An eco think tank has recommended that people in high-income countries (that's us) need to drastically reduce their fashion consumption in order to have any meaningful impact on climate change. Quoth Ó hEadhra:
"The Hot or Cool Institute said purchases of new garments should be limited – wait till you hear this – to only five items of clothing a year."
Broadcaster and Sustainability Champion Fionnuala Moran joined Cormac on Drivetime to talk about this recommendation. Fionnuala was a good choice as she’s outdone the Hot or Cool Institute’s advice, as she told Cormac:
"Come 2019, I’d watched a documentary about fast fashion and my cognitive dissonance was shattered overnight. And jumped in at the deep end and did no less than a six-month buying ban for myself. So that was a little baptism of fire into it."
Fionnuala described her self-imposed ban as a fascinating experiment into what the triggers are that compel us to shop.
She grew up with Instagram and all the other social media sites that insist that once you’ve worn an outfit in a photo, you can never wear it again, which she – accurately – calls, "absolutely wild, really recently learned, mad patterns of behaviour."
Was the ban difficult? Cormac wondered. In some ways yes, especially when it came to what Fionnuala was working on at the time:
"At the time I would have been doing a lot of red carpet reporting with work, so I was standing beside these gorgeous influencers whose job was basically to look as polished as is humanly possible. So there were some days like a few months into just shopping my own wardrobe, as I was calling it at the time, I was a little, like, 'God, do I look a little shabby?’"
Fionnuala told Cormac that she trained herself to not think like that.
How did she do that? It started with the inbox:
"I unsubscribed from any email that was going to be coming into my inbox telling me to go buying stuff. I also started reporting abuse on any of the ads that were telling me to buy loads of fast fashion."
A social media purge was next, as Fionnuala unfollowed all the accounts that were telling her she needed to buy new stuff all the time. And that cleaned out her feed, leaving her with useful, creative accounts to follow:
"I started following some people who were doing really skilled mending and upcycling. And over the course of it then I started getting really creative myself. Now, I’ve only recently done my first sewing course and I’m four years into my sustainable fashion journey now, but I worked with really cool local tailors to upcycle old net curtains that came with our house into a dress for one event, and then I updated another dress for another event with the help of the tailors as well."
Old curtains repurposed as a dress? Cue Cormac making the inevitable "pull yourself together" gag.
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The upcycling of things that didn’t used to be clothes led to Fionnuala’s friends joking about having to hide the cushions when she visits. But the serious side of the Hot or Cool Institute’s report poses the question – can anybody do this or do you have to be a sustainability champion like Fionnuala?
Timing can be important. Fionnuala was in her mid to late 20s when she started dropping fast fashion:
"I think at that point in your life you kind of know what your lifestyle looks like. You’re not going through massive changes like school or college, your body might kind of be staying in the same general shape, so that’s a good time there and beyond to be able to do this."
If people find it hard to commit to shopping their own wardrobe and/or just buying five items of clothing a year, Fionnuala advises adapting a three-day pause when it comes to buying:
"So this is going to totally stop you doing impulse buying. It’s going to save you an absolute fortune and it’s going to make you realise when you see things visually merchandised to perfection, if you take a little pause, wait three days and then if you still want it and think that there is genuinely a gap for that in your wardrobe, buy it."
Sustainability – and bank account – advice to live by.
To hear Cormac’s full chat with Fionnuala, click above.
