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