Is green fashion hypocrisy? We need truly green clothes

BY TERRY WINKELMANN

What are you wearing?

Where did it come from? What’s it made of? Is it fashionable, or comfortable? Or both?
When I was little I planned to be a fashion designer. I wrote to Bob Mackie after I learned he was the visionary behind those fabulous gowns that helped Cher become a monosyllabic superstar. Remember the thing with the black netting? Deadly.

The fact that Mr. Mackie never bothered to reply to my adoring note seeking advice on a career in the fashion industry, kind of pissed me off. In fact, one could argue that his lack of appropriate enthusiasm was the beginning of the end of fashion, for me.

Despite my emotional admiration for wearable art and the art of wearing three-dimensional creations of spun fibers, anything beyond a black t-shirt and blue jeans rates as sartorial adventure for me now. Years passed before I realized everyone was layering short sleeved-tees over long-sleeves, instead of vice versa. Seriously. Once, I wrote an essay extolling the virtues of and advocating the return of … the jumpsuit.

Today, I run a green general store. We offer some apparel, nothing fancy—hemp jeans, soy tank tops, bamboo pullovers. What I don’t steal from stock enters my wardrobe via resale shops and garage sales. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Recently, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion at Washington University as part of Fashion Week in St. Louis. After I got over the shock (me? I mean, moi? Omigod!), it struck me what a serious Pandora’s Box the organizers were opening.

Almost any industry can be “greened” in the sense of “made less toxic” and more sustainable. But something in me worries that the idea of “green fashion” is an oxymoron, or worse, hypocrisy.

It’s not just the way fabrics are created currently, it’s the inherent disposability that alarms me.

To me, green fashion would be clothes that I don’t take off the second I get home in favor of more comfortable clothes. Clothes I don’t have to change for various appointments, because they don’t get dirty or look inappropriate. (Although, I once knew a 30-something-woman who swore by sweat suits—she even wore a simply accessorized set to her sister’s wedding. Really. To the, albeit Unitarian, ceremony! But even I knew that was wrong.)

The fashions I envision if there is to be a green, sustainable future will be washable, sustainably made, long lasting, and designed not to go out of style but designed in the sense of “engineered” to enhance living rather than merely enhance one’s status.

I dream of interchangeable, multi-functional, gender-indifferent tops and bottoms thoughtfully designed by an artistic eye, grown, dyed, loomed and sewn responsibly, that wear comfortably and of course, make me look taller and smarter. When they finally wear out, I can remove the buttons and zippers the way my grandmothers did and compost the remaining fabric.

You can’t compost a lot of today’s fabrics because even if they’re not made out of petroleum, they are often finished with heavy metals and formaldehyde or processed with dioxin-forming organochlorides and dyed with chemical concoctions the European Union has categorized as “toxic waste.” Yikes.

So, the way I see it, there are two ways to green the fashion industry: Continue with standard operating procedure, only using better materials and less toxic processes, or reinvent the industry and along the way ourselves. After all, the heart of the green movement lies in asking fundamental questions—those that question the bedrock society rests on.

So, let me ask: Do we need fashion?

Do we want any industry predicated on planned obsolescence? Conventional economists would say yes, but look where conventional economics have gotten us.
What does it mean to be in style? Do we need style arbiters or a color board to determine the “in” colors for 2012?

I don’t have an answer. In the end, a scheduling conflict precluded my participation in the fashion week presentation. I hope it will be a stimulating discussion, one that looks at all aspects of green and doesn’t shy away from considering the really big picture.

You can e-mail Terry Winkelmann at terry@home-eco.com. Her Web site is www.home-eco.com.

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