‘Fashion is Political’ at Sustainable Fashion Week

The story of that once-favorite shirt with the missing button and faded seems, now outgrown and discarded, doesn’t end at the donation bin. Many consumers fail to realize their old clothing often travels thousands of miles to begin a second life on foreign shores, joining piles of exported textiles in a process that reveals the environmental and social costs of fast fashion.

Passion and policy came together at Sustainable Fashion Week at the Illinois Environmental Council’s Sustainable Fashion Policy Panel Sept. 30. for a discussion on fast fashion and its effects on the environment. 

The room was somewhat intimate, filled with both policy advocates and fashion figureheads wanting to learn more about the impact of the fashion industry and how individuals can make change. 

One panelist was Emily Norton, Director of Community and Partnership for Sustainable Fashion Week Illinois. Norton said she works to bring people, neighborhoods and industries together to reimagine fashion.

Norton said there’s a lack of visibility for the life discarded clothing takes on. This leads to clothes ending up on ships bound for places like Ghana, where the textiles are burned or dumped. Local communities are left to breathe in toxic smoke, wade through mountains of discarded clothing and deal with the waste washing into their water systems.

“For a large part of the fashion industry, it’s embarrassing how much waste there is, how horrible it is for the planet,” Norton said. “People just kind of want to pretend it’s not happening and keep going.”

Norton discussed varying definitions of sustainable fashion within the industry, with some believing sustainable fashion is solely pieces composed of organic materials while others argue upcycling can also be sustainable. Norton claimed that because thrifting and upcycling don’t further the creation of more waste, they don’t add to the pollution crisis.

“I think the biggest problem, policy-wise, is the lack of environmental regulations when it comes to the manufacturing of clothes,” Norton said. 

Sarah Cline, a panelist who works as campaign associate for U.S. Public Research Interest Group, said she advocates for change in policy regarding the environmental effects of fast fashion. Currently, the organization is putting pressure on large corporations like H&M to sustainably dispose of unsold garments and waste from the production process. 

Cline said she finds working on corporate policy campaigns refreshing. 

“It allows me to put energy at the correct target and go after the industry behind this,” Cline said. “Not that individual action is not important. I think it’s absolutely necessary.”

Cline emphasised the importance of coming together as a community and advocating for general awareness on the issue.

“Coming from a policy angle gives me a way to organize local voices and make a tangible impact, which is huge,” Cline said.

Also represented on the panel was Cradles to Crayons, an organization that works to make clothes both more sustainable and accessible by providing families in the Chicago area with basic clothing items. Individual action is a significant value of the nonprofit’s mission.

Jess Lovett, a Cradles to Crayons representative, spoke on consumers’ ability to dispose of unwanted clothing in a sustainable and equitable fashion. 

“We are not trying to give these kids clothing that is stained or ripped, quality is old,” Lovett said, “We also don’t want it to not represent them.” 

This sentiment reveals status is often associated with clothing and monetary value. One’s ability to purchase the latest trends is a privilege taken for granted in the oversaturated landscape of consumer culture, forming a socioeconomic bias in the clothes we wear, according to Norton. 

Norton similarly highlighted how perception of clothing is often associated with class. She emphasised the stigma of rewearing pieces, with many people choosing to buy lower quality for a lower price. While some continue to debate the “freshness” of their latest closet additions, Lovett calls attention to the growing problem of clothing insecurity. 

Instead of buying fast fashion to conform to the latest trends, Norton encouraged picking pieces that will have a quality existence with the consumer. She said buying garments that grow with you and hold both meaning and value is important because the best clothes don’t end with you  — they continue to live a lifetime.

“Fashion is political,” Norton said. 

Norton made it clear fashion is not only what we wear, but where we buy our clothing, how we buy it and what we do with our unwanted garments when we’re done with them.

Cline said through learning and understanding the invisible second life of favorite pieces, consumers can be mindful of their own spending practices while also putting pressure on large corporations to take initiative.

“We can do this,” Norton said, “We can teach each other. We can work together.”