If you are a ‘devotee’ you might have followed last week’s London Fashion Week which was, of course, all about future clothing trends. But it’s not just the fashion industry that’s keen to spotlight what’s up-and-coming. WRAP is also focusing on future clothing trends - the trends of re-use, repair and recycle.
Now, as the weather is starting to feel distinctly autumnal, it’s time to put away summer clothes and get out the jumpers. It’s also a good time for us to think about the clothes we have in our wardrobe and what’s new on the shopping list.
But what are you going to do with those unwanted items lurking at the back of your wardrobe?
Earlier this year, we launched the ‘Valuing our clothes’ report which gave us all information about the value of the clothes in our wardrobes.
It’s not just designers who can make money on the back of London Fashion Week. Your unwanted clothes present significant opportunities to generate revenue for yourself, your favourite charity or your local authority, while also helping the environment.
It’s worth noting that by increasing the active use of clothing by an extra nine months we could reduce the water, carbon and waste impacts by 20-30% each and save £5 billion.
That new research of ours showed that as consumers, we in the UK have around £30 billion worth of clothes, which we haven’t worn for at least a year, hanging in our wardrobes. And a third of all the clothes we purchase end up in the bin.
We could we help reduce those figures ….. and just think, someone’s old fashion collection could just be your new season’s wardrobe!
Incidentally, you might like to check out Green Cut - a unique initiative from The Green Carpet Challenge co-founders, Livia Firth and UK journalist Lucy Siegle. This initiative celebrates the very best of fashion, film and sustainability.
I thought your readers may be interested in a UK service dedicated to reuse of all outdoor gear. ROG -RecycleOutdoorGear.com encourages reuse and offers a free swap, sell, buy and donate service for all reusable outdoor gear. There is also a blog to tell all the great reuse stories of outdoor gear: http://recycleoutdoorgear.com/blog/
Apologies for the direct links.
The third sector are obviously playing an important part in developing secondary markets (and they do a lively trade, from what I can see), but for the hierarchy to really take off in the mainstream, re-used and re-cycled fashion items need to become, dare I say it, fashionable. This would mean more commercial players moving into the arena. Ebay, for example, shows just how possible it is to create a demand for 'previously loved' items. We had a fascinating presentation from WRAP's Debbie Palfrey and Biov8tion's Sophie Mathers in Bristol a couple of weeks ago on how we can change design and the infrastructure to facilitate this. My understanding is enlightened organisations such as Patagonia are starting to make inroads. If we can turn the creative power of marketing to this end, we could see a real change.
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I thought your readers may be interested in a UK service dedicated to reuse of all outdoor gear. ROG -RecycleOutdoorGear.com encourages reuse and offers a free swap, sell, buy and donate service for all reusable outdoor gear. There is also a blog to tell all the great reuse stories of outdoor gear: http://recycleoutdoorgear.com/blog/
Apologies for the direct links.
The third sector are obviously playing an important part in developing secondary markets (and they do a lively trade, from what I can see), but for the hierarchy to really take off in the mainstream, re-used and re-cycled fashion items need to become, dare I say it, fashionable. This would mean more commercial players moving into the arena. Ebay, for example, shows just how possible it is to create a demand for 'previously loved' items. We had a fascinating presentation from WRAP's Debbie Palfrey and Biov8tion's Sophie Mathers in Bristol a couple of weeks ago on how we can change design and the infrastructure to facilitate this. My understanding is enlightened organisations such as Patagonia are starting to make inroads. If we can turn the creative power of marketing to this end, we could see a real change.
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