cottonbro studio
At first glance, fashion is a sublime expression of the taste and aesthetic philosophy expressed by societies over millennia. Looking deeper into it, it becomes conspicuous that dress is the result of ingenious human observation and collaboration with the healthy ecosystems in which humans have evolved. Cotton, silk, wool, leather… These are all natural materials. Production of these fabrics relies on the liaison between these biological processes and human work.
The sun that hits your skin and the air that you breathe out are transformed into a superb natural fiber when the cotton plant combines them with vast amounts of water and nutrients in the soil. Plants grow and leave their leaves green and lush for silkworms to eat off of the white mulberry trees, so that when they pupate they secrete a liquid protein that hardens and results in lustrous silk threads. Sheep eat these plants, which gives them the excess energy that makes their fleeces grow into wool. When their lives come to an end, their hides are cleaned, and after tanning, the result is durable, flexible, resistant leather.
Observation and ingenuity by humans who lived so long ago have amounted to the gift of today’s fashion. The industry has grown. Globalization and favorable tax incentives have contributed to the boom of fast fashion, while the discovery of other natural processes that also took place long ago prompted human creativity to develop petroleum into polyester. A cheaper fabric to produce, overproduction came into play.
Fashion is at its most accessible point ever in the rich world. Today, everyone with a minimum wage salary can afford to look the part by buying cheap clothing that was produced by people working, in some cases, under inadequate conditions — to put it mildly. Loro Piana is not fast fashion, but they might have something to say about that last point.
Consumerism produces a surplus at the cost of an economic and environmental deficit. Production is carried out in foreign countries. A study published in 2018 by the U.S. International Trade Commission found that domestic production represented 2.8% of apparel consumption in 2016. Contributing to a diaspora of jobs, foreign production reduces workforce numbers nationwide and increases dependency on transportation services, routes, and economic fluctuations.
There’s an additional caveat to accept, and it is that the environmental footprint of each garment increases. Polyester disposal adds onto water consumption (a consequence of production) and air pollutants (a consequence of transportation) to the damaging byproducts of a new collection by H&M, Mango, or any brand from Inditex.
According to the U.N., the fashion industry is responsible for more than 8% of global greenhouse emissions. The high volume of production is energy intensive, consuming more energy than the aviation and shipping industries combined. The need for water in fashion is also eye-catching. One pair of denim jeans, made of cotton, requires the use of 1,981 gallons of water to be produced, a quantity that would sustain the water consumption of an individual for around 10 years. Cumulatively, the fashion industry produces about 20% of global wastewater; and all of this happens for 85% of textiles produced to end up in landfills. It’s beyond the point to state that this only further engenders environmental damage.
When laundered, synthetic clothing releases hundreds of thousands of microscopic plastic fibers into wastewater, a study from the University of Plymouth, in the U.K., found. All in all, synthetic products such as polyester, nylon or acrylic are responsible for an estimated 16% to 35% of all microplastics entering global oceans, according to the European Environment Agency.
Oceans are essential for oxygen production, climate regulation and marine biodiversity. As a consequence, the degradation of marine environments triggers a cascade effect across the entire global biosphere. Cottons, silks, wools and leathers need a healthy environment. Cooperation with a blooming ecosystem has always been essential for fashion, and so the adverse effects of fast fashion are slowly killing the foundations on which the industry was built. Fashion is not plastic; it is a human revelation of ingenuity, taste and reverence for nature.
Producing natural fibers also carries an environmental toll. Although one that has a substantially lower impact over time, overproduction through mass manufacture of these materials will lead to the same problem: it is not fashion itself that engenders environmental risks, but fashion in huge quantities.
What to do
Embrace secondhand. Thrift shops often house cheaper and better-quality garments. The metamorphosis of fashion trends, from status-signaling through grandiose displays of the brand’s symbol to individuality and self-expression, means that clothes that have a story take precedence. Prada displayed the very same idea in their fall/winter 2026 collection. So did Soshiotsuki. And Dior, for their spring/summer 2027 collection.
Big fashion houses are running toward producing clothes that do not necessarily look like the perfect fit; clothes that were artificially broken and then visibly fixed; clothes that had been dyed with yellowish stains that mimic coffee marks. Even the warm tonality of Paul Smith’s spring/summer 2026 collection desired to emulate fabrics that had been worn out by their use under the sun.
Used clothes are not something to be afraid of. They are reasonable in price, stylish and fit for purpose. They are even available online. Platforms like eBay or Vinted offer a vast array of options that will completely change the spirit of your wardrobe. It’s not like they won’t include synthetic materials. Polyester was introduced in the 1940s, and introduced into mass production in the 1960s and '70s. However, older garments have a higher fabric weight, making clothing thicker and denser, and a higher stitching density — both of which make for more durable fabrics. At the same time, during the '80s and '90s there was a return to natural fibers due to the cultural backlash against stiffer 100% polyester clothing. Clothes from that time seem to be in better condition than clothes bought and washed twice over this past year.
Clothes will still be produced in mass quantities. In some respects, there are benefits to this. Everyone can dress nicely for not so high a price. But taking part in this continuous loop will have catastrophic consequences for fashion itself. When cooperation with nature is destroyed, so is the industry’s ability to produce challenging, complex, semiannual collections. If temperatures keep rising, who is going to be wearing a fall/winter collection in 50 years?
Fashion does not need any more clothes for now. It needs to be saved from itself.
