By Sera Talea
How long do you keep your clothes? Do you try to keep up with fashion, but want to help the planet and the people making them? Or have you got clothes you no longer wear? Don’t throw them away.
It may be that you think that by having a job, in a sweatshop, that your purchase from the online fashion giants is at least keeping someone in a job, but look closer, children as young as 6 have been found working in sweatshops for up to 16 hours per day. The sheer amount of water that is used in the production of one garment may instead provide drinking water for a person for over thirty years. Think about the implications, especially in countries where drinking water is charged for and not free.
I am guilty of buying the latest clothing piece from companies like Shein, Amazon or even my local supermarket. I worry what will this look like on me, will it fit, or I hope they got the right size, what I should be worrying about is how my choices are destroying the lives of people across the world.
When I arrived at Eco Hub Aber I was excited with the setup and how the clothes swap might work. It seems like a measured local response to the issues we face. A clothes swap may seem quaint or unimportant, but it’s definitely not, it is local, grassroots action which can have an immediately visible impact.
Now I’m not saying, with my rose-tinted glasses on that this is the be-and-end-all of environmental action. Environmental action is just one aspect of a wider ethical web, but attending a clothes swap could be the stepping-stone of your journey to a better future for more people.
Why not give clothes swapping a go, try with friend groups or come to one of our clothes swaps around the Solstices and Equinoxes at Eco Hub Aber, The Arcade, Bath St and be part of a circular economy.
(Eco Hub Aber/ Eco Hwb Aber, The Arcade, Bath St, Aberystwyth, SY23 3AN)
References
Crewe, Louise, The Geographies of Fashion (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017)
Thomas, Dana, Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes (London: Head of Zeus Ltd, 2019)