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The Editor’s Desk: The high cost of fast fashion

The cheap, trendy clothing we buy and then discard after a few wears comes at a cost
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Bernadette Banner with her painstakingly hand-sewn reproduction medieval gown and a knock-off version. Can you tell which is which? (Photo credit: YouTube)

I mentioned here last week that I have some idea of what late-19th century women’s fashion is supposed to look like. I’m not a seamstress or a costumier, but after decades of reading Victorian fiction, studying (and writing about) the era, and watching depictions of that time in films and on TV, I’m pretty good at identifying what decade a specific “look” is from.

Someone who is much, much better at this is Bernadette Banner, who has studied the history of fashion, trained as a costume designer, and is a talented seamstress who often makes her own outfits (she favours Edwardian fashion from the first decade of the 20th century). I first came across Banner when I watched a video from her YouTube channel, in which she took apart a cheap, fast fashion knock-off of a medieval gown she had spent 250 hours creating.

Fast fashion is cheap, mass-produced clothing that appeals to shoppers because it is affordable and trendy. However, it is poorly made, quickly goes out of style, and is usually only worn a handful of times before being discarded and piling up in landfills. The fashion industry is responsible for 10 per cent of global CO2 emissions each year, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation; more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. There are also ethical concerns around fast fashion: it is often made in sweatshops where workers are employed for long hours and low wages in unsafe conditions.

Banner painstakingly pointed out all of the (many) flaws of the $40.98 knock-off, which is all very instructive and amusing — she has a wry sense of humour — but she used it as a springboard to talk about the perils of fast fashion (see above) and how our relationship to the clothing we wear has changed. She pointed out why her 15th century gown had taken 250 hours to create: she had used the hand-sewing methods that would have been in use at the time. Had she used a sewing machine — invented in 1790, but not widely available to consumers until the 1860s — it would have cut the time down to 100 hours; still a considerable effort.

Banner then moved into the 19th century, and explained just why it is that — if you know anything about historical fashion — you can pinpoint the decade an outfit is from. Fashion moved slowly; when it took that long to create clothing, there was no other choice. In one decade, skirts would be worn wide, supported by hoops; then, slowly, the fashion changed to a more fitted look, with the skirt bunched up at the back.

And when the look changed, Banner adds tellingly, people did not just throw out their clothing; they altered it to fit the new look. They could not simply afford to discard their suddenly unfashionable garments, given the high cost of clothing. And how could they do this? They either hired a seamstress, or did it themselves. Sewing was a skill learned by almost every girl, regardless of rank. Even if they were not creating an outfit from scratch, most women knew how to alter existing garments, or mend them so they could continue to be worn for many years.

Fast forward to today, where sewing is a dying skill, leaving most people unable to mend a damaged piece of clothing. Add to that the fact that the cheap fast fashion available to us does not lend itself to being altered, or adapted. Banner singles out the mullet skirts so popular a decade or so ago, and points out the impossibility of adapting them to any kind of new style. And because they were so cheap, most people think nothing of tossing them out after a few wears.

Our “make do and mend” Victorian ancestors would be spinning in their graves at the sheer and wanton waste of it all. So next time you find yourself reaching for that cheap, trendy piece of clothing, think twice. Like many things that are cheap, it has a huge cost attached to it.



editorial@accjournal.ca

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