When The Duchess of Cambridge wore an Alexander McQueen gown in February this year that she had been pictured wearing back in 2012, she was praised—by the very same publications that have historically shamed public figures for turning up to major events in previously seen clothes. Why the sudden U-turn? Because ‘fast’ fashion—that is, the purchase of a new shirt or dress for every occasion, facilitated by highly affordable catwalk-copycat brands, such as ASOS—has been replaced by a ‘slow’ fashion movement. Reports that 300,000 tons of used clothing ends up in UK landfill every year has prompted a revival of make do and mend, encouraging increasing numbers of people to take a renewed interest in maintenance, to buy second-hand and to choose quality over quantity.
Lauren Bravo, author of How to Break Up with Fast Fashion (published by Headline, 2020), is a former shopaholic. ‘I was constantly shopping, either scrolling on my phone or walking up and down Oxford Street,’ she confesses. ‘Since finding out more about the humanitarian side of fashion —the exploitation found throughout the supply chain—I decided to go for a year without buying anything new.’ In her book, Miss Bravo highlights that textile production creates some 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, which is more than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Of course, there are some textile recycling collections, but the technology doesn’t yet exist to fully rework all old clothes into usable fabric. ‘At best, it gets used in mattress stuffing or insulation,’ she explains. ‘That’s obviously better than landfill, but it’s still labour intensive. The best thing we can do is to use less, for longer.’
Denne historien er fra November 18, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra November 18, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
