Seven Ideas On Circular Fashion

The streets on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon are lined with cherry blossoms in April. They grow beside wisteria vines and stunning fuchsia gardens. Big, old trees are covered in moss — the romantic result of a damp, mild, West Coast climate. The effect of the large, cotton candy blooms and the towering mossy trees was novel and delightful to me, having flown from my home in the forest in Quebec. In April, where I live, there is still snow.

I went to Portland in April 2019 to immerse myself in the Sustainable Fashion Forum. Hundreds of sustainable fashion designers, journalists, experts and influencers were gathering to go deep on the issues and trends influencing sustainable fashion.

I knew I was in the right place when I walked shyly up to the hip Hotel Lucia for the opening reception, and a group of women in tailored linen rompers and flowing dresses walked down the sidewalk together. In my memory, they walked in slow motion, but surely that can’t be true. I was out of my comfort zone. An introverted bookworm who didn’t know a soul at the event, I was also 4 months pregnant at a VIP reception with bespoke cocktails. A long way from my quiet cabin in the woods.

Downstairs in the hotel bathroom, I zipped myself awkwardly into the only fancy outfit that (sort of) fit around my growing belly. I self-consciously put on lipstick, and walked nervously into the reception. I needn’t have worried. This group was all here to discuss a shared passion: how to transform the fashion industry into one that is sustainable and just. There was a lot to talk about.

Over the next couple of days, I was immersed in panels and discussions that centered on the many facets of sustainable fashion. Material use and reuse. Circular fashion, where today’s clothing can be tomorrow’s fabrics and resources. Inclusivity of all people. Justice and rights for workers. Changing ownership structures, including rental and resale. Sustainable business models and transparent supply chains. My pen could barely move fast enough to take notes about the in-depth, frank conversations that took place on the forum stage — and in the one-on-one conversations that followed.

One year later, as I sift through reams of notes and interviews to write the fashion chapter in my book, there are a few key lessons that strike me about circular fashion. I have pulled these together from my time at the forum, and combined them with months of in-depth research and thinking into circular fashion. These are seven key lessons we need to keep in mind as we design a world of circular fashion — and as we design other circular industries, too.

One. We need to solve many problems at once.

It isn’t enough to “just” focus on sustainable materials. As we reinvent an industry that has become one of the top-polluting and wasteful industries, we also have to recognize that it is has contributed to poor working conditions and exclusivity to people based on race or size. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redesign fashion so that it is environmentally-friendly and inclusive ­and supportive of workers’ rights. We can look, for example, at the connections between habitat loss and marginalized communities. There are already good initiatives that confront many problems at once. Take, for example, the story of Helping Hands from Robin Allen. She talked about this project outside of Portland where women donate clothes, and then a week later they return to “shop” the donated items and raise money for women facing domestic violence. Those same women who survive domestic violence then select clothing for their size and style, and receive a VIP experience to reduce shame and stigma. Many solutions at once.

Two. We need to consume less clothing.

It sounds obvious: buy less. But too often we are sold the idea that we can continue to consume fashion at a great rate, if only it is organic cotton or if it is made out of old water bottles (though those efforts are important, too). In reality, the best and most effective way to lighten our environmental footprint is to buy less. To wear clothing longer. To mend that which is ripped. To make do and experiment with an outfit we already have, rather than buying something new. In the panel Repair, Repurpose, Reinvent: Extending the Life of Our Clothes, Erin Wallace from ThredUp said, “There is an overproduction problem. Only 10–20% of what we give away can be absorbed by thrift stores”. As Nicole Bassett from the Renewal Workshop said, “We need to consume less. We need to think before we buy something”. Good questions to ask ourselves are: Do I need this? How many times will I wear this? Where did this item of clothing come from, and where will it go?

Three. Let’s build relationships with the people who are designing and making our clothing.

The anonymous, big box approach to fashion isn’t sustainable. Not only is it environmentally destructive and the driver of a huge, insurmountable waste problem, but it also hides the supply chain from us so that we don’t know where our clothing comes from, who made them, or what working conditions they endured. We don’t know what chemicals are in it, what damage was done to ecosystems, or what injustices were faced by workers. By buying high quality clothing in less quantity from small companies, we can support creativity, sustainability and good jobs. (Think #WhoMadeMyClothes from Fashion Revolution, a campaign that sheds light on workers.) And many companies are building relationships with their customers so that they can take their products back when we are done with them, to repurpose them and turn them into something new in one circular, closed loop. Jessica Schreiber, the founder of FABSCRAP, said, “We are at a moment in time where donating has been the only option. Now we have companies who want to create a relationship and take a garment back and be responsible for it.” Her company FABSCRAP takes materials in New York — for example, from Broadway shows — and creates a marketplace for them, engaging the local creative community in the fabric’s reuse. The options are expanding for companies that want to build this kind of relationship, and when we are buying new, we should be reciprocal and build the relationship with them.

Four. Carefully consider materials so that they are actually recycled.

Not all recycling is created equal. Most of us know by now that recycling is often just a guise for waste. This might be because there aren’t facilities that are up to the amount of waste that is produced, or because materials are not actually recyclable. Textile recycling, however, has been around for centuries. Nicole Bassett from Renewal Workshop talked about watching the process of a sweater becoming yarn in Italy. We should return to textile recycling for the gold standard in how fashion is done. For textile recycling, the best candidates are wool, 100% cotton, 100% polyester or sometimes a cotton/poly blend. There are new innovations for recycling textiles — for example, cellulose recycling — but I am always wary of relying too heavily on these, because they take time to scale and reducing and reusing clothing should come first. Also, by buying high-quality items that retain resale value, clothing can be reused many times before recycling is on the table.

Five. Fashion needs to be circular from the very design stage.

It is not enough to try and fix the problem after it is already designed into our clothing and the fashion industry. Clothing should be designed with its whole life cycle in mind. There needs to be a creative, sustainable plan for how each and every garment is going to biodegrade, or be dismantled, or recycled, or resold. The fabrics, the zippers, the stitches, the timelessness of the design: all of these need to be considered in the lens of environmental sustainability. What happens to this specific fabric once it has a hole in it? Will this style still be desired in two years? Can this zipper be easily removed so it can be reused in another garment? Does a designer’s company build sustainability into its very business model? These questions need to be asked from ideation.

Six. Marginalized communities need to be seen, heard and included as fashion becomes more sustainable.

People in marginalized communities have been talking about more sustainable, inclusive fashion for years, and their voices need to be centered in the conversations around sustainable fashion. For example, second-hand shopping is gentrifying, and as it becomes more mainstream we need to make sure that marginalized people are not sidelined. There also needs to be a democratization of sustainable fashion, so that it belongs to all people and not a small elite that mimics the elitism and inequality of the fashion world we are trying to leave behind. As Cassie Ridgeway from Altar PDX said, “We are working together to create a movement.” The folks at Mara Hoffman agreed, saying we need to share resources and, “We can only advance collectively”. This will be one of the defining differences between the new, circular, sustainable fashion world and the old one. Fashion stands at the crossroads of many socioeconomic injustices and we need to look at them all honestly, wholeheartedly and creatively. Women, for example, are most affected by climate change and are also a disproportionate force in the fashion world. How then can we think about involving women both as leaders and as communities who are affected by fashion and climate? Slow, circular fashion companies need to make sure that all sizes are represented in their collections. We need to think about race, gender and size in how we design and market sustainable fashion.

Seven. We need to change our definition of value.

Sustainable fashion is about value, not cost. Fast fashion has been all about low cost, and we all know where that has led us: immense waste, polluted water, massive greenhouse gas emissions, poor working conditions, factory disasters, habitat loss, clutter and the lie of shopping therapy, cheap quality, and the stealing of creative designs by big companies. It is time to shift the conversation from cost to value, while also making sure that costs are not prohibitively high and marginalizing communities). As Eden Dawn, the Style Editor at Portland Monthly, said, “We need to be changing the conversation of value from cost to one of importance”. We need to shift from having a lot of disposable clothes to having a few, carefully selected, high-quality items that are treasured for their inherent value: creativity, inclusivity, and sustainability.

This week, I am thinking fondly of those cherry blossoms outside my sweet Airbnb in Portland. Thinking of those beautiful pink blossoms makes me nostalgic for many things: warm West Coast air, being pregnant, gathering with groups of people, and a solo trip with my paper and pen. It also strikes me that I read about cherry blossoms just this week, in the classic Cradle to Cradle by Michael Braungart and William McDonough. As they explain, cherry trees do not exist just for themselves. They create this incredible beauty, and perhaps a small minority of the blossoms and fruits fall to the ground and perhaps germinate and grow into a new cherry tree. But. These trees also create habitat for many creatures, provide beauty for passersby, and feed organisms and microorganisms. Their copious, breathtaking blossoms fall to the ground and nourish the soil that is their home.

And there is the connection to nature. Our approach to disrupting and reinventing the fashion industry needs to follow nature’s lead. We need to create a world of fashion that brings joy to people, flourishes within nature’s cycles, contributes to collective equality, and nourishes the very soil we walk on.