Li Edelkoort’s “Anti-Fashion: A Manifesto for the Next Decade”
In her talk, Li Edelkoort discusses the issues with the current state of the fashion industry, mainly targeting its antiquated structures. Edelkoort states several times throughout the talk, that the industry as a whole, still thinks in a 20th century perspective. Fashion Institutions and Schools are not providing students with workspaces, ateliers, and education about textiles. This lack of education for students, and also the consumers, leaves them clueless on the subject of sustainable textiles and fabrics, perpetuating the endless cycle of wasted and unsustainable garments.
However, to combat this issue, Edelkoort specifically offers ideas to improve and modernize the industry. For example, For manufacturers and designers to begin labeling the origin of their garments, and for brands to share more information with consumers about the resources they utilize during the manufacturing process. By enriching the consumers with useful information about sustainability, they can also begin independently making conscious efforts to watch what they purchase. As Edelkoort stresses, there needs to be more interactivity for the consumers, different and new ways to market, educate and enrich the customer’s knowledge about their purchases.
This type of concept reminded me of places such as farmers markets, where each product has an origin story, linked to a farmer or a manufacturer, and etc. By putting a face behind the product, it humanizes the product itself, forcing consumers to put more thought into what they purchase.
Kate Fletcher’s “Slow Fashion: An Invitation for Systems Change”
In Kate Fletcher’s paper, She describes the rise of the “fast” and “slow” fashion movements, and both of their social and ecological effects on the world. Beginning with fast fashion, Fletcher describes the mass produced, environmentally harming process, as a tool for companies to quickly and easily cash in on consumer’s money. As Fletcher states, “Fast fashion is fashion shaped not by speed but by a set of business practices focused on achieving continual economic growth; the most universally accepted goal in the world”. Mainly driven by monetary value and economic growth, companies of the fast fashion industry care less about the environment and sustainability, rather, the different ways in which to continually sell the same product over and over, for seasons on end.
Additionally, the fast fashion industry have also contributed to the devaluing of clothing. As stated by Fletcher, “Big-box” retailers create a dynamic that prioritizes cheapness, mass availability, and volume purchasing above all else and that forces smaller producers, who cannot compete on price alone, out of business.” By setting the standard for clothing price so low, consumers will value them less, making them easier to dispose of, contributing to large amounts of un-recyclable trash. Doing some additional research, I discovered that, according to the Fashion Industry Waste Statistics by EDGE, “Consumers throw away shoes and clothing [versus recycle], an average of 70 pounds per person, annually.” Combined with the large amounts of textile waste and clothing, all of these materials end up in trash dumps or landfills, un-recyclable and unable to be repurposed.