A: Alternatives to mainstream fashion

Ever changing trends, the continuous creation of new must-haves, constant pressures on reducing labor costs. The fashion industry does not generally serve as a model for sustainability. So do we need to develop an alternative fashion system? Some experts are convinced we do – and very soon too.

According to cradle to cradle philosophy, a closed loop system will be infinitely more sustainable than the current linear process. In the fashion industry, this would mean that clothing would be recycled into new products without creating any garbage. That’s not an easy feat, even for vintage loving designers. In fact, for an eco-efficient, cradle to cradle proof fashion system to become a reality, designers would need to take into account the future recycling options (‘designing for recycling’). An example is making garments made of one type of fabric – and using recyclable elements such as zippers and labels – so that they can be re-used in their entirety.

As cradle to cradle is considered to be a rather complicated business model, sustainable fashion pioneers have also suggested other alternatives to the contemporary fashion system. Slow fashion is probably the most popular one. Fast fashion is often associated with trend driven, low quality, cheap items that contribute to labor exploitation in production countries and to throwawayism among Western consumers. In response, slow fashion has produced timeless, high quality collections that are meant to be worn for a long time.

Needless to say, slow fashion cannot compete with fast fashion when it comes to price. What’s more, given the current pace of fashion trends, slow fashion designers have difficulties to increase their market share. In a sense, slow fashion suffers the same fate as cradle to cradle design: if the mainstream fashion system does not change at its root, these alternatives have little hope of keeping up.

Does all this sound abstract to you? Being aware of what you buy can be a first step towards an alternative (in the sense of: more sustainable) fashion style. Items with a price tag that is too good to be true are just that. Someone else – put bluntly: most likely some overworked, underfed employee in a low wage country – will pay the costs. Environmentally friendly fabrics may not sound too sexy, but there are ever more attractive options available, ranging from lyocell to eco linen. And let’s not forget the increasingly trendy swapping parties, vintage stores and upcycling collections.

Adopting a slow fashion attitude will also require cherishing the items in your wardrobe, creating your own style regardless of seasonal trends. Another must-do: hiring or lending special items you’re not likely to wear often, such as wedding party outfits.

In the end , it all comes down to that good old cliché: buy less, choose well. Now that does not sound too complicated, does it?

C: Consumer waste

A coat made from recycled materials that costs half as much as it would be if it had been made from virgin wool. That’s the first shwop coat by Marks & Spencer. The limited edition coat, which hit the stores in October 2012, is the first tangible result of Marks & Spencer’s shwopping initiative. With shwopping, the British retailer encourages customers to donate an old item of clothing to charity every time they come into the store to buy something new. In collaboration with Oxfam and Italian fibre manufacturers, Marks & Spencer upcycles these donations into new must-haves.

It turns out that Marks & Spencer receives lots of unwanted clothes that are suitable for recycling: in the first six months of the shwopping initiative, a staggering one million clothes have been donated. That’s no mean feat: in the United Kingdom, approximately 1 billion clothes end up as landfill each year.

Shwopping may sound revolutionary, but there are several other innovative clothing companies embracing recycling. Retailers like Eileen Fisher and Patagonia have been accepting returns of their worn products for quite some time. Fisher resells them in her Green Eileen retail store, while Patagonia recycles theirs into new products.

Patagonia is known for its imaginative approach to sustainability in fashion. It’s famous ‘Don’t buy this jacket’ campaign called upon consumers to think twice before buying something new. Advertising a fleece jacket made from 60% recycled polyester, Patagonia wrote: ‘We ask you to buy less and to reflect before you spend a dime on this jacket or anything else.’ Now that’s a remarkable challenge posed by a company that’s been among the most sustainable brands in the fashion world for many years. Marks & Spencer still have a long way to go, I’d say.

L: Lease a jeans

The circular economy, cradle to cradle, upcycling. They’re all sustainability ideas that the average fashion consumer might find difficult to grasp. Enter the fashion concept launched by MudJeans. Presented as the world’s first rental denim, MudJeans’ lease a jeans concept makes the idea of a circular economy both tangible and affordable.

By signing a lease contract and paying a first installment, MudJeans customers embrace a new, sustainable way of using fashion. After 12 months, the jeans can be sent back to MudJeans, which will take care of recycling or upcycling each garment. The consumer will receive a discount on a new pair of jeans, which can be either be rented or bought.

According to MudJeans CEO Bert van Son, the lease a jeans concept aims to make sustainable fashion affordable for consumers while at the same time stimulating recycling within the fashion industry.

MudJeans is a Dutch casual wear label that has embraced sustainability as part of their business practices since their start in 2007. MudJeans uses organic, fair trade cotton and other sustainable fabrics (such as recycled PET) and works together with partners in Italy to re-use and upcycle all denim. For the lease a jeans collection, which started off with four types of jeans - two for women and two for men - MudJeans has designed for recycling, for instance by avoiding the use of any leather labels and by choosing organic cotton yarns.

MudJeans has even thought of denim lovers who tend to grow attached to their favorite pair of jeans. The lease a jeans concept allows them to extend the lease contract for many months more. In addition, the MudJeans webstore also includes items that can simply be bought instead of leased.

R: Recycling

Discarded cans, plastic bottles, car tyres, fire brigade hoses, TV’s, fake suede car seats. The fashion industry has been able to recycle lots of unlikely products into new must-haves. In many cases, those bags, belts or shoes don’t even look like they were made from waste materials.

What’s more, with rising cotton prices, an increasing number of mainstream brands and discounters (including Puma and H&M) have come to opt for recycled fabrics, such as recycled cotton and recycled polyester. Those are not bad options for the environment, as the re-use of textile waste reduces the need for new fiber production and decreases the use of energy resources. For this reason, the Made-By environmental benchmark on fibers favors materials such as recycled nylon, recycled polyester, recycled cotton and recycled wool alongside sustainable materials such as biocotton, lyocell, organic linen and organic hemp.

Recently, even fashion retailers have come to embrace recycling. Marks & Spencer proclaimed shwopping to be the new shopping. The retailer encourages its customers to donate an old item of clothing to charity every time they come into the store to buy something new. M&S works together with Oxfam to resell, reuse or recycle these donations. The retailer aims to develop a closed loop system that reduces textile waste to a minimum. That would certainly be no luxury as every year, approximately 1 billion clothes in the UK end up as landfill.

Are other retailers likely to follow into the footsteps of the M&S shwopping initiative? Perhaps the introduction of the Swop-box will persuade them to do so. This recycling bin, designed especially for fashion stores, enables consumers to hand in their old clothes in exchange for a discount coupon for a new purchase.

And there are other recycling initiatives in the retail sector. In 2012, Puma claimed to have opened the first sustainable store on earth. The Bangalore shop has been furnished with recycled wood. The building uses recycled steel from old electronics, bicycles, and tiffin boxes, along with porotherm blocks made using waste from the annual desilting of the lakes in Kunigal.

U: Upcycling

Using yesterday’s clothes to make the fashion of the future. That’s one of the slogans promoting the TV series Dresscue me. The reality series follows vintage guru Shareen Mitchell in her daily search for exquisite dresses made from discarded clothing.

It’s about the lady, not the dress, is one of Mitchell’s basic principles. The diva, who owns stores in New York and Los Angeles, is convinced that clothing can make women feel more positive about themselves. By finding them the perfect dress, Mitchell and her staff do more than find an answer to the vexing question what to wear. They make their customers feel pretty, glamorous and/or sexy. If we succeed in making women feel beautiful, we can transform their lives, says Shareen in one of the episodes of Dresscue me, which has been aired worldwide.

Noble as this may sound, it’s a shame that Shareen Mitchell seldom talks about the environmental benefits of upcycled dresses. While Dresscue me doesn’t fail to register Shareen and her assistants going through numerous piles of discarded clothing, we never hear about things like our throwaway culture, landfill and recycling. That seems like a missed opportunity: needless to say, re-using secondhand clothes to create new must-haves provides ample benefits for the environments. And as she turns local stock into unique, handmade garments designed to last many years, Mitchell is a particularly good role model for the upcycling trend.

Maybe one of Dresscue me’s motto’s (‘Saving women one dress at a time’) is in serious need for an update? Isn’t ‘Saving the planet one dress at a time’ is just as much as a home truth? Or maybe it’s time for a TV series documenting the daily business of outspokenly green upcycling companies.

V: Vintage

‘The idea that second-hand and recycled items pass on their life experiences is what imbues redesigned clothing with its sense of value. When wearing a pre-owned item of clothing it is as if you inherit a history of lived experiences,’ writes Sass Brown in her book Ecofashion. Just like recycled items and upcycled outfits, vintage fashion gives its wearers a sense of history and previous lives. According to Brown, these feelings explain the immense popularity of vintage fashion in the United Kingdom: the British are frontrunners when it comes to a love of history and a culture of crafts.

Of course, Sass Browns description of the value and beauty of vintage makes abundantly clear that not any old or second-hand item can be labeled vintage. As another renown ecofashion expert, Kate Fletcher, has demonstrated, in the past twenty years the supply of second-hand clothing has come to surpass demand. Our overconsumption of cheap fast fashion goes hand in hand with quick disposal, creating a supply of second-hand clothes that only seems to find a market in Africa, Eastern Europe and other emerging economies.

At the same time, vintage is becoming ever more popular in fashion conscious Western countries. High quality clothing in perfect condition originating from the 1920s to 1990s is a treasure to hunt for. Cari Heathcote, a British marketing expert and blogger, believes that the trend is destined to stay. Vintage stores and high quality charity shops cater for consumers who are looking for unique outfits as well as for the growing number of green-minded fashionistas seeking to minimize the environmental impact of their closets.

Given the fact that true vintage is unlikely to be readily available to the masses, the trend seems destined to remain the prerogative of a relatively small group of fashion lovers. They will be prepared to spend time and money to find the treasures among the trash. Thankfully, the rest of us don’t need to despair. Second-hand items that are not suitable for the vintage market can be upcycled into new must-haves. And vintage inspired designers (read: brands such as Urban Outfitters, Karen Miller and Laura Ashley) provide new collections with the look & feel of past fashions. This option may not be as green or cheap as re-using second-hand clothing, but at least it will save you lots of time spent on shopping and DIY.

Z: Zero Plastic Week

As an ecofashionista who’s joined Zero Plastic Week for the second time in a row, I’m up for a challenge. So let’s go beyond the fight against plastic wraps of cucumber, tofu, toothpaste and the like. Because once we take a look at our daily outfits and weekly clothing shopping sessions, it becomes obvious that plastic plays a major role in our wardrobes.

Obviously, the average fashion store is not a particularly plasticfree environment. It’s plastic bags, price tags and clothes hangers galore. The basic step for those striving towards a low plastic lifestyle? Consume less, or go vintage or thrift shopping. And, of course: keep those foldable, reusable shopping bags within reach at all times.

The thing is: a more hidden plastic world lies behind our closets at home. And I’m not talking about those raincoats or fleece vests here. The average wardrobe consists of 50% of polyester items. (The other half is cotton; unfortunately a not so environmentally friendly fabric either). In many cases, natural fibers such as cotton and silk will be blended with nylon or lycra to make them more durable or to give them a better fit. In addition, the availability of contemporary high quality polyesters – which are not as uncomfortable to wear or cheap looking as their predecessors – means that even designer wear can now be made from artificial fibers.

What’s wrong with the abundance of polyesters in our closets, you may ask? The most important issue when it comes to plastic in clothes concerns our washing routines. Every time we wash an item made from polyester, some 1900 plastic fibers end up in the oceans and seas. And once there, the microplastics contribute to the deadly plastic soup.

Even for dedicated ecofashionistas like myself, dressing in style while supporting the fight against the plastic soup is not an easy feat. My search for animal friendly alternatives to leather bags inevitably seems to lead to plastic. For example, slow fashion designer Ellen Willink's bags are made from recycled (plastic) banners. And let’s not forget that even Envirosax’s reusable bags are made from polyesters.

On the upside, anyone who’s seen the images of the plastic soup, and more importantly, its effects on birds and other marine animals, will be stimulated to continue to strive towards a zero plastic life. Because surely, plastic can never be fashionable.