At Prom, Fast Fashion Is Slowly Retreating

This story was originally published by Grinding and appears here as part of the Climatic desk collaboration.

On a Saturday in February, high school senior Kaylee Lemmien was browsing racks of dresses at Tinker Tailor, a small store in downtown Elk Rapids, a town of about 1,500 people in northern Michigan.

“I would call it a mermaid dress, with sequins, light blue and a tulle skirt. It has laces in the back, kind of open,” Lemmien said. “Beautiful.”

Tinker Tailor usually alters clothes, but that day she was selling them: party dresses, to be exact. Dresses in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors (short and long, neon and pastel, satin and sequins) lined the racks. The clothes were donated and consigned by people across the region, with the goal of giving them new life at the Elk Rapids High School prom in May. Called Sustainable Stylethe second-hand buying initiative targets fast fashion.

Zoe Macaluso, president of the Elk Rapids High School Eco Club, said that when a local volunteer group approached her with the idea, she “immediately latched onto it.” The Eco Club wants to use the project to lead by example and hopefully inspire other schools in the area to carry out their own climate projects.

It’s one of many efforts by high school students across the country to address fast fashion (clothing produced cheaply and quickly enough to keep up with rapidly changing trend cycles) in their own lives and through of the promotion. These efforts are small, but experts say they can help people, especially young people, think differently about their role as consumers. This is especially relevant in the era of fast fashion, when an online retailer like Shein launches up to 10,000 new items per day.

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“Fast fashion is a trend driven by novelty,” said Shipra Gupta, associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Springfield. “You tend to treat your products like foods that spoil quickly.”

The increased focus on sustainability and savings might seem contrary to the rise of fast fashion. Has been described as a paradoxespecially for Generation Z. A McKinsey Newsletter Last year he explained the relationship like this: “On the one hand, Generation Z They express a desire for sustainably produced items and love second-hand. On the other hand, The ‘hauls’ of clothing… constitute some of the most viewed and most produced content on social networks.”

One way high school students are counteracting that offline is by raising awareness in their communities about how fashion impacts the environment. Last year, for example, a New York high school hosted a carbon neutral graduation party. A club in New Hampshire organized a clothing drive to divert used clothing to homeless people. And a library in Athens, Georgia, periodically hosts a “Make your graduation party shine“Second-hand formal clothing event with an eye toward sustainability.

Fast fashion encourages people to change clothes quickly, with serious consequences. But getting reliable information about the damage the fashion industry causes to the climate is difficult. His lack of transparency is a reason for it. Less than half of the brands clue all levels of their complex supply chains. some have made climate commitments, but have consistently failed to meet their goals. And while key legislation that would help address the problem is pending in some parts of the world US and Europepolitical progress has been slow.

Being constantly exposed to new items can spark the desire to buy more, Gupta said. By bringing an event like Sustainable Style to the community, she said, Michigan students are harnessing that enthusiasm and channeling it into more environmentally conscious purchases.

“Community engagement is a way to make that movement at the grassroots level, where we can really raise awareness among community members,” he said, and that can make them consider what it means to be a responsible consumer.

Events like Sustainable Style can reduce local consumption, providing a responsible place to donate and buy used nightwear. This is especially important in small towns where options may be limited.

In the past, Elk Rapids students typically ordered dresses online or traveled to centers like Grand Rapids, a two-hour drive south.

“You have to drive to Grand Rapids, go to the mall and buy a new dress,” Macaluso said. “This just provides another option, another opportunity to say, ‘Oh, here’s an opportunity to help the environment a little bit.’ So I’m going to accept it.’”

Perhaps most importantly, initiatives like these can help others outside the confines of the high school prom think about how fashion relates to the environment.

“I think it’s very significant because it starts to attract consumers, especially the young generation,” said Sheng Lu, associate professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware.

Innovative Grassroots efforts have helped reduce fashion waste locally elsewhere.and in recent years, the main brands I have been trying to solve the problems of reselling used clothing.

Although the Elk Rapids effort is relatively small, Lu said, it can help inspire local action.

“Honestly, I was pretty nervous walking in here,” said sophomore Addison Looney, who was shopping with her mother. “But there were a lot of great picks…he was pretty hesitant about it. but I chose [one] outside.”

The dress is a soft lavender color with rhinestones on the front. Addison’s mother, Sara, said she was excited to buy her daughter a secondhand dress.

“Knowing this is just a great opportunity to shop locally and obviously save money,” he said. “But also the resale aspect: just keeping the dresses going, because they’re usually single-use.”

Macaluso said they have been able to spark interest in buying used clothing. The graduation event even led Tinker Tailor, which was primarily in the business of altering clothes, not selling them, to create a “dress vault” in the store so that people could continue consigning, donating and purchasing secondhand items.

“I think it’s really based on that idea of, ‘Hey, these dresses haven’t gone bad, they haven’t expired,’” she said. “And they can find a new home.”