Melanie Jeffrey

Critical Review - Unit 2.2

How can artists and designers push the textile industry to discourage the overconsumption
of fabrics?

Global warming is a problem that affects the whole world and activists such as Greta
Thunberg, David Attenborough and Vivienne Westwood are all very vocal in promoting the
need for change. Actor Jane Fonda formed Climate PAC to counter the outsized influence of
the fossil fuel industry (Jane Fonda Climate PAC, 2023). However, the Rainforest Alliance
report that there are still many global warming sceptics “According to a recent study in the
esteemed science journal PLOS, people systematically understate their disbelief in human-
caused climate change when answering surveys, so scepticism is more prevalent than many
of us realize.”(The Rainforest Alliance, 2021). This is determined by two key things, firstly the
media and what they choose to report, for example, on the 24th of July 2021, Maharashtra in
India was hit by the worst rainfall and flooding in 40 years and at least 125 people died
(News.Sky.Com, 2021) but two of the main newspapers in the UK, the Daily Mail and The
Mirror chose to focus on stories about celebrities and did not mention this flood at all in their
issues on that day. (Pressreader.com, 2021). Next, the proximity to damage caused by climate
change, it is much easier for people living in the Western world to laugh off the
‘scaremongering’ when global warming is in the media because they are not dealing with the
effects of global warming such as floods and famine personally. The issue is a complex one,
which is based on capitalism, while there is demand for fast fashion and money to be made
then textiles will continue to be overproduced. Reducing production would decrease sales
which would also decrease profits. So how can we decrease demand? Sharing information on
the damage caused by the textile industry might help, but only if people connect the clothes
they are buying to the landfill issue and that is where I would like to begin.

Some brands and designers are working towards sustainability and Vivienne Westwood is
very vocal in her activism on climate change, in saying “Buy less. Choose well. Make it last.
Quality, not quantity.”(Westwood, 2013) she made a stand against fast fashion and
overconsumption, but too few designers have this focus. There are some designers like
Conner Ives who are making one-off pieces from reclaimed fabrics; Ives uses vintage stock
and reconstitutes, recycles, and repurposes deadstock materials to create new items. Livia
Firth co-founder of Eco-Age champions the #30wears challenge which challenges the
consumer to only buy items that they will wear at least 30 times (Sleigh, 2015). There can be
little doubt that if the fashion industry demanded a change in the production and consumption

1
of fabrics then the rest of the textile industry would naturally follow. If the fashion industry
demanded fabrics made sustainably or made from only natural fibres, then new methods of
production and machinery would be developed to produce new fabrics that would be used
throughout the textile industry.

The advent of online shopping has impacted the fashion industry by making cheap fashion
accessible to all and creating a mass market for fast and disposable fashion.1 This, coupled
with the rise of influencers on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok has fuelled the desire amongst
young people to wear a new outfit every time they go out.2 Much of this fast fashion is made
from man-made petrochemical fibres that are not degradable, in fact, global consumption of
synthetic fibres rose to more than 60 million tonnes in 2018 (The Geneva Environment
Network, 2022). One major issue is that the end user disconnects the item they are buying
from the damage it is doing to the earth, this detachment gives them the freedom to buy as
much as they like without considering the implications of overconsumption. Household textiles
are also often made using synthetic fabrics or blends of natural and synthetic fibres, and this
also needs to change but it is the fashion industry that is the largest user of these fabrics. The
other problem with the overconsumption of fashion is that the industry in China, India and
Bangladesh is largely unregulated. The need for garments to be produced in high quantities
means that staff are working 17-18 hour shifts to produce 500-600 garments a day because
wages are not based on hours worked but on garments produced (Inside the Shein Machine,
2022). Some documentary programmes and news reports have highlighted the
unsustainability of the fashion industry, but it feels like a whisper when it should be a yell.

Sustainable fibres and fabrics exist, but the development of new ones is slow, and the
production is small-scale, making it expensive. The development and production of new fibres
are largely down to the growth in veganism over the past 10 years. Textiles such as Mushroom
Leather and Pineapple Leather have been created as vegan alternatives to animal and plastic-
based textiles although they are both underused (The Good Trade, 2022). Bamboo fabrics
have become more affordable as their popularity has grown and it would be good to see this
happen with other textiles so that they can be developed and used more in garment
manufacture. The other way of making fabrics more sustainable is to recycle them, econyl®

1
The fashion industry produces between 100 -150 Billion items of clothing per year and is
responsible for 10% of total global carbon emissions. This is somewhat understandable as
clothing is a basic human need along with food and shelter, but the fact that 85% of all
clothing purchased ends up in landfill means that we are being excessively wasteful.
2
The buying habits of the public has changed significantly since the turn of the decade and
in fact, the amount of clothing that people buy increased by 60% between the year 2000 and
2014 which has a lot to do with how we buy clothing in the 21st century.

2
is a synthetic fabric which is made from nylon waste, industrial plastic and fishing nets and is
produced using less water and reducing waste (Econyl.com, n.d).3

There are several ways in which artists can have a positive impact in reducing the damage
caused by the textile industry and these include repurposing waste materials. Louise Baldwin
does this effectively in her textile art, her work features found fabrics and imagery alongside
domestic packaging with stitched detail to create complex textiles that reflect everyday life (62
Group of Textile Artists, 2020). Other artists, working with different media can use their work
to highlight issues such as climate change and to fuel the discussion on how we can change
the way we use valuable resources. There are other artists who are promoting change such
as Marina DeBris who works with discarded materials to showcase the extent of the pollution
caused by humanity and Andy Goldsworthy who works only with natural materials in their
natural environment. Both artists have sustainability at the heart of everything they do, but
neither is getting their message across on a large enough scale to make people stop and take
notice. Perhaps their work could be simultaneously displayed in situ and projected onto key
buildings around the world. Artist Maria Medina-Schechter uses natural inks and dyes derived
from plants and berries in her work and this is something that could be adopted more by the
textile industry which would make textiles more sustainable because it is the dye polluting the
waterways in countries that produce fabrics that is incredibly dangerous to the communities
living in those areas (Medina-Schechter, 2022).

It is my plan to combine other artists’ strategies to ensure that I am working sustainably in my

practice. I am committed to using natural biodegradable materials such as organic cotton and
working with natural inks like those that Maria Medina-Schechter uses when it is not possible
to use recycled and repurposed materials in my practice as Louise Baldwin does, which would
be my preference. I will continue my experimentation with natural dyes and eco-printing to find
methods that I can use in my work which will minimise the chemicals that I am flushing into
the environment. I will use my practice to highlight the destruction caused by the textile industry
and I will use my work to make a statement on climate change and work to find ways to
minimalism if not reverse the effects of climate change on the environment. I will seek to find
ways to help the planet to heal itself and I will spread awareness of the unethical and damaging
practices of the fashion industry.

3
Fashion houses such as Gucci and Prada regularly use Econyl in their products and
although not biodegradable, at least they are reusing textiles that would otherwise end up in
landfill rather than making new synthetic fibres.

3
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