Sober consumers appreciate that second-hand clothing is great for reducing the need for new, but they think that there is a need to stop consuming so much in the first place.
Sustainable fashion is a craze moreover it is cool and accessible, according to those who are pushing for change in the industry. Pembrokeshire Frame, a charity aiming to support vulnerable people while reusing and reducing waste, said it had seen a 300 percent rise in profits with more shoppers.
A fashion designer says sustainable fashion was “much more accessible” with the increased use of resell sites such as Vinted and Depop. A representative of online sustainability platform SustFashWales said “shopping our own wardrobes” was a good place to start. Everyone agree that more people are engaging with sustainability.
Frame aims to deliver support and upskill those in their community while helping the environment and fighting climate change. It brought in a former fashion designer as a sustainable fashion coordinator for its resell stores, who said attitudes were changing towards second-hand items.
The charity gets donations from the community, which sort them, and take garments off them, or maybe the fabric is really lovely but damaged, and then upcycle them. The charity said the current financial climate had also changed people’s attitudes and shopping trends. People now realise why it’s good to shop from charity shops because of the amazing quality that they can get.
The new trend has prevented the many kilos of clothes from heading to a landfill site, the skills that volunteers learn are also one of the project’s main benefits.
The charity said it had also been able to reduce the waste it sends to landfill from 20 percent to 5 percent as a result of new initiatives and it means clothes can be fit to purpose. Online platforms meant sustainable fashion could be more size and disability inclusive and catered to individuals, drawing more people in.
After observing the response of consumers the retailers and online platforms disagree with people who think that trends and sustainability do not go together. They say these trends are based on society and they’re based on what happens politically, what happens in culture, so to not engage with that is not engaging in culture.
Young consumers say they love buying this way as it can still be fashionable. Moreover, they can still have their own character without going to the high street. They however would like to see everything just slow down a bit”.
It used to be fast fashion, but now it’s super fast fashion. It’s no longer a few collections a year, it’s one a week or one a day. Repairing your clothes can reduce your carbon footprint from up to 30 percent, says climate action group WRAP.
Experts say there is no clear definition of sustainable fashion. Even the term doesn’t actually make sense, because the fashion industry is currently broken, so why would we want to sustain that? There were enough clothes in circulation already and “we need to go back to basics”.
According to climate action group WRAP, extending the life of your clothes by just a few months can reduce the carbon footprint of that garment by around 20-30 percent. Simply washing your clothes at the correct setting or sewing back on a button can make all the difference and stop us reaching for fast fashion. Still the group said whilst second-hand is great for reducing the need for new, we really need to stop consuming so much in the first place.
Experts advise reducing wardrobe to impact sustainability
