As fashion trends come and go, textile waste fills landfills and harms the environment globally. Environmentally conscious fashion brands are taking action by turning toward more eco-friendly fabric and secondhand clothes.
Discarded clothing fills landfills or is often exported to countries in the Global South. Every year, 92 millions tons of waste is dumped into landfills from large truck loads of clothes, according to earth.org.
It can take 20 to 200 years for polyester to decompose, according to Keanan Duffty, USC lecturer and award-winning sustainable fashion designer. Such materials in garments travel around the world, leaving traces of microplastics.
“When you wear them and you wash them, all of these microplastics are coming off, that go back into the water system, pollute the human body, that go into drinking water and so on,” Duffty said.
Some brands have turned to providing a more sustainable alternative by staying away from synthetic fibers.
Laguna Fabrics, a Los Angeles-based fabric supplying company, offers sustainable fashion options with materials such as tencel, organic cotton, refibra and seacell.
Sherry Wood, the director of merchandising for Laguna Fabrics, said she takes pride in making sustainability important in the textile industry. Laguna Fabrics is the only fabric mill in the United States that is certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard, known as GOTS certified, according to Wood.
GOTS certification reflects a company’s standards of environmental and human rights for textiles that use organic fibers, Wood said. Laguna Fabrics works with farmers in the United States to harvest the crop that is turned into yarn.
“If there is extra fabric here left over, we also sell that off,” Wood said. “Nothing is getting wasted on the fabric side and any other textile waste.”
Sustainability is a complex goal to achieve. Textile innovations alone aren’t enough to revert the impact of water contamination, climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.
Melrose Trading Post, a flea market in Los Angeles, holds weekly events on Sundays with clothing vendors. Melrose serves as a community staple that enables Angelenos to promote and share their local businesses, many of which are sustainable vendors.
Freddie Rojas owns Rojas Clothing, a handmade clothing boutique store. Rojas vends at Melrose Trading Post every Sunday. (Jamille Magno / L.A. Times HS Insider)
Owner of Rojas Clothing, Freddie Rojas, upcycles fabric in his designs and believes sustainable fashion is important.
“There’s so much wastage out there…especially with polyester, that doesn’t break down so fast,” Rojas said. “That’s the most important to me.”
Rojas took matters into his own hands by giving clothing more than one life, and has been with Melrose for 15 years, restyling vintage pieces.
“I resource downtown, I resource factories, I research online. I’ve got a little library going on, but all my fabrics are vintage tapestries upholstery fabrics I’ve been developing,” Rojas said. “Every single piece is unique, every single piece has its own personality.”
Kelly Salvador owns 2nd Time Around, where she curates vintage clothing pieces from the 1970s to the 2000s. (Jamille Magno / L.A. Times HS Insider)
Kelly Salvador started her brand 2ndTimeAround in 2021 after developing an interest in thrifting and selling on Depop.
“Essentially it was just seeing people buy the clothes and not do fast fashion. There’s enough clothes out there for everyone to reuse,” Salvador said.
Salvador noticed a problem with the market being over-saturated and said she wanted to add small stylistic choices that would enhance apparel to be more unique.
Rusty and Arianna Knowles, co-owners of RSTY LA, started their brand in 2019 and have sold at Melrose Trading Post for years. They started off by selling vintage pieces and branched out into repurposing recycled garments.
Over the years they have worked on celebrity placements for pop stars like Olivia Rodrigo, SZA and Black Pink, supporting a more sustainable entertainment fashion industry.
Duffty shares a positive outlook towards repurposing clothing, as he said they are better solutions than what we currently have. At USC, Duffty also teaches other sustainable methods like pattern making: a process of laying out pattern and fabric that reduces the amount of waste that’s cut out.
From educating emerging fashion designers, developing eco-friendly careers through thrifting, and a partnership that transformed into a creative sustainable alternative for the community, we are steps closer to a more sustainable planet.
Spreading an environmentally friendly influence to the fashion industry has been achieved by many designers, but consumers can accomplish this too. Sustainability experts recommend assessing the following when purchasing:
- What’s the longevity of the product I’m going to buy?
- How was this made?
- Do I need this?
Phillip Okonma, owner of the brand RHYAN & RHYSE, finds ways to combine elements of cultural identity, sustainability and empowerment in his clothing line.
A majority of his creations are upcycled from old garments and crafted from dead stock fabric. Most of the clothing he sells are hand painted and prints of paintings with powerful messages.
