Fashion Warriors

Driiiiiiin, driiiiiiin, driiiiiiin 

C: Hello? 

G: Sales, sales saaaaaaales!!!

C: Giulia, I've already told you there will be no compulsive shopping this year! No more urge to buy things for the sake of it! No temptations, we agreed on this, right?

G: I know, I know. But I have an idea that you won't be able to resist, you'll see.

And so began the phone call with my colleague Giulia. A phone call that led us a few days later to a train heading towards Florence, more precisely to the Vintage Selection No. 41: the reference exhibition for vintage clothing and accessories.

An important step in our growth and awareness journey in choosing fashion that focuses on 'slow fashion' as opposed to 'fast fashion'. Unfortunately, the fashion industry impacts the environment and people in many ways!

Want to know some of them? Well, for example, the textile industry uses large amounts of water, exploits the soil for cotton plantations or for raising animals for leather and, increasingly, resorts to the use of microfibers which, during the washing of garments, release the ubiquitous microplastics (did you know that microplastics are now so widespread that it is estimated that we ingest about 5 grams of them every week? The equivalent in weight of a credit card – bleah!).

Then consider that we have multiplied these impacts at least 52 times. 52 times? Yes, exactly. 52 are the collections per year that fast fashion is able to produce, lowering prices, in stark contrast to the historical 4 annual collections (two for men and two for women).

And where will all these clothes end up? In overflowing full wardrobes that our grandparents and great-grandparents could never have imagined (thanks grandma for mending my favorite pants after school!).

And what about what doesn't fit in the wardrobe? Open landfills in Chile, Africa, or Asia. A garment from this overproduction is destined to be waste from birth. Not to mention that often, to lower prices, the rights and working conditions of the workers in the textile industry are the ones who pay the price. April 24, 2013 in Dhaka, Bangladesh is a witness to that.

Luckily, something is changing (Fashion Revolution), and we are learning to ask the right questions:

• Who made my clothes?

• Is their pay fair?
• Do they work in suitable conditions? 

 We are learning to bear in mind that if a t-shirt costs too little, someone else is paying the price.

"The high-speed train Frecciarossa 9409 by Trenitalia, bound for Florence Santa Maria Novella, at 06:47, is arriving at platform 8. Attention. Keep away from the yellow line".

And we started off like this, a mix of fashion warriors and Madonna in Vogue, ready, determined, even a bit adrenaline-fueled, heading towards our secondhand/vintage fashion shopping, in search of some high-quality gems!

*C: Come on, Giulia, hurry up or we'll miss it…choo choo. 

 *Some of the information in this article has been enriched thanks to the consultation of the book "Parla sostenibile. Poche (tante) parole per diffondere il verbo green" written by Silvia Moroni.

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