Using Better Materials
Grace dedicated herself to solving this issue by creating 100% natural, plastic free clothing that is compostable when consumers are done using it.
“Over 11 million pounds of underwear go into the landfill every day in the U.S.,” Grace explained. “These are garments that you wear daily that don’t have a clear secondhand option at end of life. You cannot donate or sell old underwear.”
Kent, Grace’s company, is primarily direct-to-consumer and provides customers with comfort, environmental mission alignment, and style.
“We have to make sure we are checking all the boxes,” Grace said. “That allows us to create the most impact and longevity.”
Materials are the next frontier to examine, agrees Alexis Zoto, associate professor at the USC Roski School of Art and Design who joined the symposium for a fireside chat.
“If you think about making a cloth, it’s very accessible. You can use anything in your house: bed sheets, dry cleaning bags, old shoelaces, wrecked jeans, dog harnesses. You can also take an old sweater and take it apart and make it into something else,” Zoto said.
In the classroom, Zoto says sustainability is a primary driver in teaching design students.
“How do you make choices? Are there other ways to do that? Designers are creative people and they are the precise people to figure out how to change the industry,” Zoto said
Recycling Excess
The Fixx Collective approaches sustainability from the angle of reducing consumption.
“You are each your own brand,” Chen Hutton said. “You can have your own strategy to minimize your impact.”
Among the suggestions she shared from her experience as a secondhand stylist, she spoke about creating a “capsule collection,” meaning identifying a minimalist collection of clothes that can be mixed and matched to create multiple outfits.
“It also comes down to be a conscious consumer,” Chen Hutton said. “Each one of us can make an impact by changing how we shop. The number one sustainable thing you can do is re-wear items in your wardrobe.”
From purchasing choices to designer decisions, consumers and industry leaders share responsibility to maximize fashion options with minimal environmental impact.
“I always thought other people were going to solve these complex problems,” Mavis said. “That all changed rather suddenly during Covid. My eyes opened to how many problems there were and how few had been solved. I learned about plastics in our clothing and once I learned that, I couldn’t go back.”
Since then, Mavis has dedicated herself to keeping as much clothing out of the trash as possible.
“We are a 95 percent e-commerce consumer base. People think you can order whatever you want and return what you don’t need. But the sad truth is, a lot of times, it’s cheaper for companies to throw out the items that are returned than return them to the shelf,” Mavis said.
At Helpsy, Mavis works directly with brands to reduce waste.
“Traditional fashion brands either throw out, donate, or destroy their unsold merchandise. Our role is to offer them incentives to not do the bad thing. If we can help them do a less bad thing, that’s better in my book,” Mavis said.
Helpsy works with brands to understand their values, goals, and challenges, and to help them sell excess inventory or build a resale market.
But it doesn’t have to be more of the same. Recycling can also breed creativity and exciting moments in fashion.
“If you think back to the pandemic,” Zoto said, “People were making all these crafts. That to me is the most interesting — things that are one of a kind. I have T-shirts that have grease stains and I’ll use needlework or heat-pressed vinyl to cover them. It’s new and cute and it’s all me.”
At the end of the day, it’s about making conscious decisions. Consumers have the responsibility to think about what they want to support, put on their bodies, and take part in.
“As an individual, you can make a difference,” Chen Hutton said. “We cannot rely on these companies to make the difference for us.”
To watch the symposium, please click here.
