When it comes to slow fashion, we often get bogged down in what big fashion companies and end consumers could do better to make the fashion industry fairer and more sustainable. But maybe we've got something fundamentally wrong? What if even the smartest eco-warriors can't see the fashion forest for the organic trees? Kate Fletcher is convinced of this. And when the eponym of the term “slow fashion” speaks, we can still learn a lot.
The professor of sustainability, design and fashion at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at the University of Arts in London is known as a researcher, author and speaker on the subject of slow fashion. Her use of the term has become a permanent phrase in the dictionary of design. In part, she sees slow fashion as the antithesis of fast fashion, with speed being “one of the defining characteristics of today's textile and clothing industry”.
Fletcher sees the common responses to the problems of fast fashion as “technical issues”. Switching to organic fibers, paying fair wages and generally improving working conditions are all steps in the right direction, but do not touch the core of the movement. According to Fletcher, slow fashion is about much more than simply slowing down. The ideal of higher quality garments produced under fair conditions in smaller quantities is the cornerstone of the philosophy, not the goal. As long as we continue to buy enormous quantities of fashion - even if it is fair, organic and sustainable - the problem cannot be fundamentally solved. To eliminate it, we need to fundamentally rethink our relationship with the clothes we wear.
The slow fashion pioneer's ideas are less about clothing and its production and more about how people interact with it. If we redefine fashion as a whole - the use, adaptation, alteration and care of the garments we own - we could become so much more than mere consumers. If we change our perspective, we are no longer just passive consumers of the trends and styles dictated by brands and designers. Our experience of fashion is changing to an active and personal one, as we shape each garment the longer we own and wear it.
In addition to her academic and popular science publications, Fletcher's projects vividly illustrate what the theory of slow fashion looks like in practice. Together with her research partner Mathilda Tham, she asked women to keep a fashion diary as part of “Lifetimes”, to select both their favorite and never-worn items of clothing and to document their rituals relating to laundry. Using the data, they were able to develop future scenarios for both fast and slow fashion, with a clear focus on preserving, selecting, wearing and caring for clothes.
We can all rethink our own role in the life of our garments: what are we already doing, what could and should we be doing to make the pieces last longer? According to Kate Fletcher, this is the first step towards true slow fashion.
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Header image: Courtesy of Kate Fletcher