by Julie Boulton

Clothes swaps are the bomb! If you haven’t yet experienced the joy of a clothes swap then get ready for our next Clothes Swap event on Saturday 1 February 2025, as it will be very, very exciting for you – and your wardrobe! And, I can almost certainly guarantee that while it could be your first, it will absolutely not your last! Clothes swaps are destined to become an integral part of how we’re all going to build our wardrobes in the future.

The dominant method of production and consumption of what we wear is rather destructive for our environment and us. While the impact that fashion has on the environment does differ depending on how and what we make our fashion from, it can be said that, generally, fashion makes a rather substantial contribution to the triple threat facing our planet’s very existence: biodiversity loss, the changing climate; and the ever-increasing pollution levels.

Fashion

requires resources, especially land and water, to grow (natural) or produce (man-made) fibres as well as for the multitude of manufacturing processes needed to turn raw material into fashion;
is a comparatively high contributor to the world’s carbon emissions, partly because of the source materials used and the processes involved, especially to turn fibres into fabrics; and
uses a lot of chemicals to turn raw materials into fibres as well as throughout the production processes.

With the exponential rise of super cheap and super-fast fashion, coupled with a decrease in the number of times a garment is used, we’re creating almost perfect conditions for continued environmental destruction. In my opinion, this is not fashionable.

There are solutions to fixing this terrible state we’ve found ourselves in. A lot of it comes back to the producers and manufacturers - they need to make higher quality clothes from better materials that can be used multiple times. But for those of us that are shopping and are keen to improve our environment (or at least lessen the damage being inflicted on nature) then our job now is to consume clothes in a very different way.

From Dazed Digital. Photography: Dani Pujalte

We need to:

love what we already own: take care of our clothes by mending, repairing and following the care instructions (ie what temperature to use for washing how best to dry); and
choose second-hand over new by shopping at consignment stores, charity shops and participating in clothes swaps!

If we’re serious about reducing our carbon footprint then we must also be serious about curbing our consumption, especially our purchases of anything “new”. One report, that’s gaining traction and some very committed followers, calls for a limit of five new items of clothing annually[1]. This is a huge shift for a lot of people and for a lot of places, including Australia where we, collectively, have a massive (and rather outsized) fashion footprint: in 2023 each Australian bought 53 new items of clothing on average[2], we’re a nation of super shoppers!

We can stay being super shoppers (if we must) but we can’t stay doing it if we continue to only shop new (and use new resources also). To ensure we have a future we have to shop differently, and this is why we need more – heaps more – options and events like clothes swaps (and repair cafes) because these both enable and empower Canberrans to embrace pre-loved, used and still fabulous fashion and help normalise and mainstream another (better) way of consuming.

Come along in February and contribute to a better – and much more fashionable – future.

EVENT: Clothes Swap, Sat 1 Feb 2025, 2-4pm, Gungaderra Homestead, Harrison

[1] https://hotorcool.org/unfit-unfair-unfashionable/

[2] https://www.seamlessaustralia.com/news/insights-from-national-clothing-benchmark#:~:text=Seamless%20CEO%20Ainsley%20Simpson%20shares,the%20need%20for%20systemic%20change.

IMAGE SOURCES:

War on Waste (ABC TV)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/redirects/backstory/television/2017-07-03/backstory-war-on-waste/8664874

Dazed Digital, Photography Dani Pujalte
https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/61422/1/why-fast-fashion-brands-are-getting-a-visit-from-a-textile-waste-zombie