Will fashion ever be sustainable?

In modern day society, the fashion industry is accountable for 10% of carbon emissions across the world. In fact, fashion uses more energy than aviation and shipping combined. Nowadays, fashion is the most accessible it has ever been, and is an industry that is constantly evolving – but is this at the expense of our environment?

One of the greatest hurdles facing us when striving towards sustainability in fashion is the fast-paced changes that are encouraged in order to stay on trend. Consumers are pushed into buying new products every season, which in turn, results in more and more products that are taken from the bottom of our wardrobes and thrown into a landfill. Yet, isn’t this what fashion is all about? We are conditioned to believe that wearing the latest style is essential to be considered ‘fashionable’, but is it this desire to constantly change our look that could cause irreversible damage to our planet?

In the UK alone, it is estimated that every year 350,000 tonnes of our clothes are thrown into a landfill. To put that into perspective, that is the weight of more than 3,000 blue whales! Studies also show that nearly half of the clothes in our wardrobe have never been worn because they are no longer in style.

So, what is the solution? Does becoming more sustainable mean changing the very nature of what fashion is? Where buying quality products and keeping them for longer could reduce the carbon footprint of fashion, does this also mean that the fashion industry should stop pushing for consumers to constantly renew their wardrobes? And what could this mean for the notion of fashion itself? However, the bigger question is, what is more important: seasonal changes to our style, or our environment?

Ro, C. (2020). Smart Guide to Climate Change: can fashion ever be sustainable?. Available: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200310-sustainable-fashion-how-to-buy-clothes-good-for-the-climate. Last accessed 4th June 2020.