In an era where we are becoming more conscious of our relationship with ourselves and our environment. Such phrases as "sustainable", "eco-friendly", "bio-degradable" and "ethical fashion" are becoming more common. But even with this current "trend" throw away fashion shops like Primark are popping up everywhere including the infamous Oxford Street, London. Encouraging shoppers into a frenzied overspend on low quality disposable garments. Brown paper bags strewn all over a busy high street a symbolization of how little the maddening crowd think about their effect not only on the environment both local and global; but also on the way they value themselves. Buying for the now and never thinking about the future.
In 2008 a Telegraph newspaper article pointed out MP's had recorded in just one local London area a 23 percent rise within 5 years of textile waste! People were calling it the "Primark effect" non lasting and non-biodegradable garments poisoning our earth and our common sense.
This is a table by MADE-BY ("a European not-for-profit organisation with a mission to make sustainable fashion common practice and improve environmental and social conditions in the fashion industry"). It is a guide to the materials we used in clothing manufacturing and their toxicity to our planet. These fabrics produce green house gases, human toxicity, eco-toxicity, their energy usage, their water usage and land use. MADE-BY have classified raw materials from most sustainable; (Class A), to least sustainable (Class E). The materials which have been labeled as 'unclassified’ are due to lack of sufficient research to their toxicity classification.
If you type into Google "Primark effect" countless articles from newspapers around the UK and websites like The Ecologist will appear. Stating facts that while general waste has decrease in our landfills. Textile waste has exploded to over one million tonnes. Now many will say that Primark offers them financially accessible fashion (a necessary evil) but at what cost? In the beginning Primark was a modest retail outlet in Ireland called Penneys. It was (I guess) there to bring those on lower or virtually no income affordable high street prices. It served a purpose; average quality clothes at low cost that were on trend enough to make the wearer feel alluring and fashionable.
Then somewhere along the way probably about the time it opened its doors on Oxford Street and started to feature in fashion bibles like Vogue. Primark lost its purpose and we lost our minds. Hoards of raging tourists and gold card waving shopaholics littering the streets outside Primark's most prized profit maker with brown bags that fall apart with the weight of the excess they have consumed. While some will genuinely need "some" of the mound that they carry. Most will be determined just to buy because they can or because they can't walk 50 feet to another store. Where for a couple of pounds extra they can be the proud owner of an outfit which will last them longer than a week.
If international fashion brands like Levi can see the damage that we humans do. Why can't we the shopping public stop and think before we consume? Levi's have invented a new manufacturing process and created Water<Less™ jeans. Water<Less™ jeans are part of a campaign to donate 200 million litres of water to communities around the world.
While I myself have bought in "Foe-mani" stores in years gone by I have noticed that while their prices have gone up their quality has gone down. I believed in what I believed their original ethos was but with popularity and profit came expansion and depreciated quality. I often think if that makes me a woman scorned or just someone who has been educated to think past the day after tomorrow.
As a woman who has woken up to companies like "Foe-mani" I have continued on a path of enlightenment to recycled/ sustainable fashion. Involving myself with the London College of Fashion and projects like their "Sustainable Fashion" project.
Below: Me and the wonderful Designer Loula Mercedes working on reinventing a moth eaten coat. Loula is a student on the Masters Course "Fashion and the Environment" at London College of Fashion. She is also the Creative Director of Inmakulate a sustainable and ethical lifestyle brand.
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| We decided to embrace the "villain" that had destroyed a beautiful tailored cashmere coat. With some embroidery and hand stamped moth prints. Cheeky I know but creative minds work in amusing ways! |
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| The coat in action after we had it retailored and restyled. |
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| On exhibit at the Community Repair Exhibition May 2010 |
Wikipedia: Sustainable design (also called environmental design, environmentally sustainable design, environmentally conscious design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability.
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| Selfridges Oxford Street London June 2011 |
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