In ‘Get Your Greens’, an ongoing series in line with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, British Vogue explores how the industry is advancing towards a greener future. During a stroll down a busy street in London earlier this year, I clocked, next to the entrance of a fashion emporium, stacks of plastic pull-carts, like those you see in grocery stores. Inside, scores of shoppers were dropping the brand’s trendy, cheap clothes into those carts, with nary a thought about the impact those purchases might have on humanity or the planet. Each year, the fashion industry produces 100 billion garments, and we buy roughly 80 billion. The remaining 20 billion are burned, shredded, or buried – the detritus of “economies of scale”. As a whole, the fashion industry is valued more than $3 trillion (£2.3 trillion) annually. According to a 2015 study by the charity Barnardo’s, the average item of clothing is worn seven times before being tossed; in China, the rental platform Y Closet reports it’s just three. Our landfills are heaving with clothes. But what happens if we swing the other direction, and stop buying clothes, cold turkey, as we have with the onset of Covid-19 and the practice of self-isolation? A social and economic disaster, that’s what. Zara, with more than £16 billion a year in turnover, reported a 24.1 per cent drop in sales during the first two weeks of March. In response to those tumbling revenues, as well as government decrees to stay home, Inditex, the group that owns Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, shut nearly 4,000 shops in 39 countries. Zara’s top competitor, the Swedish brand H&M, closed more than 3,000 outlets throughout the world, including all of its US and UK outposts. To get an idea of how many people such closures directly affect, Gap Inc, which includes Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta, employs 80,000 in its US stores alone – all of whom were let go when the company closed its stores last month. Some brands guaranteed pay and medical benefits to furloughed workers for the 14-day quarantine period. After that, who knows. But the long-term impact will surely be profound. According to the National Retail Federation in Washington DC, retail is America’s largest private sector employer, supporting one in four jobs – for a total of 52 million – and contributes nearly $4 trillion (£3.25 trillion) to the country’s GDP. The NRF projects that more than two million retail jobs in the US will be “imperilled” in May, and four million jobs within the next year. Earlier this month, True Religion jeans filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Neiman Marcus and JC Penney are expected to follow. The high-street retailer Debenhams has gone into administration, resulting in hundreds of redundancies. Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop and Miss Selfridge – already expected to permanently close 22 stores in a reorganisation plan devised last year – will likely shutter hundreds more. The retail chain Next went offline for two weeks in mid-March, in response to warehouse staff complaints that their safety had been compromised. When it reopened its online operations briefly, on April 14, it could only cope for a couple of hours before closing again, in the face of an overwhelming number of orders. At the time of writing, Oasis group had collapsed into administration, with 200 employees already laid off, and another 1,800 furloughed. Overall, 20,620 stores in the UK will close permanently this year, the Centre for Retail Research reports. It added that between store closures and workforce reductions, 235,704 jobs will be lost – a 61.5 per cent jump over the 2019 figure. If stores remain closed until June, the loss due to unsaleable stock will exceed more than £20 billion. In all, analysts predict the fashion industry could lose £800 million in revenue. If you think that sounds ominous, consider how the global shutdown is affecting folks further down the supply chain. Typically, a fashion item today is made in a succession of locales: fabric is woven and dyed in one, cut in another, sewed in a third, with zippers and buttons attached in a fourth. Finishing touches, like denim distressing and embroidery, are executed in yet another land. Most apparel manufacturing is situated in the world’s poorest countries, where workers are paid pennies per garment. Production is contracted or subcontracted; few fashion companies own their factories. For brands, cancelling orders is easy. Risk free, even. But for manufacturers and workers, the impact is devastating. Last month, fashion brands reportedly nixed or put on hold $2.8 billion (£2.2 billion) worth of apparel production in Bangladesh, endangering nearly 2 million garment worker jobs. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest supplier of ready-made garments, after China, and fashion accounts for 84 per cent of the country’s export earnings, equaling $40.5 billion (£33 billion). The government has imposed a country-wide lockdown – including garment factories – until 25 April. According to a report by Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Global Workers’ Rights, 70 per cent of furloughed workers – most of whom are women – have been sent home without pay; minimum wage for garment workers is $95 (£77) a month, far below a living wage. At least 10,000 have lost their jobs outright. “Garment workers live hand to mouth,” said Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS). When furloughed or laid off, they receive nothing; there are no unemployment benefits. “In garment-producing countries like Bangladesh, there is a weak social safety net,” said Liana Foxvog, director of campaigns for the Washington, DC-based International Labor Rights Forum. “As people lose jobs, this means malnutrition, and other financial hardships. The death toll could rise from the fallout of the economic crisis caused by coronavirus.” Last week, thousands of workers took to the street to protest the situation. “If we stay at home, we may save ourselves from the virus,” garment worker Sajedul Islam told AFP. “But who will save us from starvation?” It doesn’t have to be this way. Other, better business practices do exist. Take “slow fashion”: the concept of small companies producing locally, often to order, with zero waste. Or rightshoring: the return to manufacturing in regions that were gutted by the 1990s offshoring exodus, with new, state-of-the-art factories run by workers via computers in clean rooms, allowing manufacturers to adjust volume demands to the ebbs and flows of the economy without causing a tsunami of layoffs. Consumers play a part, too. We can buy less, buy better – an approach many may need to embrace in these financially difficult times, post-lockdown. While higher-quality clothes have a steeper price tag, over time, the investment does pay off. They look smarter, last longer, and your carbon footprint is much smaller. And buying better will ripple all the way down the supply chain: workers won’t be pushed to meet impossible quotas at half a living wage, or forced to do unpaid overtime. Instead, they’ll develop more sophisticated sewing skills – their work will be based on quality, not quantity – which would mean an increase in wages. That is, if brands are willing to pay more for such talent. As for what we already own? We can repair and rewear, rather than tossing and replacing; we should cherish our wardrobes. And we can hold companies accountable for bad behaviour. Boycott, protest, call them out on social media. The power of the purse is mightier than you think. We’ve all been running too fast, consuming too much, our purchasing habits hurting too many fellow citizens in too-faraway places for far too long. People are not disposable. We should not treat the result of their hard-fought efforts as disposable either. It’s time to leave the grocery cart at the grocery store, and buy – and wear – clothes with intention.
