Our current fashion system is built on a continuous and overwhelming churn of new products, new styles, new desires. But this narrow focus on acquiring something new can distract us from the impacts of our purchases. The Mindful Wardrobe Checklist encourages us to pause before purchasing and ask: What if we consider the whole lifespan of an object before we bring it into our lives? A garment (and its raw materials) will pass through many hands, in many countries on its way to us—on farms, in factories and warehouses, to stores and delivery drivers. Once in our hands, this item will need care and maintenance. And when we are done with it, depending on what it’s made of and where it ends up, it may exist on this planet long after we do.
All of us who wear clothing—whether we consider ourselves “fashionable” or not—have an opportunity to take a more mindful approach to our wardrobes. We can choose to slow down and make thoughtful, deliberate choices, to acquire only what we care about enough to care for—and to care for other people and the planet as we do so. The checklist is designed to help us do just that.
As you consider a new purchase, you can step through the questions of the checklist. Each question will help guide you to see not just an object on a shelf, but also its past—how it was made and by whom—and future—how you will care for it and dispose of it. You will be asked to reflect on the value of ownership and to consider alternatives to purchasing a new item, like mending, borrowing, renting, and buying secondhand. And if you need more information about a particular sustainability topic, the resources pages can guide you to additional research.
The checklist does not ask us to deprive ourselves of everything we want. Instead, by slowing down our consumption, we can find the things that we actually want and forgo the items that would soon end up tossed out or donated. We can feel the contentment of wanting what we have and enjoy the items we do buy because they were selected with consideration of people and the planet. We might find new ways of relating to the objects and people in our lives, building community through the sharing of resources and knowledge as we swap, tend, and repair our clothing.
This project was deeply influenced by the work of Drs. Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tham and their Earth Logic report. Earth Logic calls for a paradigm shift in the fashion industry—to abandon the relentless pursuit of economic growth and replace it with a prioritization of the living species and finite resources on Earth. This “earth logic,” putting Earth first ahead of industry, challenges us to ask what fashion is and could be outside the narrowly defined logic of economic growth.
Growth logic has given rise to a global fashion supply chain that employs 300 million people worldwide (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017), but the burdens of this system are unfairly distributed. The poorest and most vulnerable in the industry—smallholder farmers and migrant laborers, garment workers and their communities, retail and warehouse employees—are more likely to experience the worst of the social and environmental impacts of this growth-logic system: pollution, water scarcity, chemical exposure, low wages, unsafe working conditions, and more (Niinimäki et al., 2020). As Western consumers, we benefit from this system without having to see (or breathe or drink) the damage it leaves behind. (Though we all experience the impacts of its massive carbon footprint.) But the physical distance does not absolve us of our responsibility to the people and environments impacted by our purchases.
Fletcher and Tham remind us of the urgent need for systemic change, as our window for avoiding irreversible climate change is closing. In less than a decade (IPCC, 2018), the Global North must fundamentally transform the way we produce and consume, “addressing not only the environmental impact of a fashion product and the processes of making it, but also the psychology behind fashion use, our systems of economics, finance and trade, how we fashion local and global infrastructures around clothing, how we construct meaningful lives and livelihoods” (Fletcher and Tham, 2019).
The scale of the changes required and the speed in which they must occur demand new methods of scholarship, Fletcher and Tham argue. This urgency and call for “action research” inspired me to build this prototype website for my capstone project, as I complete my graduate certificate in Socially Responsible and Sustainable Apparel Business at the University of Delaware. This project has allowed me to reflect on and synthesize the varied yet interconnected problems in the apparel industry—from labor abuses to textile waste, overproduction to overconsumption. In the spirit of action research, I will continue to review and iterate on this current version as I gather feedback and further test this checklist.
Through my studies at the University of Delaware, I have come to agree with Fletcher and Tham’s assessment that “The only solution is less stuff. There are no other options.” But how do we get there? I do not believe that the responsibility for our current environmental and social challenges lies solely with us as consumers. It is unfair to set up a consumerist, growth-based economy and then simply put the blame on individuals for participating. Systemic changes to corporate business models and practices in the fashion industry are essential if we hope to achieve necessary carbon reductions, protect biodiversity, and respect the rights of labor throughout the supply chain. Such accountability measures (though outside the scope of this project) will likely require a combination of government regulations, consumer advocacy, and investor pressure.
However, we, as consumers, do need to take some responsibility for the excesses of the fashion system, for our own excesses. The checklist is one tool for unlearning the consumption habits of a growth-based economy. And with time, these questions will hopefully become second nature and form the basis of new practices of an Earth-first economy.
Sources
Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (2017). A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future. https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/a-new-textiles-economy
Fletcher, K., & Tham, M. (2019). Earth Logic Fashion Action Research Plan. https://earthlogic.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Earth-Logic-E-version.pdf
IPCC. (2018). Global Warming of 1.5 °C. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
Niinimäki, K., Peters, G., Dahlbo, H., Perry, P., Rissanen, T., & Gwilt, A. (2020). The Environmental Price of Fast Fashion. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 1(4), 189–200. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-020-0039-9
Bio
Liz Savage is completing a graduate certificate in Socially Responsible and Sustainable Apparel Business at the University of Delaware. Liz works as an editor and researcher for nonprofits and nonfiction authors focused on science and sustainability. She brings more than 10 years of investigative experience in science journalism to critically analyze the persistent challenges of the textile and apparel industry. Liz holds a master’s degree in science journalism from Boston University and a bachelor of science in cognitive science from UCLA. You can email Liz at lizs@udel.edu.