The Power of Choice: How Made-to-Order Benefits the World
The Power of Choice: How Made-to-Order Benefits the World
For us surfers, riding the waves isn't just a sport—it's a lifestyle. And like any lifestyle, it comes with its own unique fashion sense. We may not always chase after big name brands, and often, we find beauty in simplicity. With this in mind, it’s easy to default to cheap fast fashion that gets the job done “get a shirt”.
But how does this impact the environment and the oceans we surf?
The fashion industry is growing at an incredible pace but is also becoming increasingly destructive to the environment.
The fashion industry is booming. We’ve never had this much choice, and be able to keep up with the fashion trends a week or two after a look debuts on a fashion magazine or runway. While we enjoy the benefits of cheap and fast fashion, it’s sometimes worth thinking about the impact it has on the environment.
We often hear about microplastic pollution of the ocean that is accumulating in marine habitats around the world, which impacts the food we eat and the oceans we surf. Fast fashion is encouraging the use of pesticides and manufacturing chemicals being dumped in waterways that make their way into the oceans in the pursuit of keeping up with fashion trends cheaper and faster.
Let’s take a second to absorb the impact of the fashion industry on the global environment.
The fashion industry accounts for 10% of the water used commercially. This translates to 10,000 litres of water for every kilogram of cotton.
20% of wastewater worldwide comes from the textile dyeing process using toxic chemicals that eventually make their way to the ocean.
35% of microplastics come from synthetic materials like polyester, which breaks down into toxic substances in marine ecosystems.
Creating these garments take up an incredible amount of resources impacting the oceans that we surf. Your favourite fast-fashion top or jacket already made an impact on the environment before it even landed in the store you picked it up from. Here’s the pincher:
The fashion industry is incredibly wasteful.
Mass production is a cost-effective way for clothing brands to go to market with the latest fashion trends quickly. It does come with a trade-off - this method of manufacturing often results in a lot of waste in unsold inventory, and the cheaply made garments often don’t last beyond a handful of washes before being thrown away.
The United States alone throws away up to 11 million tons of textile waste annually. The UN Environment program estimates that a dump truck worth of textiles is landfilled or burned every second, and the fashion industry is expected to contribute to a quarter of the global carbon budget.
This incredibly wasteful method of production is contributing to a vicious cycle of increasing demand for new mass-manufactured products, leading to more toxic substances released into our oceans to meet the demand, and when the demand dies down or the clothes wear out, it adds to an ever-growing landfill.
Made-to-order could be part of the solution.
Made-to-order puts a focus on quality over quantity. The very nature of made-to-order is that the order only gets manufactured once the order is received rather than mass producing on guesswork forecasts that result in potential wastage.
This means your clothes last longer, look better, and you put a little more thought into the purchases you make. You may even find some brands putting a focus on sustainability as well, using high quality materials that don’t impact the environment as much as their mass-produced counterparts do, and perhaps even add value in tailoring something made just for you. With this said “Drop shipping” might be the future business model apparel.
Another trend is coming up in sustainable brands - circular fashion.
It’s well known that plastics don’t degrade well. While a commercial way of getting rid of these plastics hasn’t been developed, we do have an opportunity to recycle them into new products.
Enter circular fashion - the attempt to limit the waste from throwing away clothing that is end-of-life by recycling it into a new product so that the same bit of plastic can be reused multiple times.
Adidas is a great example of a large brand pursuing sustainability through circular fashion, starting its line of ‘made to be remade’ products. Through this, they aim to replace virgin polyester with recycled polyester where possible, contributing toward carbon neutrality in their own retail, operations, and supply chain by 2050.
The next time you go out looking for your next set of clothes, consider buying made-to-order products from sustainable brands. You’ll be able to wear it proudly knowing it’s contributed toward sustaining the oceans we love to surf.
or check out your Second Hand Shop nearby ♻️
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Purpose of the Impact Series
Empowering surfers to take action toward sustainable living and healthy oceans. Our vision is to equip surfers across the globe with the knowledge and tools to become ambassadors for change.