Stop buying clothes now!

As fashion campaigners demand 'degrowth' for an industry responsible for 10 per cent of global pollution, Helen Coffey talks to designers and activists about how, with 100 billion garments made every year, we risk shopping till we drop

- Helen Coffey

Last month, ex-Blue Peter presenter and children’s author Konnie Huq made headlines when she revealed that she hadn’t bought any clothes in 20 years. “The older I get, the more comfy I feel in my own skin,” she said while promoting a new climate action anthology for kids, adding: “I’m much happier opting out.”

The reason this captured so much attention was because, for most of us, the very idea of “opting out” is completely unheard of. In our current culture of vast overconsumption, not buying clothes doesn’t feel like a mere lifestyle choice, but a radical, counter-cultural act of defiance.

When it comes to fast fashion – and we have now reached a point where nearly all fashion is fast, thanks to a shift from seasonal collections to continuous “drops” of new items – the numbers are enough to make your head spin. It’s estimated that H&M produces 25,000 new styles per year, Zara 36,000, and industry leader Shein a mind-bending 1.3 million, adding, according to one investigation, between 2,000 and 10,000 new styles to its website per day. (Just to be clear – this is only the number of designs, not total items.)

The volume of clothing now produced is staggering. Worldwide, around 100 billion garments are made each year. To put that into context, there are only 8 billion people on Earth. In the last 10 to 15 years, the fashion industry and, consequently, our buying habits and relationship to clothes, has gone through rapid transformation, says Tom Crisp, the sustainable fashion MA course leader at Falmouth University.

“Because brands and global groups are driven by the growth logic of capitalism, they have to continually sell more to ensure that their shareholders get return on their investment,” he says. “This means that the amount of clothing being produced has grown exponentially, and I think we can see that quite openly in the way that Shein and Temu have exploded onto the marketplace.”