Fashionopolis

The revolution is not only going to be born from the makers. We all have to step up. Buy less. Wash our clothes differently. Repair or upcycle them more. Consider the impact of the material they are made of. Consider the supply chain that produces them. Consider the tenets of the company that created and distributed them. We need to fashion a personal style that does more good for the world than ill

Slavery, child labor, and prison labor have all been integral parts of the supply chain at one time or another—including today

“The original, pre-industrial definition of fashion was to make things together—a collective that is a convivial, sociable process we use to communicate with each other. The current definition is the production, marketing, and consumption of clothes—an industrialized system for making money.”

we will buy 63 percent more fashion—from 62 million tons to 102 million tons

Clothes are our initial and most basic tool of communication. They convey our social and economic status, our occupation, our ambition, our self-worth. They can empower us, imbue us with sensuality. They can reveal our respect, or our disregard, for convention.

On average—average—the piece would be worn seven times before getting tossed

I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?

It was dyed and lettered with coloring agents that, while decomposing in landfill, would poison the earth and groundwater

Conventionally grown cotton is one of agriculture’s most polluting crops. Almost one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of hazardous pesticides is required to grow one hectare—or two and a half acres—of the fluff

where there is little or no safety and labor oversight and wages are generally poverty level, or lower