Did your New Year’s resolution last longer than your new clothes? Every year we resolve to make changes to our lives for the better – get fit, join a gym, give up smoking/drinking, lose weight and on it goes…more often than not our resolutions don’t last and we resort to old habits before the end of January. In a similar vein, fast fashion never lasts – clothing bought cheaply ‘for the moment’ made from unsustainable, poorly made materials is often worn once and discarded.
This era of fast fashion has not only developed a sense of insecurity amongst people, but has had adverse effect on the planet which very few of us realize. As soon as new line of flashy fashion comes in, we rush to the store or go to the online shopping portals to make sure we don’t miss the chance to look up-to-date. Little do we realise, or take time to think how a particular cloth or material is produced, how it impacts our natural resources and the last thing on our mind is ‘how long will it last?’.
In a recent article, Deborah Meaden, the star of Dragon’s Den, one of the biggest personalities and influencers raised these issues and highlighted the effects of fast fashion. She made a resolution last year not to buy any new clothes, shoes or handbags for the whole year. Deborah stuck to her word and other than one pair of running shoes for a charity fun run she didn’t buy any new clothes. You might question what made such a rich personality to opt for such a decision, to which she answered, “I’d been thinking about our national obsession with consumerism for some time, “I’d also been contemplating all the clothes, bags and shoes in my dressing room and realised I had enough to last a lifetime without buying a single item.”
She was extremely thoughtful while making such a resolution. Taking into account the effects of fast fashion on the planet, here in the UK people send 13 million items of clothing to landfill every week – if we all just doubled the number of times a garment is worn, we could curb greenhouse gas emissions by around 44 per cent. She was roped in by the very thought and decided to take this amazing initiative.
“I wanted to do something to help. And in a small way, I could. By buying fewer clothes and keeping old ones for longer, we can reduce the adverse effect on our planet,’ she said when she was about to execute the challenge.
So Deborah made her pledge: ‘I will re-use what I already own, redeploying the stash of designer shoes, the rails of ball gowns, dresses and suits; the three drawers of jumpers and dozens of scarves I have acquired since I first appeared on Dragons’ Den almost 15 years ago.”
She made this promise publicly to her 434, 000 followers on twitter and is extremely happy today to have been true to her words apart from buying just a single pair of running shoes, to which she said ‘I have stuck to my pledge!’ she says. ‘I’ve bought one thing — the trainers — because I couldn’t do the run without them. But otherwise I haven’t cheated once.’
Not once, Deborah felt like she was running out of clothes or lagging behind in fashion. She thoroughly enjoyed not buying clothes at all. As we’re about to start this year of course with some or the other new resolution, Deborah pledges to stick to the same.
“So I think I should extend the moratorium. Perhaps for another six months or even a year. It hasn’t really hurt, and I want it to.”
‘I’d rather pay £1,000 for a dress and wear it 30 times than £100 and never wear it,’ she says. ‘I really do get value from my clothes. And if I see something languishing in my wardrobe that I haven’t worn for a season, I give it to a charity shop”, she added.
At Hemptology, we applaud Deborah and her inspiration helps motivate and encourages us to produce more sustainable, long-lasting products which will help conserve the environment instead of exploiting it.
Come and join Deborah and Hemptology, make your 2021 New Year resolution a sustainable one.
