Redefining Style: Dawgs combatting fast fashion | Arts & Culture
A customized sign sits against the window next to the entryway of Pitaya’s Athens, Georgia, storefront on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. Pitaya sells clothes geared towards women, and the store has a variety of different styles available. (Photo/Ashtin Barker)
Since the fast fashion company Shein rebranded in 2015, its customer base and revenue has increased exponentially, along with other similar online clothing brands.
Fast fashion is typically low-priced trendy clothing that is mass-produced at fast rates, and clothing styles produced often go out of style as fast as they went “in style.” These clothes are quickly turned over and donated or discarded, with 60% of fast fashion items manufactured in 2012 being thrown away only a few years after their purchase, leaving a negative environmental impact.
A 2022 report by online thrifting company ThredUP found that 72% of college students say they have shopped fast fashion in the past year, with one in three Gen Z shoppers saying they feel addicted to fast fashion.
Several student organizations at the University of Georgia have noticed this sustainability issue and are attempting to educate their peers on the negative impacts of fast fashion that many people overlook.
STUDENTS STRIVING FOR BETTER
Chattering voices and laughter echo down the corridors of Dawson Hall on a quiet October evening as students from Fair Fashion and the Fashion Design Student Association meet in room 306 for a fabric mending and upcycling workshop. Mending is the process of repairing or rebuilding something to make it whole again, and it has become a popular way for environmentally conscious clothing lovers to resist the desire to partake in fashion microtrends.
Student organizations like Fair Fashion, Greek Goes Green, FDSA and Swap Shop at UGA have been working on creating a more eco-friendly culture on campus. One of the biggest foes of sustainability on campus is fast fashion.
FDSA president Elizabeth Walker demonstrates how to use the Depop mending kit during an FDSA general body meeting with Fair Fashion on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Athens, Georgia. Walker believes that “UGA does have a big drinking culture,” which contributes to the overconsumption of fast fashion in Athens. (Photo/Ashtin Barker)
“We have so much waste,” Tri Delta Greek Goes Green Coordinator Stella Addis said. “When that comes to tailgating, when that comes to date nights and buying all these new dresses.”
Addis is an out-of-state student from Colorado who grew up surrounded by a very sustainable culture. Now, she wants to bring that culture to UGA and her sorority.
Greek Goes Green has different environmental focuses yearly based on observed needs in Greek life. During the 2022 to 2023 academic year, the three pillars of Greek Goes Green certification were “Cans, Clothes and Community.” Greek life chapters competed against each other to see which sorority or fraternity is the most eco-friendly through turning in cans to the recycling facility, holding clothing swap events and hosting and attending community learning events.
Watch the video below to learn more about the prevalence of fast fashion in Athens and how students are striving to address it.
SHOPPING ALONG CLAYTON STREET
In the college town of Athens at the corner of Clayton Street and Jackson Street sits the popular clothing store, Pitaya. The store sells clothes geared toward college-aged women and keeps various styles in stock all year. The clothing sold comes from factories in the United States, as well as internationally from countries like Indonesia and China.
A Pitaya employee prices new clothing items with a clothing tagging gun on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024 in Athens, Georgia. Pitaya gets weekly clothing shipments to their Athens store. (Photo/Ashtin Barker)
The general manager of the Athens location, Courtney Gee, said that compared to other clothing boutiques downtown like Community, Pitaya is fast fashion.
Just down the block from Pitaya is Community, a sustainable clothing boutique that sells handcrafted local products and garments that are made or upcycled in-house. Owner and founder Sanni Baumgärtner is a German native that attended UGA and opened the store in Athens in 2010. According to its website, Community’s mission is to minimize their impact on the environment by using eco-friendly materials and revitalizing vintage clothing.
MISUNDERSTANDINGS
Fair Fashion’s president, Harini Tirumala, believes that the student population at UGA is still undereducated about the environmental impacts of the fast fashion industry.
Athens-Clarke County Unified Government has an entire department designated to manage solid waste in Athens, and they try to make sustainable practices like composting and recycling as accessible as possible. Denise Young is the ACC waste reduction coordinator, and her job is to organize education and outreach events and coordinate different waste programs.
The Center for Hard to Recycle Materials, also known as CHaRM, is one of Athens-Clarke County’s recycling hubs, and most of the salvageable clothing waste turned into the center is sorted and sold to America’s Thrift Stores and Donation Center. Clothing and fabric waste dropped off at CHaRM that cannot be sold is turned into rags.
“The issue with fashion is nothing is 100% cotton, 100% polyester,” Young said. “So when you try to recycle anything that’s mixed material, it’s nearly impossible, because how do you separate the cotton from the spandex or the cotton from the polyester? Because they’re interwoven.”
The affordability of fast fashion is one of the aspects that makes it so desirable to college students, but since brands like Shein mainly use synthetic materials like polyester and fabric blends, those trendy clothes cannot be recycled.
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