Say Yes To The Old Dress

Our forebears did it out of necessity, but we are returning to their ways out of a desire to preserve the planet for future generations. Claire Jackson investigates the return of our make-do-and-mend mentality

- Claire Jackson

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of a new shirt or dress for every occasion, facilitated by highly affordable catwalk-copycat brands, such as ASOS—has been replaced by a ‘slow’ fashion movement.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.’