Sustainable appeal The Slow Fashion movement :: Natural Beauty Tips

Textiles make up 4 percent of our annual contributions to Canadian landfills. Every year Canadians throw out enough clothing, carpets, and curtains to fill Toronto’s Rogers Centre three times.

While we can take steps to reclaim a greater percentage of this material, we must also examine why we are creating this vast volume of waste in the first place. Figures from the UK show that people are simply buying more: in 2007 the average woman bought 34 pieces of clothing, up almost 80 percent from just 10 years earlier. What is the reason for the dramatic expansion of our wardrobes?

Some experts blame “fast fashion”—manufacturers are working with shorter production cycles, with some generating up to 15 “seasons” per year. This near-continuous stream of new fashions from factory to store creates a sense of urgency among shoppers to buy before new stock arrives.

Coupled with the dominance of big-box retailers and large-scale overseas production, a culture of low-cost, disposable clothing has evolved. Although consumers perceive they’re getting a deal on their latest purchases, underpaid factory workers and overtaxed landfills pay the price in the end.

Enter Slow Fashion. Like the Slow Food movement that inspires its principles (slowfood.com), Slow Fashion eschews the breakneck pace of modern life, challenging us to fortify our connections with clothing producers while incorporating values of community, sustainability, and diversity.

While fast fashion relies upon voracious consumption, bargain prices, and labour abuses, Slow Fashion values quality, conscientiousness, and long-term thinking. This may sound like a lofty expectation to have of your next party dress, but curbing the volume of clothing that we buy and throw out requires radical solutions.

Slow Fashion is the farmers’ market approach to clothing. Imagine buying your clothing directly from the people who make it. Our wardrobes would consist of fewer, but higher quality, pieces that are handmade or customized to reflect our individuality. Each garment would have its own story which would increase our appreciation of it.

Having a deeper understanding of the value of our clothing, we’d repair or update it to suit our changing tastes. ä When the time came to replace the garment, we’d find a new home for it or return the natural fibres to the earth and begin the cycle of growing once more.

This may sound idyllic, and perhaps you’re picturing jute sackcloth and wondering, where’s the fashion? Luckily, there are plenty of forward-thinking designers who are successfully marrying fashion and function, and producing clothing that takes up the challenge of true sustainability.

UK-based Makepiece (www.makepiece.com) is an outstanding example of a company embodying the principles of Slow Fashion. Locally raised sheep produce the fleece for their wool, which is then spun into yarn within 20 miles of the studio. Some sheep naturally produce fleece in grey, black, or brown, which reduces the need for harmful dyes.

Local knitters and lace-makers create unique designs by hand, and garments travel as few miles as possible from production to purchase. Disposal is even addressed on the company website, where customers are reminded that the pieces can be composted when they are worn out.

Local designers in every city provide the opportunity to embrace slow principles. Smaller-scale production results in quality products made with personal investment and virtually guarantees that you’ll never see your outfit walking down the street in front of you.

Work is often done on-site, keeping packaging, waste, and fuel consumption to a minimum. Contact with the designers themselves means that your requests for sustainable fabrics go straight to the top and can influence next year’s collection.

Bold and innovative Canadian designers are addressing the question of sustainability from the other end of the spectrum by tackling waste already being produced by the fashion industry.

Gillian Flower, ND, is a naturopathic doctor and research resident at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. She has an admitted weakness for the wares of local eco-designers.

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