Sew What Now?
Deanna B -
Piles of clothes lay before Penelope. Does she regret having bought them all? Yes. (Her wallet certainly does). But she’s going to make the most of it. She’s going to exchange half of them at a local clothing swap. Another pile is going back to her closet. As for the rest, she’ll try to alter or upcycle them to get another life out of them. None of these clothes are going to the landfill if it can be helped.
This is the mindset I encourage all of you to maintain as you consider your consumption habits. It’s estimated that at this moment, there are enough clothes, most probably unused, to provide for the next six generations. I don’t even know if I can trace my family lineage back that far! I think now is a great time for us to take a moment and consider something we all take for granted: the clothes we wear. The cost of our clothes is greater than just their sticker price – there is so much waste, human labor, and resource use involved in clothing production. It’s this that I’ve investigated over the past few months, and I feel like I have so much of a deeper understanding of just how much exploitation can occur in the (fast) fashion industry
Now, I’m not saying everyone has to become a fashion design/sewing expert overnight. Nor am I saying that we all need to start dropping thousands of dollars on the clothes we buy to be “sustainable.” Additionally, I’m not saying that we need to do a massive closet cleanout and donate all our clothes away. These were all misconceptions that I’ve heard cited when many people claim that it’s “too hard” to be environmentally sustainable and fashion-forward, and I believe I proved these all wrong throughout my internship process. Even something as small as supporting ethical businesses, which requires a little bit of research before your purchase. It makes a world of a difference.
I know that was a bit of me rambling, but I’d love to talk more about it if any of you have any questions! I’ve barely scratched the surface of the world of fashion sustainability, but I think a few thanks are in order. Firstly, special thanks to Maggie Marquez, Erica Yngve, and the entire team at Sonoran Stitch for offering up hours of your time to help me out with my project. I wouldn’t have reached this point without you all. Thank you to Asher for always being so helpful with your insights and sharing so many (SO many) links/articles with me. To Maggie Keef, thank you for all the massively insightful conversations, access to so many resources for free, and, of course, helping me pick out clubs for college! Thank you to Ms. Alvarez and Ms. Merrill as well for supporting me and helping me refine my ideas in the planning process. Shoutout to my parents, too, especially my mom who drove me to the U of A and put up with my constantly-changing hours every week. And thank you to you, the readers! Whether you’ve been leaving me comments or just checking out my blog every week, I appreciate all the support. Hopefully you’ll make it to my project presentation next Saturday (which will definitely have more photos than this blogpost). If you’ve made it this far, I hope you’ve learned just as much as Penelope has over the past few months.
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