Reflecting on my 2022 New Year's Resolution: a brief look into Fast-Fashion, Overconsumption and the importance of Sustainable Consumer Choices

I knew going into 2022 that my chosen New Year’s Resolution would be a hard one to see through, but I never expected it to be so rewarding.

The start of 2023 marks a chance for us to work towards new successes and a time for us all to reassess our goals and what we want to achieve in the upcoming year. However, it also marks a very special chance for me to reflect on my New Year’s resolution from 2022.

Last January, I decided to challenge myself to reject the temptations of buying first hand clothing and instead attempt to replace this by only buying pre-loved garments. The mission was simple, and I laid out my personal parameters - I would buy no brand-new clothes except for underwear, socks, and swimming costumes for the next 12 months. I set this goal to reduce my personal footprint and contribution to the negative environmental effects brought about by incessant fast-fashion purchasing. In fact, the fashion industry is considered by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as one of the most polluting industries in the world.

Studying ‘Luxury Fashion Design’ within my current master’s course in Luxury Management, is something that I have really enjoyed. It has become very clear to me that I want my career to be fashion oriented. We study ‘Sustainability in the Luxury Industry’ as a module for my second semester, and I am so excited to marry these two modules together in the hopes of finding some more sustainable solutions to the luxury fashion industry. I am deeply passionate about finding new systems to improve operations within luxury companies to prioritise the planet. I am also motivated to find innovative ways to combine my love of pre-loved fashion, within the luxury world in some capacity in the future, so watch this space for that...!

However, sadly this year, it has become obvious to me that surprisingly fast-fashion is not the main problem anymore. In fact, it is overconsumption that is harming the planet. Today, we all live off instant gratification. We can have practically anything we want 24 hours after ordering it, thanks to Amazon, eat whatever we want in under an hour thanks to Deliveroo and UberEats, and even find a romantic partner instantly thanks to Tinder. In a world where everything is so instant, we need to put the brakes on our behaviour and consider if these things we buy will really enhance and enrich our lives, or if we can wait another 6 months using and making the most of what we already have. Our planet simply cannot sustain the waste and pollution coming from the production of garments and textile-apparel, so we need to what we can do alleviate this pressure.

According to the Euromonitor 2022 Consumer Trends Report, “there is no gap between climate awareness and intention to act”, which is an extremely positive thing. More and more of us are realising the importance of our consumer choices regarding their effects on the planet. This can only lead to greater, more sustainable changes and alternatives going forward. 67% of consumers tried to have a positive impact on the environment through their everyday actions in 2021, and in 2022, with the likes of myself and many others joining their ranks, I am certain that this percentage has increased. With the rise of the ‘Climate Changer’ consumer trend, green activism and low-carbon lifestyles are not a fad, and we should all try to adapt our consumer choices to protect the planet. According to Forbes, the fashion & textiles industry is a major consumer and polluter of water at all stages of the production chain, ‘from the agricultural runoff from cottonfields causing algal blooms that choke rivers, to the dyeing process releasing a cocktail of toxic chemicals and the washing of clothes releasing microplastics’. Euromonitor also underlines the ‘pursuit of the preloved’ as a key consumer trend for 2022, as shoppers are moving away from an owning to an experiencing mindset and there is less of a stigma associated with buying second-hand clothes and peer-to-peer sales.

Going into 2022, I believed that fast-fashion was the main issue needing to be solved and had read that one of the best ways to combat fast-fashion is to shop second-hand. Second-hand clothes shopping constitutes part of ethical consumerism by attempting to minimize or eliminate harmful effects to the environment or society by reducing clothing disposal, and on that basis, I felt that this would be a great way of doing my part whilst practising self-discipline. During the covid pandemic and first lockdown in the UK, as so many others did, I had slipped into an obsession with online shopping, as the excitement of new packages coming through the door every week was a small guilty pleasure and comfort to being cooped up at home for weeks on end. I had sorted my summer festival outfits weeks in advance and bought clothes that I could wear ‘next year on my skiing holiday when the pandemic is over’. The extensive shopping was getting out of hand and the environment as well as my bank account were suffering because of my thoughtless clicking and spending.

In 2021 I lived in Milan during my ERASMUS year abroad. I was still very much a shopaholic, but this time I was in one of the fashion capitals of the world. I was surrounded by gorgeous people wearing amazing clothes and I was totally inspired and excited to be around such good taste in fashion. I would do regular Zara hauls and check out the new arrivals each week, to make sure I was staying on top of the trends and trying to look (nearly!) as good as the people walking down the streets of Milan. After a couple of months, I began to question to quality of the Zara garments, as the plastic shoes would break, and the fabrics of the clothes were not as comfortable or durable as I had expected. I was recommended by a family friend to check out a couple of the second-hand designer shops that Milan was famous for, such as my favourite ‘Cavalli Nastri’. This recommendation was probably the biggest and best wakeup call I’ve ever had. I found amazing pieces for even better prices and began to understand that companies like Zara and H&M, are not only deeply harming and changing the face of the environment, but the fashion world too.

Zara has advertised itself as a shop selling medium quality fashion clothing at cheap rates ever since it was created. Through my research, I discovered that Zara could generate a new design and have the finished product in shops in four to five weeks for completely new designs, or two weeks for changes made to already-existing products. Comparatively, the production cycles of other typical clothing retailers could take up to six months for concept and design and up to three months for manufacture. Small, regular shipments and restrictions on how long products can be exhibited and sold in stores, as well as the company's insistence that its stores keep a minimum quantity of stock openly visible, all contribute to the feeling that one should "purchase now or regret later." Because of this, customers are constantly left wanting more and wondering what will be available when they return to Zara to shop. This kind of trickery to a devoted customer base is what keeps Zara such a big player within fast fashion. The research I carried out on this topic was deeply shocking and began to influence my behaviour and made me realise that I was part of the problem.

Upon returning to Bristol for my fourth year in September 2021, I established a partnership with The Emporium of Loveliness, on Alma Road in Clifton, a charity shop who supports a charity called Empower the Gambia. Through our partnership, we hosted a series of monthly clothes swaps where young women would bring a minimum of 5 pieces to the swap, and we would put them on a table and start swapping with one another. There was a donation policy for the entry fee, letting people give what they could, and leftover unwanted pieces would then be donated directly back to the charity shop for merchandising. This was an incredibly successful initiative and established a lovely network of like-minded individuals and encouraged us all to consider our environmentally-conscious future purchasing choices, instead opting to contribute to a small-scale circular economy and avoid first-hand and fast-fashion consumption. I was extremely proud to have worked alongside Cherry, from the Emporium and relished each event, meeting new and enthusiastic faces each time.

Actioning sustainable fashion choices is not a foreign concept to the generally quite woke Bristolians, who live a liberal and open-minded existence in a very special, unique city. There are many places to thrift and buy second hand, and Greta Thunberg gave an address there on College Green in my second year. However, when I moved to Switzerland in August, I noticed the that it may be slightly harder for me to find the second-hand shops… Although they do exist, there are far fewer of them, and 99% of them do not donate portions of their revenue to charity. The general attitudes to buying second-hand are slightly different in Switzerland, where historically buying second-hand reflected your wealth bracket and not something people did by eco-friendly choice. By contrast, I have found some great spots to buy pre-loved bits and have started many conversations with my friends here about making better choices, which don’t compromise their spending habits or preferences but gets them to think before buying, which is something we all should do more of. That was my main aim, to encourage people to think about whether they really need something or are just buying it for the sake of buying. This is because I’ve been there, and now as I sell much of my wardrobe on Vinted, I often kick myself for buying things that I’ve never worn, but at least by reselling on platforms such as Vinted, they will be given a new life and I am also reducing my own personal overconsumption. So, what started at the beginning of 2022, as a fight against fast-fashion, has led me to the realisation that fast-fashion is just the tip of the iceberg.

However, I am proud of the way I have managed to stick to it all year, and in the odd case where I bought a brand-new item was only from small stand-alone artisan shop in Africa, where supporting local vendors and designers was benefitting a slower fashion economy and making a more sustainable choice. A particular highlight of this year’s New Year's Resolution was my outfit for Royal Ascot, which was head-to-toe (hat included!) entirely from one Bristol charity shop!

Let’s hope that 2023 brings about a greater awareness of the need for responsible consumption and production, which also happens to be number 12 on the United Nations list of Sustainable Development goals. I hope we can all make better, more informed, purchasing choices and think about where our clothes are coming from, and where they’re going, in the hopes of being better stewards of the planet, for this generation and for the many to come.

Happy New Year to you all!

Article by: Annabel Roest