Fast Fashion
What Remains of Fast Fashion is not pretty….
The main driver in today’s clothing industry is to respond to the consumer’s demand for the latest ‘IT’ look. Then they have to do that all over again next season, next month or next week. The pressure to speed up production time and reduce costs means environmental corners are likely to be cut.
All too often we wear clothes a season or two and then throw them away. What we have to realize is what remains pollutes the environment long after it winds up in landfills. Incinerating garments creates harmful air pollution. Textile dyes release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The fashion industry overall is responsible for approximately 10% of global carbon emissions.
For this piece I wanted to emphasize that ugly truth. To do this I distressed cast off shirts by wrapping them up with rusty remnants of farm implements and tools. Then I buried the bundle in the ground for two or three weeks.
When I opened the bundle the shirts were mostly in shreds. I carefully washed them and then machined stitched what remained of the shirts to a background of hand-dyed fabric. And, I just felt it was right to let the bits of the fabric and thread hang as is. But I know it is not a pretty story.
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