#290: Dying for Fashion
Longtime style reporter Dana Thomas\u2019s book, Fashionopolis, is an indictment of the true costs of fashion\u2014like poisoned water, crushed workers, and overflowing landfills\u2014that never make it onto the price tag of a dress or pair of jeans. Between 2000 and 2014, the annual number of garments produced doubled to 100 billion: 14 new garments per person per year for every person on the planet. The average garment is only worn seven times before being tossed\u2014assuming it\u2019s not one of the 20 billion clothing items that go unsold and unworn. It\u2019s no surprise, then, that the fashion industry accounts for at least 10 percent of global carbon emissions and 20 percent of all industrial water pollution. Though the industry employs one out of every six people globally, fewer than two percent of them earn a living wage\u2014more than 98 percent of workers are not only underpaid, they also toil in unsafe, unsanitary conditions. But change is underfoot: retailers are shifting their supply models, circular and slow fashion are on the rise, and new technology is making the manufacture of new and recycled fabrics cleaner. Dana Thomas joins the podcast to explain what will be required to fix a broken system. This episode originally aired in 2019.
Go beyond the episode:
- Dana Thomas\u2019s Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes
- Thomas\u2019s tips for weaning yourself off fast fashion
- Why donating secondhand clothes to developing countries can actually prevent development\u2014and kill local textile industries
- What is \u201cslow fashion\u201d? The New York Times explains
- Martha Stewart teaches Clothing Repair 101
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