Below is an excerpt from an article written for my U.C. Berkeley Journalism Workshop course. If you'd like to see the full article, I'd be happy to send it to you:
It started with kale, trendy smoothies, and friends going “paleo.” In the past ten years, the entire way the American middle class thinks about and consumes food has changed. Some might say a similar revolution is right around the corner for clothing.
Though not broadly publicized, a global dilemma is at hand starring consumerism gone awry. The rate at which we buy cheap clothing and then quickly discard it now threatens our planet, and the people making our clothes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 84 percent of unwanted clothes in the United States went into either a landfill or an incinerator in 2012.
Environmentalist and sustainability expert Nadine Farang says, “Just like fast food is unhealthy for the body, fast fashion is unhealthy for the environment. And both are highly popular and consumed by billions of people. The challenge is educating the vast majority of the population on the negative environmental impact surrounding fast fashion and addictive consumerism.”
Meet the sustainable fashion movement, one of the solutions to this crisis offering a ray of hope in a darkened consumerist reality. A small yet growing number of companies are attempting to rock the retail, e-commerce, and supply chain world, offering garments that are ethically made, and environmentally friendly. This is a story of energetic entrepreneurs and designers looking to better the world, one t-shirt at a time.
Let’s backup for a minute though. Up until the past few decades, humans regarded clothing with more care; repairing used clothing and utilizing hand-me-downs were more common, and shopping for new clothes was more expensive.
Fashion Revolution, a non-profit group campaigning for fashion industry reform states, “A century ago, we spent more than half our money on food and clothes, today we spend less than a fifth. As a society we purchase 400 percent more clothing today than we did just 20 years ago.” That sudden change in consumerist behavior is shocking.
For many of us, where and how we buy our clothing is based on a fairly new concept that clothes are disposable. I too have been ensnared by the bright lights of fast fashion retail: a vibrant array of $10 floral sundresses, a $30 black “leather” jacket, and oh those glossy accessories! Zara stores are adorned by flashy gold 60% off signs, and H&M boasts a $5 sale section. It all seems too good to be true. But that’s the thing with things that are too good to be true. They usually aren’t.
