first time that H&M stands accused of destroying usable clothing. In early 2010, the Swedish fashion retailer was accused of cutting up and dumping ‘unwanted’ garments at a store on 35th Street in New York in a New York Times expose. At that time, H&M vowed that it would make sure these practices would never happen again.” Obviously, they didn’t keep their promises.

Fashion Industry Finally Feels It In the eyes of short-sighted fast fashion retailers, nature is a issue that can be eschewed and forgone. Interestingly, when the significant effects of climate change not merely limited to extreme weather, floods and other natural disasters, but can also been seen in fashion and consumers’ shopping patterns, it’s finally the game-changing moment that these snobbish companies stop sidestepping and start to do spare some care on the environmental concerns.

Over the past several years in particular, retail sales have suffered as a result of unseasonably warm weather. In early 2016, H&M reported that an unusually warm autumn largely decreased it sale of winter garments. Scott Bernhardt, president of Planalytics—a research and consulting firm that tracks the impact of weather on business said, “When consumers are walking across the mall parking lots… without coats and sometimes in shorts and short sleeves, browsing for winter apparel just isn’t top of mind.” Unseasonably warm weather due to climate change leads to shoppers to postpone or abandon entirely to purchase winter clothing. This is now a serious problem that both nature defenders and revenue-oriented merchants can’t ignore.

The Fast Fashion Giant Keeps Playing the Fool On the other hand, some fast fashion retailers with short lead times between production and store shelves seem relatively intact from the impact of the vastly altered weather. Take ZARA, the Spanish retail giant, as an example, it maintains a business model that utilizes a rapid runway-to-retail timeline using centralized manufacturing, quick turnover, and a sophisticated forecasting system for the brand to make only the most desirable items for their shoppers. Thanks to this brilliant product development cycle makes them strong enough to respond to cha nging consumers’ shopping patterns. However, to the environment, the strategy of selling specific garments that consumers want and affordable prices further rapid and fuel the vicious cycle of consume-and-discard, which is the crucial reason that makes fast fashion so problematic to our nature.

We Can and We Should Be Part of the Solution Fashion is runway, fur, leather and high heels, in some individuals’ opinions. For me, It’s also a responsibility, a responsibility that all of human beings should take on while we randomly picking up a piece a cloth in a thrift store. Just as Miranda Priestly’s harsh words from The Devil Wears Prada pointing out that a boring blue sweater stands for millions dollars and countless jobs and numerous choices made by all walks of life, we have a lot to do with fashion industry as well as our mother nature. We should never underestimated ourselves’ decisions. It’s not a simple responsibility that the fashion retailers should take, we should also question us, as a consumer, and use our powers to create positive change. The more we engage ourselves and get to know ethical fashion, the more we can be part of the solution.