Fishbowl Ep. 1

March 3rd, 2022

C. Fish

TRANSCRIPTION

Good afternorning folks! And welcome to the Fishbowl. Today’s episode, Wear it Till You Drop, is all about fast fashion so I’ll quickly get right into it!

Clothes are everything. They keep us warm and fashionable and for many people they can provide confidence and personality. BUT they went from being one of the most important and expensive things a person owned, are now produced in such massive quantities that the clothing industry as a whole is contributing majorly to climate change and pollution. “The Conscious Closet” by Elizabeth L. Cline is just one part of beginning to learn about sustainable fashion and lightening your carbon footprint. I’m going to cover a lot of her research to give you a sustainable closet crash course that can get you thinking differently about your wardrobe!

The first step in making your closet more sustainable is understanding your personal style type. This is split into 3 general categories. The Minimalist. The Style Seeker (aka Maximalist) and the Traditionalist (the middle ground).

Personally I feel like I am a traditionalist with style-seeker tendencies. I do not frequently go shopping and I rely heavily on my rotating closet of “basics” but I still enjoy being fashionable and staying on top of trends, and having statement pieces. Do this with your own closet! Analyze, not what style your clothes are, but how you wear them and your relationship with them. Everything you do from now will be based on your style type.

So what are you, minimalist, style seeker, or traditionalist?

Next! Clean out your closet. Do a brutal clear out and get rid of everything you don’t wear. Most Americans think that they wear around 43% of their wardrobes, but in reality its closer to 18% meaning we all own things that we never touch. By cleaning out your closet and getting rid of those non-essentials you make room for new essentials. And you probably won’t miss anything cause you didn’t know it was there! so don’t get attached! Just dispose of your clothes properly. Unless something is really old and falling apart you shouldn’t just throw it in the trash. There’s a great chance you could donate it to a charity or thrift store, sell it on a resale app, or even go to a clothing swap if you can.

These places with also be great tools to find new clothes. Thrift stores, clothing swaps, and resale apps are your best friend as each one is giving clothes a second life and inherently is more ethical.

The biggest problem of the clothing industry is the AMOUNT that is being produced. The biggest impact comes directly from the manufacturing plants. A big part of sustainable fashion is the art of less. Try to buy clothes less frequently so that when you do they can be higher quality, probably meaning they’ll be a little more expensive, but last a lot longer.

In fact, quality is major.

Fast fashion relies on cheap labor and mass produced products, so it’s likely that the clothes will be terrible quality and will not last. Designer, on the other hand, is much higher in quality and costs a lot more because of it. It’s easy to cringe at designer prices but it is often worth it to save up for one quality piece than it is to buy 5 cheaper pieces. Designer also doesn’t mean luxury. Luxury prices are extremely high and unrealistic for most people to be able to afford but designer can cover a massive range of price points. A good tip is finding your own brands! Find the pieces that you love, for you well, are high quality, and within your price range and stick with that brand for other pieces. Their quality should be consistent and you’ll know that you’ll like what you get. Personally some brands that I stick to are Patagonia and Levi’s as my pieces have been with me for years and are still as good as new. You might have to try a lot of brands before you find the ones that suit you, but when you do make sure that you are trying on clothes in dressing rooms so you’re not buying pieces that you are unsure about. Also take note of the fabrics that you like, the ones you wear most often, and the ones you’re uncomfortable in. Never buy something in a fabric you’ll hate as you’ll probably end up making excused to avoid wearing it.

It’s also important to take notes of what brands are taking steps to become more ethical and sustainable and which ones are just doing it for show. Brands like H&M and C&A for example are giant fast fashion chains, but you will often see these little green tags saying “im sustainable” – fun fact, its not. But it is the companies way of making you feel less guilty about buying their clothes so that you will buy more.

A good loose rule to think about is “wear it till you drop” – your clothes should be able to last a lifetime if they’re well built. And we don’t always want well-built clothing. Personally sometimes I want a lightweight cheap top to wear to concerts and I know that I will only wear it once or twice. That’s okay. This whole thing isn’t black and white. Don’t think by slipping up and buying some fast fashion pieces you’re doing a bad job! Changing your habits is difficult and the world is built for fast fashion to be convenient. Simply making the effort here already makes a difference.

Every little thing makes a difference, but sustainable fashion as a whole is actually a growing social movement

Many years ago we were fully aware of the atrocities of sweatshops and there were protests being held trying to get businesses to take accountability and stop. In fast fashion no supplier can survive without running a sweat shop, though many brands work through them indirectly so they can claim to be ethical. Brands are moving more and more towards being transparent with their customers though, so any ethical brand can and should have their manufacturing information posted online and you can check that it is both sustainable and ethical. Beyond that most of our donated and recycled clothes end up in Africa, but do the amount and the terrible quality of the clothes resellers in Africa can’t make a living wage from it. In fact, garment workers pretty much never get fair pay. The only people who profit off of fast fashion are the manufacturers. Then the movement fell off and now we’re trying to bring it back stronger than ever. By making a few of these changes you’re becoming a part of that movement.

Part of sustainable fashion IS being an activist. It’s similar to being a vegan. Depending on the approach you take it could be really difficult or it could improve your life dramatically. At the end of the day though, the world isn’t going to make it easy for you. You will have to do a lot of the research and work yourself, and you may feel at points that it’s useless, but that’s all up to you to decide.

Realistically, most of this journey is up to you. there aren’t any hard and fast rules here – a fully rounded closet (not including socks and underwear) can be anywhere from 30 to 300 pieces – learn how to mend your clothes and know what you like, what you look good in, what you will keep, and what is just a novelty you won’t wear. Do your own research, know who you’re buying from, and overall be mindful of what you wear and how that contributes to the world.

Thanks for tuning in folks, I’m tuning out as that’s all I’ve got for you today.

Hope you have a lovely rest of the day, and see you on the flip side. Bye.