Green Fashion Ain’t Green by Canada Guy

Green Fashion is the latest trend. Everywhere you go there are new boutiques popping up selling new sustainable clothing that will help reduce pollution and fight global warming. At least, that’s the general sales line. In reality they are just profiteers cashing in on environmental concerns and promoting yet more overconsumption.

First, before getting into specifics, I should note that the entire idea of “fashion” itself is consumerist. Fashion means following trends and continually buying new clothes in order to be cool or “in style.” God forbid you are caught dead wearing last year’s style, or wearing something out of season! The entire idea of fashion is antithetical to being green. Being green means reducing consumption and reusing things as much as possible, the whole reduce, reuse, recycle concept.

Popular environmental sites frequently publish articles about new “green” clothing or footwear. This is often very expensive and the environmental benefits are sometimes questionable. Here’s one example of expensive trendy shoes with nicknames like Barack and Biden. This is the type of thing I might expect to see on The Onion and I wasn’t immediate sure this wasn’t a spoof. Here’s another ridiculous example, they have $150 T-shirts and $2,600 Blazers! Save the world baby!

If you want your clothing to have less of an impact on the environment, the answer is easy. Wear your clothes longer, and repair or patch them when they get old or damaged. Once they reach the end of their usable lives, save as much of the material as you can, which you can use to repair other clothing down the road. Some of the material might be useful for other purposes as well, especially for those with sewing skills. As I mentioned elsewhere, reduction and reuse are much more effective than recycling.

In families there has long been a custom of passing down clothing from one child to another as they grow. Because children grow quickly, this means the clothing often has little use and can be used for many more years by younger children, as they grow into it. For families with few children, the clothes can be sold or given away to neighbours who have their own children to clothe. To facilitate this even more, there’s no general reason why many clothes can’t also be passed down from girl to boy, or boy to girl. T-shirts, jeans, button up shirts, coats, hats and many other items are frequently just as suitable for one gender as another. Used or vintage clothing is another great source of supplies, and again helps with reuse.

There is a benefit to making clothes with reliable, long lasting, low-impact material. If quality materials can be grown or produced locally in a sustainable way, these can be used as supplies for local clothing manufacturers. There is no need for speciality, high-end retailers to sell special “green” clothing. If the longevity of existing clothes is extended, and the pool of clothing reused for a much longer time, then the amount of new clothing required is greatly reduced, making smaller-scale local production more feasible.

In the end, the vast majority of so-called “green” fashion is too expensive for the majority of people, let alone anyone in the third world, though I’m sure it makes some rich people feel like they are doing their part for the environment. It promotes consumerism and excessive turnover in personal wardrobes. It is wasteful, and largely unnecessary. I’m sure it’s very profitable, but that sure don’t make it green.

Canada Guy is the author of Self Destructive Bastards, a blog dedicated to environmental issues. He is a former IT worker living in Toronto, Canada.

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