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Fabrica Fashionista
Here
Become a
Fabrica Muse
Here
Earn money from
your own store
Receive free clothes,
fabrics, and accessories
Build your portfolio
and resume
Get a customized
wardrobe styled
by your fashionista
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Fast fashion and its impact on our environment
Great Prices. Ever changing and available styles. Fast fashion has become an increasingly growing market, making the opportunity for clothing consumption grow significantly. The average consumer brought 60% more clothes in 2014 than in 2000, but kept each garment half as long. What does this mean for our environment? The impact is tremendous both economically and environmentally. It's easy to purchase new clothes without thinking about how our consumption effects the world, especially if we dont know what that impact is. Let;s take a look at the numbers, because things aren't quite adding up. The correlation between fast fashion and the exponential growth of our landills, isnt exactly equitable.
Help children develop
their own fashion style
and build their wardrobe
Photograph: Harley Weir and Urs Fischer for Stella McCartney
Environmental Impact
We throw out enough clothing to fill a garbage truck every SECOND!
We throw out ...
Almost 3 tons a
SECOND
Almost 90 Million TONS every YEAR
Apparel production is resource and emissions intensive. Consider that:
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Making a pair of jeans produces as much greenhouse gases as driving a car more than 80 miles.
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Discarded clothing made of non-biodegradable fabrics can sit in landfills for up to 200 years.
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It takes 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton shirt, enough to meet the average person’s drinking needs for two-and-a-half years.
Source: World Research Institute
Economic Impact
According to the Ellen McArthur Foundation, clothing production has approximately doubled in the last 15 years, driven by a growing middle-class population across the globe and increased per capita sales in developed economies. An expected 400 percent increase in world GDP by 2050 will mean even greater demand for clothing.
This could be an opportunity to do better. One report found that addressing environmental and social problems created by the fashion industry would provide a $192 billion overall benefit to the global economy by 2030. The annual value of clothing discarded prematurely is more than $400 billion.
Source: World Research Institute
"Much of this waste is due to clothes being discarded due to minor tears or stains - easily repairable damages if the owners have the skills and knowledge to fix them."
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Source: SOTT.com by Brett Smith/ Red Orbit
Due to budget cuts and other concerns, some school districts have been cutting back on home economics classes and the loss of these classes could be causing a significant drop-off in clothing maintenance skills among millennials.
According to a new study published in the Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, a University of Missouri researcher has found baby boomers possess significantly more basic sewing and button repair skills than young adults between the ages of 18 and 33 years old, a generation commonly referred to as millennials.
Study author Pamela Norum, a professor in the Department of Textile and Apparel Management at MU, said her findings are somewhat concerning - considering the quantity of clothing waste that is produced in the US annually.
"In 2012, Americans created more than 14.3 million tons of textile waste," Norum said. "Much of this waste is due to clothes being discarded due to minor tears or stains - easily repairable damages if the owners have the skills and knowledge to fix them."
"If we, as a nation, want to move toward more sustainable practices in all aspects, we need to evaluate not only how we take care of our clothes, but how we educate younger generations to do so as well," she added.
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takes donated used clothing and allots a bundle to Fabrica Fashionistas. These fashionista's
are teenagers ages 14-18 and in high school. They are paired with a student in grade school, and interview their "Muse" about their personal style. They then develop a line for their "muse", either using the original pieces in tandem, or repurposing them into other styles. The Fashionista gets experience on their portfolio and resume as well as helping a younger person increase their wardrobe. A muse gets access to free clothing and inspiration developing their personal style. Fashionsita's also have the opportunity to pair outfits together to be sold in their own CoYOUnity Fabrica Store. Once a year, our muses have an opportunity to model their outfits, to help benefit the sustainability of our programming and add to their resume.
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Also offers monthly sewing workshops and soft classes, to teach our Fashionista's basic sewing skills, to best equip them to self-teach and implement sewing techniques to develop their circular fashion lines.
