Deep in the Atacama Desert of Chile, new dunes are forming — not of sand, but of last year’s unsold clothing from around the world. Piled high atop the previous year’s fast fashion casualties and unpurchased lines of clothes, the garments are usually filled with toxins and dyes and do not biodegrade. The result: a fast fashion faux-pas and environmental disaster that’s been largely overlooked — until now.
Aljazeera estimated that up to 59,000 tons of clothes that can’t be sold in the U.S. or Europe end up at the Iquique port in the Alto Hospicio free zone in northern Chile each year. These are meant for resale in Latin America, but only 20,000 tons actually make their way around the continent.
What doesn’t get sold in Santiago or smuggled and shipped to other countries stays in the free zone. It’s no one’s responsibility to clean up and no one will pay the necessary tariffs to take it away, Aljazeera reported.
Unfortunately, clothing may take hundreds of years to biodegrade, if at all. Municipal landfills will not accept the textiles because of the chemical products contained therein, NY Post reported. Therefore, eventually up to 39,000 tons of unsold and unwanted clothes get trucked to the driest desert in the world each year, where they literally blanket the dunes in layers and layers of discarded textiles.
As efforts to delay the devastating impact of global warming continue to emerge, albeit at a seemingly (melted) glacial pace, designers attempted to offer a range of solutions in their latest collections for the Fall/Winter 2023. From Thom Browne’s space-age-ready looks to Collina Strada’s whimsical creatures, and Acne Studios proposing apparel both functional and fauna-like, the runways were rife with ideas of how to acclimate and address the quickly evolving climate crisis, of which the fashion industry, particularly fast fashion, is a key contributor. According to the Geneva Environment Network, “Fashion production makes up 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions, dries up water sources, and pollutes rivers and streams.”
“One of the least talked-about manifestations is how climate adaptation will drive new types of demand and the subsequent design response to that need. Global climates are changing and the functions we will prioritize in our apparel will continue to change because of that,” explains Lorna Hall, director of fashion intelligence at WGSN, a trend analysis company.
Of course, confronting challenges through art sometimes post the most innovative — and revolutionary — works that spark conversations and invoke lasting change (the good kind). Just look at Aurora James, Nan Goldin, Dame Vivienne Westwood, or Kim Petras. Below, read about the most prominent and thoughtful ways that designers are investigating the warming world through their work.
Taking to the stage on Earth Day, day 4 of Stockholm Climate Week, Renewcell hosted one of the sessions highlighting climate solutions and action. We announced the finalized construction of our new textile-to-textile recycling factory in Sundsvall, which will be used to transform old clothes into recycled materials for new ones.
Renewcell’s mission since its inception has been to provide a means for the fashion industry to become truly circular. Unsatisfied with the climate-harming status quo of sourcing new materials for clothes and other textiles, Renewcell has endeavored to be the link in the supply chain that improves the circularity of the fashion & clothing industry.
On April 22nd, Renewcell CEO, Patrik Lundström joined the live broadcast from Space Arena, Stockholm to share their insights on the next steps towards this goal.
Alongside recycling a paper mill to build our own factory in Sundsvall, and relying solely on renewable energy to power the plant, Patrik shared that in the month prior to Climate Week, Renewcell has “delivered about 1,500 metric tonnes of materials, or 3 million pairs of jeans worth of recycled materials.”
But Renewcell isn’t stopping there, as we’re ramping up operations to “60,000 metric tonnes in 2023”, with a long-term goal for “360,000 metric tonnes by 2025/26”. This came with a somber note though, as this would only represent roughly 0.2-0.3% of the overall global textile production.
In other words, circular production needs to be scaled and we are already working with large clothing brands to make this happen.
We’re also looking to build plants closer to our stakeholders across the world; in North America, Europe, and Asia; in an effort to reduce the transportation emissions required to deliver materials globally.
“I always talk about the opportunities of sustainability and circularity… It’s a fantastic business opportunity and I want to help and energize others to do more towards circularity because that’s how we’re going to save the planet in the end.”
Patrik shared the stage with Felicia Reuterswärd, Impact Lead Resource Use & Circular Impact at H&M, and she resonated with Patrik’s sentiment, stating that “collaboration is key” and that “recyclers, manufacturers, brands, and governments” have a role to play in reducing the significant climate impact of the fashion industry.
From reinterpreted mod looks and runway-ready space suiting, this direction was all about retro-futurism, while proposing clothing primed for intergalactic travel. Thom Browne stans will be ready to travel to the stars in style. Buttoned-up tailoring, voluminous padding, and oversized outerwear reconsidered the concept of space, while perhaps suggesting the desire to make a good first impression with any new alien neighbors. Outfitting orbited the pragmatic — sartorial dress mashed together with superfluous sleeves and spaceship-ready uniforms in a single look answered the demand for clothes that could be carried from space shuttle to moon surface. Consider it the new day-to-night dressing.
The fashion show’s set further expounded on a Thom Browne universe — models traipsed the face of a clock while absorbing their astral surroundings, and elementary stars and planets dangled from the ceiling. The mood was one of distinct wonder as if to ask, “How did we run out of time?”
“Activity around private space ventures has brought the interplanetary sphere to the fore, innovations in textile development often emerges from growth spurts in the space industry and it becomes an area of interest and creative imagination for design,” says Hall.
Meanwhile, Marine Serre also took a position on where we might be headed as a society — stylistically and geographically — should the fashion industry not get ahold on the catastrophic carbon imprint it leaves in its wake. From sharp, cropped jackets constructed out of upcycled tote bags and fishing nets reused in her go-to moiré fabric, Serre has long been an environmental activist. It’s the blending of the crisp silhouettes (the early looks were especially successful with prim pencil skirts worn with futuristic underpinnings). Alone, these outfits would have been merely interesting, a talking point, but the unexpected addition of face masks surfaced the question of air quality and future protective dress that may be needed in the years to come.
“Themes of space exploration, magic, mysticism, psychedelia, and spirituality are all huge influences right now as we look beyond the trials of the everyday for some solace,” echoes Emily Gordon-Smith, content director and sustainability lead at Stylus, a fashion forecasting company.
In Africa, they call containers of used apparel ‘Dead White Mans Clothes’. Apparently most ends in landfill.