Sustainable fashion is often described as an oxymoron, how can something at the pinnacle of consumer driven growth with deeply entrenched "planned obsolescence" ever be though of as sustainable? Well maybe there is no such thing as sustainable fashion, however as wearing clothes is an integral part of modern culture, some consideration must be given to this aspect of our lifestyles.
There have been some valuable and interesting contributions to sustainable fashion mainly focusing on the supply chain, low impact materials, shortened supply chains and working conditions. Considering a life cycle analysis of a garment shows that the highest impact is accrued at the use phase.
To focus on the use phase, my research is looking at what happens when people wash less, through a social lens. On the 1st of March 2011, 30 participants will be donning a pair of jeans they intend to wear for 3 months straight without washing, while I document their lived experience.
Interestingly there have been similar studies released in the past month, a Canadian Student Josh Le who didn't wash his jeans for 15 months, and found that there were similar levels of bacteria to jeans that were not washed for 13 days, and a new Levi's campaign aiming to save 16 million litres of water during (Australian) Autumn 2011.
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