My lovely friend Clare Press, Marie Claire Australia’s fashion editor-at-large, has written a book called Wardrobe Crisis. It’s about ethical fashion, which, Clare says we often treat as an oxymoron, like “diet butter” or “paid volunteer”.
Clare raises stuff we need to know, like: conventional cotton farming accounts for 25 per cent of the world’s pesticides use, leather tanneries in unregulated countries pump out wastewater full of heavy metals, the dyeing of denim turns rivers blue, and it’s not unusual for factories to incinerate excess fabric or garments that are surplus to sales.
She writes a chapter about my green shorts and my practice of not going to the shops for up to 13 months at a time.
I loved the concept (of a book on all this). I wrote the forward. Then asked Clare if she could share her favourite tips for being sustainably fashionable.
Over to you Presso…
A recent survey found that American women regularly wear just 10 per cent of the clothes they own, yet when confronted by a crazy mess in their wardrobes, more than 60 per cent suspect the answer is to buy more. I’m sure it’s a similar story for Aussie women.
Here’s a revolutionary idea: how about we stop buying clothes on a whim, and start buying them thoughtfully,