Student members of VIPs Fund pose in their handmade garments. Photo courtesy of Daphne Matter.
The biggest week in fashion is here. All eyes are on the runways in Paris: Who will be there? What will they wear? What is the cutting edge of haute couture?
Of course, not all of us can afford to wear the latest styles fresh from the world’s maisons, so we often turn to fast-fashion retailers in order to participate in aesthetic trends. But our planet cannot sustain these habits, which cause an enormous amount of textile waste that unfairly burdens communities in the global South and actively harms the environment.
LSA students in VIPs Fund are considering the adverse environmental effects of the fashion industry and working to hone a new cutting edge: sustainability in fashion. At VIPs—which stands for Very Important Primates—students make and sell their one-of-a-kind garments while raising money and awareness for effective resource management and community-based ecological conservation. Here’s what you need to know.
Most of your clothes are plastic.
Go ahead and check the tag on the shirt you’re wearing. Read the label on a package of socks. Polyester, nylon, acrylic, and spandex are all petroleum derivatives, and when we throw old clothing away, it never biodegrades. Read that again: never. VIPs Fund president and LSA senior Daphne Matter cites cases of textile-based pollution in Ghana, Kenya, and the Atacama Desert in Chile as evidence of the long-term damage such clothing can cause.
You can connect your artistic hobbies to sustainable fashion values.
Matter started crocheting garments from recycled materials in college. “It’s an alternative to fast fashion,” says Matter, a Program in the Environment and evolutionary anthropology double major. “Any time you’re making your own clothes or you’re buying from a maker who does it by hand, you’re choosing not to participate in the fast fashion industry. Our organization takes it a step further: We’ve made sure that we’re not only engaging in slow fashion, but we’re doing everything with sustainable materials.”
VIPs Sustainability Committee director Anya Renzi wants people to know how accessible slow fashion is for many people. “Yes, yarn can be expensive,” says Renzi, an ecology and evolutionary biology major. “But I get about 70 percent of my yarn from thrift stores—huge bags of yarn for five bucks.” And, they add, making or updating clothing doesn’t require that you learn crocheting or how to make a daisy stitch. “You don’t need to own a sewing machine to be able to sew impressive garments; it’s easy to do thrift flips [by hand].” Obtaining materials secondhand becomes another form of recycling: waste destined for the landfill transforms into something with value.
There are multiple ways to participate in sustainable fashion.
Both Matter and Renzi acknowledge how the stereotype of slow fashion—doing everything by hand and from scratch—is unattainable for most people. But there are many other ways to take part. VIPs, for example, uses secondhand materials to make new clothes.
Renzi argues that the most important part of sustainable fashion is thinking about consumption. “Every piece of clothing I buy, I think: Am I going to need this? Will I wear this in the future? And if not, I refrain from buying it. The big thing is forgetting about trends and thinking about what’s going to make you happy and what you’re actually going to keep and use.”
Sustainable fashion connects us to communities around the world.
VIPs Fund’s international efforts have linked LSA students with artisan cooperatives in Madagascar. The team has connected with women artists who live and work in the capital city of Antananarivo, where a great source of local pollution is textile waste. The women, who collaborate through a cooperative called Fanomba, take deadstock dumped by fast-fashion companies and make it into yarn for themselves and others to use. With this negative-waste yarn, the artists make one-of-a-kind tote bags and other accessories that they can sell to gain financial independence and build careers as designers.
While individuals can do their part to reduce textile waste, big brands must take accountability for their contributions to climate disaster, the students say.
Because of the difference between haute couture and the average consumer’s shopping habits, Renzi underscores the importance of general accountability. “It’s important for couture brands to acknowledge their contribution to climate disaster and climate debt. Frequently, when things go out of style in these fashion houses, they are the same people who will dump their textile trash in the global South.” These companies, Renzi contends, are still contributing to the amount of textile waste and carbon emissions in the world, as well as the number of human rights violations.
“World-famous brands have a huge platform,” Matter points out. “I feel like they do have a responsibility to make some sort of statement. They have an important role to play in making sustainable fashion couture. They set the tone for the entire industry. And it wouldn’t be enough to just make a statement, they must take a stance on the environment and back it up with tangible actions. Doing this, famous brands could serve as a positive example to pave the way for the rise of sustainability in fashion.”
Fashion is everywhere, even if you aren’t sartorially minded. Matter and Renzi’s advice: Whether you’re poring over Vogue’s latest editorial or scrolling Shein for their latest product drop, stay aware of your consumer behavior and be proactive about promoting sustainable habits.
