Why I dress like an apple

you may be wondering

why this looks so familiar is it the

latest look from a catwalk

nope this skirt is straight from a

supermarket aisle

near you this skirt is made from what

are called

fruit foam socks sexy

i know people at my local supermarket

always look a little panicky when i walk

in because they know i’m going to be

digging through the trash

trying to take it home but my cantonese

isn’t good enough to explain what i’m

trying to do

i would like to use this waste to

reimagine our relationship

with materials so these fruit foam socks

are raising a number of questions for me

where does the plastic go once the

apples have been bought

why does fruit need clothing and what

about our clothing

today the average consumer buys 60 more

items per year than they did

15 years ago and keeps them half as long

much like these fruit socks our clothes

are piling up in mountains of waste and

deep landfill around the world

but i’ve spent the last three years

imagining ways we could have a better

relationship with materials

and it all started in 2017 when i got a

loud

wake-up call i was at a sustainable

fashion event in hong kong where i

learned that 39

of residents had thrown away an item of

clothing

after wearing it just once

and on a global scale the number of

garments produced per year

has doubled since 2000. so on the one

hand

we’re throwing more and more away and on

the other

the industry is just growing and growing

i felt angry i was angry at myself

for feeding this beast and i was angry

at the industry for being such a beast

in the first place

on the spot i decided that for one year

i would not buy

a single item of new clothing not one

now i know this isn’t a big deal but it

felt like a first step and i felt like i

needed to do something

what i learned through that time was

that these small actions

make a big impact look i wasn’t a big

spender i was pretty vanilla when it

came to shopping

but when i stopped i could clearly

recognize my patterns

and they went a little something like

this feeling the need to belong

plus cheap clothing tags equals buying

things

i don’t need the message i’d been given

from media and society and advertising

through the course of my life

and these are all different industries

not just fashion but the message i was

getting

was that i am broken

and on a shelf somewhere out there was

something that could fix me

so my one year of no new shopping really

raised a number of things for me and it

became crystal clear

in the summer of 2017. now picture this

it’s a scorching hot day i’m walking

down the street in central hong kong it

is so hot the pavement

is melting i need aircon

but the closest option is a massive fast

fashion chain

i go in the music is pumping the air con

is strong and the lights are bright and

and once upon a time

i would have looked around and said oh

party dress or

office wear not today

all i can see is endless piles and

patterns

and i don’t know what season we’re meant

to be in because we’ve gone from

two fashion seasons per year to 52 micro

seasons

but it doesn’t really matter because all

i can see

is a lot of textiles that i know will

mostly end up

in landfill and i’m not feeling that

shoppers high

i’m feeling low anxiety

so my one year i’ve known you shopping

for new clothing is turning into four

years

and it is no longer an experiment rather

it is a way of life

and it has changed me in ways i never

imagined

there are three things i want you to

know

the first is that when it comes to media

and marketing

there is a lot of noise from the moment

we can read

to tap a screen we are sold to over the

last century

the advertising industry has

successfully tapped into our

subconscious

targeting our need to belong

as therapist marissa pierce says we’re

driven by two fundamental forces

the need to belong and the fear of

rejection

now look i know that there is great joy

and value in expressing yourself through

fashion

showing the world who you are i’m with

you

but i had to ask myself beyond the

instant gratification

was i buying things in a bid to feel

like i belong

were there uncomfortable feelings

including

embarrassment vulnerability

sadness shame

that i could address instead of putting

under a new dress

if i could name the feeling and

acknowledge it

could i proceed from a point of power

my experience has been yes when i pulled

the plug on all that media noise a great

wave of relief

washed over me i can’t lose i’m not

playing the game

my second insight is around how not all

materials are created equal

so why am i wearing this skirt made from

plastic fruit packaging

because i would like to illustrate my

second point i would like you

to look at the label in your clothing

right now

chances are you are wearing plastic too

around sixty percent of our clothing

today is made from polyester nylon and

acrylic all forms of plastic

it is lightweight cheap water resistant

but we are also paying a very heavy

price for it in other ways

for example every time we wash these

garments they release microplastics

this is not a particular type of plastic

rather any plastic fragment

that is shorter than five millimeters in

length and they enter our natural

systems through a number of ways

including cosmetics clothing and

industrial processes

it is estimated that around 35 of the

microplastics in our oceans today

come from synthetic clothing and by

making their way into our oceans they

are also making their way into our food

chains

it may only be a matter of time before

fibers from your socks

make it into your sushi

yum so

picture this see if you can recognize

yourself in the following scenario

you’ve just completed a workout you’re

feeling pumped you are wearing your yoga

pants you walk into your local cafe and

you order your favorite green smoothie

within the blink of an eye you have

refused the plastic straw on offer

because we know

plastic straws are bad

so now let’s take a step back how many

plastic straws do you think it takes to

make a pair of yoga pants

yoga pants trainers hoodies sweatpants

all part of the athleisure family and

the sector is set to grow seven percent

between now and 2024. the polyester

industry is seeing unprecedented growth

which means more microplastics into our

environment

now my purpose is not to encourage you

to dress in twigs

rather to point out the connections we

do not make when we think about our

relationship with materials

and let’s talk about plastics there are

thousands of different types

some keep oxygen from reaching your food

some insulate our homes

some are in your favorite daily drink

did you know that there are over 11

billion micro plastics in a cup of tea

some can save your life think bicycle

helmets and hospital equipment

plastic is generous it is lightweight

flexible

cheap the 2018 headlines around plastic

straws

raised awareness around single-use

plastics but there is still so much we

do

not understand about where to take

advantage of this materials generosity

and where to stop the crazy overuse that

sees us eating drinking and breathing it

my third insight is around outdated

belief systems

i’ll explain so while i won’t go back to

buying new clothing i do value

expressing myself through fashion and i

have found that second-hand fashion

although not perfect is a good way to

love clothes for longer

it was during a conversation with one of

my best friends that i realized that

secondhand might need a bit of

rebranding

so i was sharing my love for used

clothing with her and she she leaned

closer and said

that’s that’s all well good and well and

good tanya but isn’t used clothing you

know isn’t it um

isn’t it dirty that’s what my mother

always says

and i knew where she was coming from

but as i learned more about the fashion

production

some truly dirty facts came up over a

quarter of pesticides in the world are

used to grow conventional cotton

twenty percent of industrial water

pollution comes from the fashion

industry

and micro plastics have been found in

beer salt and honey

so when it comes to beliefs around

secondhand we’re often told that it’s

dirty

it’s of lesser value it means that

you’re poor or in some cases even

carries

superstition that new is always better

and i’ve heard this from friends right

around the world

in this age of hyper consumption where

things are designed to fail and made

faster and cheaper than ever before

how can we carry this belief system that

new

is always better so these insights have

led me to think about solutions and

there are three in particular that

resonate with me now the first one

is around second hand and as you know i

am a fan

and i’m not alone the second hand

fashion market is currently valued at 28

billion us dollars

and set to grow to 64 billion over the

next five years

when it comes to the innovation and

textiles of the future the situation is

truly

wild and i’ve chosen these particular

examples because i would like to change

the way you look at kitchens and gardens

forever a cow a cactus

a pineapple walk into a bar i’m joking

a cow a cactus and a pineapple there is

an unexpected relationship between these

elements

with over 300 million cows killed around

the world

per year the leather industry is

extremely polluting

as well as ethically challenging

there are concerns around people working

in the tanneries health hazards and

chemical waste are but a few of the

challenges we face

however global demand for plant-based

leather is on the rise

from mangoes to mushrooms pineapple to

cacti apples to grapes

the alternatives are already on the

market and can be found in your clothing

shoes and bags materials taken from the

earth

sustainably processed and designed to be

returned to the earth

a third way we might have a better

relationship with materials is to

slow down and embrace the repair culture

research has shown that there’s a

relationship between the way society

treats materials

and people research has shown that the

more people care

about objects the more likely they are

to care about the people in their

societies as well

take the japanese art of consugi roughly

translated as

joining with gold broken pottery is

repaired

using a seam of lacquer and precious

metal with the belief that nothing is

ever truly broken

the cracks in the pottery are seen as

value and beauty

can we treat ourselves in the same way

and i’d like to leave you with this as i

was thinking about ways we can have a

better relationship with materials i

kept coming back

to us to people we are where these ideas

begin

we decide what gets made how it gets

made

and what happens to it after we no

longer want it

we are the fabric of this world so

here’s my dream

it’s 2025 we’re all proudly embracing

second hand

we have bags made out of pineapples and

we’re repairing broken pottery and all

kinds of items

we see t-shirts fruit socks and we see

creative opportunities

however those pineapples are not going

to turn themselves into bags

and those pots are not going to find

gold without us

you have the power to develop a more

meaningful more purposeful

and more creative relationship with the

materials in your life

and you can do that today

this skirt is living proof thank you