Refashion Workshop is changing the cultural conversation on fast fashion with mindfulness
There is a shining light cutting through the fabric of the fast fashion industry, and it comes in the form of mindfulness.
ReFashion Workshop, a best-seller one month into its release, is a tool reshaping fashion design schools internationally, and it is a guide to designers and shoppers alike to become environmental stewards from their closet. The sustainable fashion movement is gaining momentum, and mindfulness practices are the pathway towards shopping by your value system.
The Problem with fast fashion
The toxic trend of the last twenty years of the fashion industry has accelerated production in ways that have harmed both people and the planet. Fast fashion is responsible for 20% of global wastewater and 10% of carbon emissions, more than the aviation and maritime industry combined. Fast fashion is an environmental catastrophe.
One in six people on the planet work in the chain of manufacturing of apparel, from farming to weaving, sewing and shipping, most of whom are women who don’t even take home a living wage. This is devastating to struggling families in the global south, trapping them in unsolvable poverty. Fast Fashion is a human rights problem.
But finally, we are seeing an upward trend of sustainability entering the conversation. While larger brands are harder to hold accountable and tend to greenwash their contribution, smaller labels are offering transparency in their production and choosing non-toxic fibers. The disruption in trade since the launch of the new administration, painful and damaging as it is, may be an opportunity to reform manufacturing globally as production shifts from country to country.
The biggest shift can be found in consumer mindset. As people begin to find out how their polyester clothes shed micro plastic lint into the water systems, they want new options for the safety of their health. They are asking to see factory floor and learn where their fabrics came from to avoid buying Amazon conflict cotton.
Mindful buying is in, fast fashion is out
ReFashion Workshop introduces mindfulness as a stop-gap, building awareness between you and your worst shopping habits. The fashion industry flourishes by convincing you that what you already have is not enough. It plays into your desires to fit in. It wants you to believe that if you buy the right thing, you will be the person you dream of. Mindfulness practices like meditation, contemplation and self reflection remind you that you are already connected to everything, already enough, and that your impulsive choices can have harmful effects. Mindfulness connects you with your higher self.
Going a step further, ReFashion Workshop shines awareness to your inner world. The practices at the end of each chapter bring you closer to understanding who you are shopping for, what your ego has to say about it, and gives you ways to slow down and buy fabrics that are clean from brands that take care of their workers.
There are carbon footprint surveys to find out your personal contribution, personality tests, happiness tests, quizzes and charts that reveal what fabrics are best and which are worse for the environment. Every chapter presents a story on one aspect of the life cycle of a garment, and brings in an expert to give you the facts you need to bring into your practices.
“We rarely think about the impacts of the clothing we wear and yet it is one of the most wasteful and chemically intensive industries we support in our daily lives. This book is a practical guide to help us change our “Outfit” on life,” Ryland Englehart, Kiss the Ground.
If we can all ReFashion our buying habits we have a chance to turn around the second most polluting industry in the world into being what it was meant to be – an expression of who you are.
You can find the book in curriculum at FIT, FIDM, LIM, LIC, London School of the Arts, Parsons New School, Westminster College and Nottingham.
