In the Solidar Sew Art project, nine fashion- and textile-savvy artists explored the question of how we, as a community, can make the cycle of our clothing needs sustainable and fair.
The goal was for nine creative people to reflect on fair and sustainable production in 48 hours of work and to deliver their message, their answers, their awareness and their creations by working on the mountain of old clothes as a symbol of our consumption.
Clothing production has doubled in the last 15 years. 50% of our clothes worldwide are made of cotton, but the percentage of organic cotton worldwide is less than 1%. Many clothes are bought but never worn. Clothes with polyester content, which make up the majority of the clothing waste mountain, are neither biodegradable nor recyclable.
How do we pull our heads out of this ever-tightening noose? The solutions can be found in questions like this: What are our needs in terms of fashion, and how can we satisfy them under the two key aspects of sustainability and socially fair production?
The solution consists of: Deceleration, less is more, good quality instead of fast fashion, wearing out the clothes, 40 parts wardrobe: what suits me and what do I like, secondhand, repairing, swapping, borrowing, upcycling.
Info on the Fashion Revolution movement at https://www.fashionrevolution.ch
