While some people have pledged to reduce, or even eliminate, their alcohol consumption throughout the month of January, others may do the same with their fashion purchases. Photo: AFP
A US company specialising in alterations is challenging consumers to not buy any clothes in 2023 and to make do only with what they already have in their closets.
A radical way to detox from an addiction to disposable fast fashion predicated on the notion of continual consuming and thereby creating a lot of unnecessary waste.
Most of the festive celebrations have come to an end, with the famous countdown a new start. With counters now reset to zero, many of us are in the process of kicking off the year keen to implement positive changes in our life.
And while resolutions are often about fitness, health and nutrition, fashion is also on the agenda for many this year, with a lot of us keen to adapt our consumer behaviours and buying habits.
One area in the spotlight is waste reduction – and the savings that go with it – as many of us try to make our wardrobes greener.
Read more: In Malaysia, pre-loved fashion is slowly becoming well-loved fashion
To help consumers achieve this and – it should be noted – to get off the fast-fashion bandwagon, a company based in Rockford, Illinois, is challenging its customers – and any other internet user who wants to rethink their consumerism – by inviting them not to buy any clothes in 2023.
Impossible, you say? Well, that's the idea behind this original challenge that invites the public to wear only what they own, without neglecting their style.
It must be said that the company in question, Tad More Tailoring, is not a brand that sells new clothing, since it focuses primarily on alterations and repair services.
Something that makes it easier for it to launch such a challenge... Nevertheless, it seems important, if not essential, to rethink the way we dress and consume fashion today, in order to respond to new time-sensitive environmental issues.
Renting clothes, second-hand, DIY, and indeed alteration services are among the solutions being proposed to help us drastically reduce the waste linked to one of the most polluting industries.
A purchase-free year
"Eliminating textile waste by altering, customising and enhancing the wardrobe you already own? Now that sounds like a win-win! Join TMT in the 'No Buy Challenge' in 2023 by wearing what you have and looking fabulous, all the same" reads a statement on Tad More Tailoring's blog and social media channels.
The company, which intends to make consumers think about the way they dress, and even more so about the relentless shift towards ever faster fashion, specifies that its tailors and dressmakers will themselves participate in this large-scale challenge throughout the year.
Accompanying this challenge will be online content – testimonies, interviews, advice – intended to help the public get dressed (and be stylish) with what they already have. During this period when we focus on making positive resolutions for the year, often associated with all forms of detox or breaking bad habits, this challenge comes at the right time.
Read more: Can fast fashion still fuel over-consumption in the secondhand market?
While some people have pledged to reduce, or even eliminate, their alcohol consumption throughout the month of January, others may do the same with their fashion purchases.
A good way to save money and take stock of everything in one's closet and finally weed out the essential from the non-essential.
According to the French Agency for the Environment and Energy Management (Ademe), in Europe alone, 4mil tons of textiles are thrown away every year, 80% of which end up in the household garbage can and therefore are buried or incinerated.
A figure that shows just how urgent it is to take action to make our wardrobes greener. – AFP Relaxnews
