Mud Jeans are circular

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Most thinking people know of the waste and exploitation involved in globalised fast-fashion consumption that annually generates up to 80 billion garments worldwide, yet few are in a position to step up with an alternative.

Bert van SonDivergent thinker, risk taker and change maker Bert van Son, right, has pioneered an ethical and sustainable model by leasing garments so that his European-based company Mud Jeans retains and recycles the raw materials.

After 30 years in the textile industry, Bert knows the downside inherent in the traditional supply-demand model. In the Netherlands alone, 135 million kilograms of discarded clothing are burned each year, diminishing these resources to ash while fuelling climate-change with more CO2 discharged to the atmosphere. An appalling waste that’s replicated around the world.

In 2010, Bert decided to use his experience, money and networks to fashion a kinder clothing model that values resources and people at the same time as reducing waste and pollution. How good is that? A circular model, like a wheel, with resources going ‘round and ‘round. Beginning with the end in mind.

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A slow clothing approach

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Jane Milburn at ABC 702

Jane Milburn wears eco-dyed merino at ABC 702 Sydney

A transformational shift during the past two decades in the way we source, use and discard our clothing has major social and environmental implications caused by increasing volumes, changing fibres and loss of repair skills.

These changes in clothing culture brought Jane Milburn of Textile Beat to Ku-Ring-Gai Council in Sydney on Saturday (June 25) to workshop more sustainable approaches, including reviving garments in your wardrobe.  Jane was also interviewed by ABC 702’s Wendy Harmer about slow clothing, audio link below.

“Local councils report that about 4 percent of the household waste is textiles and most people know they can donate unwanted clothing for charitable recycling,” Ms Milburn said.

“Charities says about 15 percent of these donations are on-sold through op shops, 15 percent are ragged, 15 percent go to landfill and 55 percent are exported into the second-hand clothing trade.”

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A meditative process –Tamara Russell

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Melbourne-based Tamara Russell knows firsthand that handmade is so much more satisfying than a quick purchase. For many years, she has been remaking, revamping and reworking her own clothing from other people’s hand-me-downs or op shop finds.

Tamara Russell made a signature wool cardigan from rescued materials for The Slow Clothing Project.

Tamara Russell made a signature wool cardigan from rescued materials for The Slow Clothing Project.

She believes the slow, meditative process of sewing, knitting, crochet and stitching is great for body and soul, slowing one down to enjoy life around them and to be proud of their own creations rather than a quick purchase to follow ‘fashion’ and then disposing of items as they go ‘out of fashion’.

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A conscious maker – Paisley Park

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Paisley Park was raised to be conscious of all that surrounds her, including food, clothing, impacts on people and the environment. As a child her clothes were either made by her mother, hand-me-downs or from charity shops. She was never been interested in fashion, and the idea of creating comfortable practical clothing that can be worn for years appeals greatly.

Paisley Park in the dress she created from cotton offcuts for The Slow Clothing Project

Paisley Park in the dress she created from organic cotton offcuts for The Slow Clothing Project. Photo by Jo Hammond.

“I am fascinated by neuropsychology and also its impact in regards to sociology so I could write a book on my perspective of consumerism. In short though, we need to be educating the younger generations and allowing them access to develop empathy over the way that things in our lives are created from growing food, to the production of our power, electronics and clothing to name a few,” Paisley said.

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A sewing way of life – Miriam Gillham

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Slow clothing is way of life for Miriam Gillham. She says sewing is a wonderful means to express unique individual style, to create clothing that is considered, thoughtful, necessary and valuable. She’s made clothes for her family, altered men’s formal wear suits for a part-time job, designed and sewn special occasion gowns, dance and theatre costumes, curtains and soft furnishings. And she makes soft sculptures, textile art embellishment pieces and soft corsets which are embellished with embroidery, beading and fabric manipulation.

Miriam Gillham with the formerly supersized dress she repurposed for daughter for The Slow Clothing Project

Miriam Gillham with the supersized dress she repurposed for her daughter and The Slow Clothing Project

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Making a material difference

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Milburn, Jane FINAL Making a material difference_Page_1Dressing is an everyday action that defines us. Clothes envelop our body to provide protection and privacy. They do for us on the outside what food does on the inside—nourish, warm, engage body and soul. Preferred garments vary with our age, stage, work and wallet—they impact how we feel and how we present to the world.

Clothing changes over time as new designs, techniques and materials become available. We expect a modicum of change in the product itself: that is fashion. Yet in recent decades, the transformational shift in the process of sourcing and shedding clothing has brought changes to substance as well as style.

Most clothing is now made in factories in developing nations where supply chain transparency is limited and workers can be exploited. Fast, cheap food influenced dining in the same way that fast, cheap fashion has changed dressing. As there is rising interest in home cooking and food growing for health and wellbeing, there are pressing ethical and ecological reasons for rethinking our approach to textiles and fashion. It is time to look more closely at where our clothes are coming from, question why they are so cheap, and consider what actions we can take to dress with good conscience. Read more in the Journal of the Home Economics Institute of Australia Journal Vol. 22, No. 1, 2015 Milburn, Jane FINAL Making a material difference

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Be a fashion revolutionary

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Fashion Revolution DayThere is a slow coming to consciousness about the exploitation of people, places and planet that our current clothing culture engenders.

This revolution in fashion was sparked by a Bangladesh factory collapse two years ago when thousands were killed and injured making cheap clothes for Western bods. April 24 has become Fashion Revolution Day.

While global supply chains are churning out clothing choice for the masses – thoughtful consumers are alive to the fact that quick easy on/off-trend fashion comes with invisible price tags of waste, contamination and human suffering. Continue Reading →

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Upcycling 365 days, forever

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Jane Milburn wears upcycledBrisbane-based upcycler Jane Milburn spent every day of 2014 restyling cast-off clothing and engaging others in the process of refashioning old into ‘new’ as part of the eco-social change project Sew it Again.

Using simple home-sewing skills to snip-and-tuck unworn textiles (mainly linen, cotton, wool and silk from op shops and friends) Jane then posted the upcycles at sewitagain.com to demonstrate ways to re-new rather than buy-new.

“Every day, we eat and we dress. We are now more conscious of our food and it is time to become conscious of our clothing and its footprint on the world. A global rethink about the way we dress is beginning, as people question where clothing is made and what from, is it ethical and sustainable, and does it exploit people or planet?” Jane said.

As an agricultural scientist turned creative, Jane is raising awareness about the ecological impacts of our cheap/disposable fashion culture that consumes finite resources and generates textile waste at an alarming rate. Continue Reading →

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Clothing in a material world

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Never at any time in our history have there been so many clothes in the world, and another 69.7m tonnes added every year. Some clothing is now so cheap it is considered disposable. The fact we don’t make time to value or care for clothes like we did in past generations is leading to textile waste on a massive scale, with millions of tonnes of clothing going prematurely to landfill.

The fastest-growing household waste in Australia is clothing, according to a Council of Textile and Fashion Industries of Australia which said Australians sent $500 million of fashion clothing to the tip in 2013. It suggested this waste could be reduced if we removed spills quickly using baby wipes or sloshing with water to stop stains setting. And it said if we are like other Western countries, we only recycle 18 per cent of clothing compared to 55 per cent of paper and 63 per cent of metal.  Continue Reading →

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Choosing to consume, or not

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We humans are autonomous, we make our own decisions, or so we think. But watch this documentary The Men Who Made Us Spend and understand how our ‘free choice’ is easily manipulated by a few making lots of money while our environment is junked with unnecessary resource use and waste.

In The Men Who Made Us Spend, investigative journalist Jacques Peretti explains how planned obsolescence, the organised creation of dissatisfaction and computer-aided design cultivated competitive consumerism throughout capitalist societies.

The documentary includes an economist saying change during the past two decades has seen the average American’s clothing consumption double from 34 pieces of apparel per year to 67 – equating to a brand new item of clothing coming into their wardrobe every 5.4 days. Once the garments are no longer ‘socially valuable’ they either go into the waste stream or the global apparel trade. Such waste and indulgence is wrong.  Continue Reading →

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