Despite the proliferation of fast fashion, the growing shopping trend in fashion-conscious countries such as Australia, the UK, the US and France is to buy less, buy well and rewear. As it turns out, this aligns perfectly with one of Taylor’s favourite Vivienne Westwood quotes: “Buy less, choose well, make it last. Quality rather than quantity: That is true sustainability.”
When I looked it up, I found the quote ends: “If people only bought beautiful things rather than rubbish, we wouldn’t have climate change!” (Vogue)
But how do we educate the masses to recognise ‘beautiful things’ when they see them? And do most people care, or do we humans just want what we want?
Moving on from the abstemious one-dress-all-year rewearing blogs, clothes-interested consumers are flocking to support circular fashion by acquiring, rewearing and reselling classic quality clothing and accessories through brand-specific buy/sell/swap Facebook groups and websites such as Vestiaire Collective, who in March launched their major “Parlez-Vous” advertising campaign aimed at expanding their share of the US fashion market. Although smaller companies have gained a following in the vintage fashion market before, what’s different here is that Vestiaire Collective is multinational and competing directly with fashion manufacturing companies – not just in the same space but in the same visual language recognisable from the ad campaigns of luxury brands like Chanel, Miu Miu, and of Fashion Week itself. Meanwhile, an active social media presence focusing on giveaways and voxpops in the streets of fashion capitals (including Hong Kong and Singapore), and brand education, has bolstered the expansion efforts – in one video, a French-accented Vestiaire Collective expert shows the difference between a true Fendi baguette bag and a fake.
Understanding that celebrity, not good tailoring, is the major influencer in fashion now, the company has also partnered with some of the best-known Hollywood stylists to spread the word, including Elizabeth Stewart (who works with Julia Roberts, among others) who in one reel invites us to “adopt pre-used clothing” and “rewear and buy used” as a way to look after the planet and Tara Swennan (who styles the much-discussed looks of Kristen Stewart, among others). Swennan favours sustainable brands such as Vivienne Westwood and Bettter, who upcycle men’s suits into new garments, and actively promotes sustainable fashion brands, including vegan, in her interview press and social media reels.
In an era where, as discussed in the Kyle Chayka book Filterworld, style and taste are increasingly being determined by social media algorithms rather than any localised or personalised history of influences (cue the infamous Zara polkadot dress), the fashion industry – as opposed to the fast fashion industry – has faith consumers are ready for individualised looks built of a mix of sustainable new pieces and rewearing vintage or even six seasons ago. (Octogenarians are killing it here.)
Westwood is absolutely right, but it’s complex. As I spoke with Sally Wallace, Julie Sullivan, Intan Kallus and Mary Moran, pals from Taylor’s Clothes Clinic classes here in the Valley, this tension arose repeatedly. Taylor put it well when I’d visited the studio: “It’s all very well for me to sit here and say ‘Don’t buy cheap rubbish’ but I’m in a financial position, and have education, which gives me that choice.”
Many people don’t have that choice, particularly in the current economic climate. Despite the alleged slave labour practices and poor-quality garments of online retail giants like Shein – mercilessly satirised recently on US show Saturday Night Live – consumers are not turning away from a top that costs less than a coffee and is delivered to the door.
In the Shoalhaven we have 10 textile recycling collection points, including one in Kangaroo Valley, and “Council collects 80-90 tonnes annually from residents dropping off their old, unwanted clothing and bedding linen,” the Waste Contracts Officer emails me. (If you search “Textile Recycling” on the Council website, you’ll see what to put in the bright blue bins at the tip.) The contract with DLG Australia has been going since December 2021. This tonnage does not include the off-casts Shoalhaven residents deem suitable for charity, much of which is not actually of a quality to be resold (ABC TV’s War on Waste).
Pushed for a number of years now in the top fashion magazines, sustainability messaging now coincides with certain governments moving to restrict or even outlaw any fashion manufacturing that is not circular. There is Plibersek’s Seamless scheme here; a circular economy Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework in the European Union, with a similar goal of full circularity by 2030; while ASEAN held EPR stakeholder discussions in March 2024 in Bangkok, with the aim of achieving a regional push towards circularity in several key industries. In France, the Refashion scheme, launched in late-2023, gives consumers a rebate for repairing shoes or clothing with a Refashion-registered business, with €7 for shoes and up to €25 for clothing back in the consumer’s pocket at time of payment. Designed to “close the loop” and at the same time support existing skills industries – and France’s clothing industry – the rebates are subsidised by the government as part of their response to the 700,000 tones of clothing thrown away each year and two-thirds of it ending up in landfill. Refashion also encourages circularity: it is hoped manufacturers will develop repairs departments in order to be able to offer the rebate to customers, with the ecology benefit of less waste and the business bonus of deepening brand loyalty.
In Australia’s Seamless scheme, a levy imposed on the retailers signed to the scheme would fund projects that reduced clothing waste, directly and through education and research. The intention is full circularity by 2030. Although big names like David Jones have signed on, there are vocal critics – including Kmart Group and the Coalition, who claim Australia does not yet have the recycling infrastructure necessary and the levy risks being passed on to consumers who are already under financial pressure. At June – the deadline Plibersek gave the industry effectively to “sign up or else” (SMH) – not much movement has happened. We are nowhere near the 60 per cent sign-up target set for 2027.
Away from ‘big fashion’, small designer-manufacturers such as Newcastle-born High Tea with Mrs Woo, who offer a repairs and remodelling service to customers, and Australian Indigenous brand Native Swimwear, whose swimwear used to be lycra, fish nets and plastic bottles, are taking waste issues into their own hands. In fact, Indigenous fashion brands across the Western world seem to be leading the shift to holistic sustainability commitments across all levels of design and manufacturing, including sustainability of culture and cultural respect, rather than a focus just on waste or ethical materials. Perhaps the best-known voice for this movement in Australia is the founder of First Nations Fashion and Design, Grace Lillian Lee, who is a proud promoter of her dream of a one hundred-percent Indigenous industry, from clothes to models to make-up and tech crew, and is creating strong relationships and mentoring schemes to meet that goal.
Mentoring is key. Many of us in Taylor’s Clothes Clinic technical sewing classes had, like Taylor, learned sewing from our mothers. I was lucky enough to come from a long line of spinners, weavers and sewers and would look longingly at some dress or shirt in a department store only to have my mum scrutinise the dodgy seams or sloppy cut and deem it unworthy of the price tag. Without this casual education in cut and quality, let alone the skills to sew or remodel garments, or some mentor to talk you through the mathematics of ‘cost per wear’, a person might never understand what quality looks like or that it’s worth purchasing.
Perhaps this is where we can begin here in the Valley, with education? Through Taylor’s classes all of us learned and developed our practice, naturally discovering it helped us reduce waste. Sullivan developed her pattern-design skillset and has since been remodelling clothes for herself, and to suit loved ones with limited mobility due to age or illness: wider openings, easier fastenings. Moran was inspired from Taylor’s classes to attend a couture sewing class, learning that in couture “there are twenty-six measurements of the body. Twenty-six!” Like Sullivan, she finds her own clothes fit better because most brands don’t make for small people; she wears her own endlessly. Kallus has moved to Bowral’s Loom for classes (since Taylor’s ended with Covid) and is working on a couple of remodelling projects: a vintage dress and a quilt from daughter Jelihah’s baby clothes. She hates waste and, like me, will always patch and repair over discarding. She also tries to use her clothing waste for something. One example is the beautiful quilt she made as a Children’s Medical Research Institute fundraiser with the students of Kangaroo Valley public, using scraps of unwanted denim and donated Laura Ashley fabric for the backing, and a lot of volunteer labour; another is the yarn she makes out of old tee-shirts, which she uses to tie up her roses and daughter Jelihah used to crochet her prize-winning rug for this year’s Show. Wallace still sews for herself when she has time, and her dad, and daughter Molly Jones created a beautiful Textile and Design project for her HSC. Jones’s top, dress and pants design can fit a Small, Medium or Large, still looking good, thanks to important areas like the neckline also being adjustable. Jones wanted to design garments for her own age-group that could prevent the common frustration of online purchases as well as reducing waste.
“The sizing being so rigid creates a lot of waste, because hardly anyone is the sizes they sell and there’s usually no way to adjust the fit.” As well as doing research into business and production choices that would reduce waste, Jones sourced the fabric and findings second-hand, from Achieve Australia in Marrickville. She’s now enrolled in a Bachelor of Design in Fashion & Textiles at UTS, which she’ll start next year. And she’s reducing waste from sister Charlotte too, who’s happy to pay for alterations. If this is the future of fashion, we might just be in good hands.
