Transcript | Ep. 71: How to Take Fashion Seriously
[Stinger]
Jessica Schreiber: I still feel a lot of pressure of like don't wear something more than once. Like OOTD, like you still have to keep up with what's trendy. And right now that is like X, Y and Z. And then in six months, it could be something totally different, but you still have to keep up. Like, I almost feel like the pressure is to pretend it's not a problem and ignore that it's like just building up in a landfill somewhere.
[Theme music]
Cristen: Hey y’all, and welcome to Unladylike, where we find out what happens when women break the rules. I’m Cristen.
Caroline: I’m Caroline. And our producer Sam Lee is here in the studio with us! Welcome, Sam!
Sam: Hey, thank you. I’m very excited to have escaped from the control room to chat with y’all today.
Cristen: Oh, we’re excited too! So, Sam. You are coming here with a bit of a guilty conscience today ...
Sam: It’s true. Unladies, it’s been 38 years since my last confession.
Caroline: OK ...
Cristen: Where are we going?
Sam: Well, I think you would call me a compulsive shopper. I’m one of those people who sees all those Uniqlo, GAP, Madewell deals coming into my inbox, and cannot control myself, I gotta click.
Cristen: Oh God, the siren song of Madewell sales!
Sam: They’re so hard to resist! It’s always an extra 40 percent off! But I’m trying to resist because this year, as the climate change conversations have gotten louder, I started wondering whether all of my retail therapy was actually killing the planet
Caroline: Damn, OK, that’s a little dark.
Sam: Sorry
Caroline: Tell us more.
Sam: Well, I started noticing people on Instagram posting with the hashtag #ayearwithoutbuying, and when I dug deeper into why they were trying not to buy any new clothes, I learned that the fashion industry is one of the world’s top polluters. So looking at how much clothing was coming into my closet on a regular basis amounted to RACKS of guilt for me. Pun intended.
Cristen: Yeah, I mean over the past couple years, I’ve just been trying to stay the hell away from my neighborhood H&M, partly because, like, those are the things that end up in my Goodwill bag the fastest, but it is hard to resist sometimes!
Sam: I know. But Cristen, It’s not just consumer waste that’s the problem. All the stuff we’re throwing out is on top of all the stuff that clothing manufacturers throw out before anything even makes it into the store for us to buy and instantly regret.
Caroline: Great, great, yeah no this isn’t bleak at all.
Sam: OK, bleak, sure. But here at Unladylike, we don't run away from the darkness! No, I saw a problem and decided to follow our own advice and get unladylike — and in this case that meant booking an interview with a textile recycling SUPERHERO and also facing down mountains of discarded fabric head on.
Caroline: Oh what a journey you went on! All to find out how the fashion industry is so wasteful, why it’s so easy it ignore all that waste and what we all can do to slow down the trend.
[Stinger]
[Clip: Jessica on Project Runway Fashion Startup]
Host 1: Welcome
Jessica: Hi, my name’s Jessica. I’m kind of a trash nerd. And for the last five years I’ve worked in waste management
Host 2: The most glamorous job ever.
Jessica: Of course. You guys probably recognize these materials: swatches, headers, cutting-room scraps. Residents throw out 200,000 tons of clothing and textiles every single year, and for commercial business, like the fashion industry, you can multiply that number by 40. So that’s 8 million tons wasted annually.
Caroline: That’s today’s guest Jessica Schreiber in a clip from 2016 when she went on Project Runway: Fashion Startup — basically Shark Tank meets Project Runway.
Cristen: Jessica went on the show to pitch her idea for textile-waste nonprofit called FABSCRAP — and Fashion Startup funded it! Now, Fabscrap collects PILES and PILES of fabric left over from fashion designers and sells it to people who, among other things, want to make their own clothes!
Caroline: OK, so Sam, you were so excited to introduce us to Jessica. Why did she make such a big impression on you?
Sam: Jessica is a font of knowledge when it comes to clothing waste, but honestly, she’s an amazing example of somebody who saw a problem and actually managed to DO something about it. Plus, what could be more Unladylike than dealing with literal tons of trash? As soon as I found her, I really wanted you guys to meet her.
Cristen: One, I’m so glad you associate trash with Unladylike. And two, I’m so glad you introduced us to Jessica because we had such a fascinating conversation with Jessica. And something I was NOT expecting was for her fashion origin story to begin … at the dump.
Caroline: Growing up outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, Jessica and her dad would make weekly trips to the dump because her neighborhood didn't have trash pick up.
Caroline: What difference does it make, do you think, seeing the actual process of disposing of all of this garbage in the same place versus just being able to put it on your curb and never see where it goes?
Jessica: I think sanitation in probably most cities and especially here in New York does a really good job of just making it disappear. And the problem with that, while it's like really great for sanitation reasons and health reasons and rats and whatever, the problem with that is that like “away” becomes like something we don't think about. And there really is no “away,” when you do see those piles and then you see them cumulatively adding up, I think that immediately puts into context, like how much is created, how often, and then thinking about, well, where is it supposed to go or what could be done differently?
Caroline: Jessica went on to grad school at Columbia to study climate and society. She first landed at the New York Department of Sanitation as an intern.
Cristen: That also happened to be the summer the sanitation department launched their Refashion Program, which collects textiles for reuse or recycling. After her internship, Jessica was hired on full-time to run the program, and that’s when she saw firsthand just how big a problem textile waste is.
Caroline: So can you give us an idea of scale? So when you were at the Department of Sanitation, how much clothing or fabric scraps or textiles basically were coming in?
Jessica: We did a waste characterization study, and it was 6 percent of New York City's trash is clothing, shoes, accessories, which works out to about 200,000 tons every year. So 200,000 tons is 14 times the physical weight of the Brooklyn Bridge. And that's every year, and that's just New York City.
Caroline: These are just the numbers for residential waste. The city doesn’t even touch large-scale commercial trash.
Jessica: So I was running the city's clothing recycling program, and slowly brands started to reach out and ask, well, what do I do with all of my fabric waste that's not clothing yet. I have extra yardage or I have fabric swatches from last season or I have some like mockup samples that aren't finished yet. Like, what am I supposed to do with that? And what I was hearing was that like the volumes of that were really overwhelming.
Cristen: These brands were coming to Jessica with what seemed to her like a big problem, but not one that she could really fix through the Sanitation Department
Jessica: So all of this was commercial waste, and all of the ways I was trying to fit it into the city program just didn't work. It's not clothing. The existing non-profits accepted clothing or they accepted very specific material things for art. And so all of this material, the volume and then that it wasn't clothing just wasn't fitting in anywhere.
Caroline: So Jessica decided to be proactive. She gathered representatives from all the brands that had reached out to her — there were 30 in total — and pulled them together to talk and try to figure out how the city might be able to help them.
Jessica: And as a credit to those 30 designers who all happened to be women from very competitive companies, they all really collaboratively and non-competitively shared information and data and resources. And that group met three times. Um and I really wanted to fit it into an existing like thrift store or city structure. And it it just wasn't working. Here were these like 30 people telling me they wanted to do better and then finding no way for them to actually do better was so frustrating that I was like, OK, well, so we'll just have to build it ourselves.
Caroline: Nice!
Cristen: Maybe I’m being cynical here, but what were the motivations of that initial group? Was it more a sense of like, eco consciousness as a business opportunity? Or was it more pure concern around climate change and waste?
Jessica: I don't think that it had anything to do with marketing or making money. I think this was before we really got to where like sustainability was a marketing word. What I was feeling from the group actually was just like a lot of guilt. Like I think they knew that there was a better option, but it's not like their background or training to know what a better option or way was. And fashion tends to be really traditional and like this is the way we've done this. And stepping outside of that can be really difficult. So they were telling me stories about like hoarding fabric under their desks or they had like these closets that were just full of fabric because they felt too bad to throw it away or trying to give it to their kid’s school or student groups. And it's - there's just like too much. Like they were probably middle management at a really large corporation, but they still felt that like something better could be happening and took a step. It wasn't coming top down, and it wasn't like they were like building this grassroots thing. They were just like, what is a better way to manage this? Which I think was like interesting just from like where those women were coming from in their careers and - and - and the size of the companies that they worked at, that they took that on maybe more personally as a project than they were probably expected to. I think some of them were even there without their company knowing.
Cristen: So, the fact that these middle managers were women isn’t too surprising when you look at the stats. Because even though yes, women make up the vast majority of fashion-industry workers and also the vast majority of fashion school students and also the vast majority of people just shopping for clothes, women in the industry run into the “fabric ceiling,” which I guess is like a softer version of the glass ceiling? Basically what you need to know if less than 13 percent of major clothing companies are run by women
Caroline: Those women in middle management are the folks who actually deal with more of the day-to-day operations and SEE the waste. But they don’t necessarily have the power to do anything about it within the company.
Cristen: Jessica, however, had an idea. With her experience running the New York City textile recycling program combined with the insights from this focus group of women, she was like, “Uh, I’ll start a company that picks up the excess fabric, sells it and recycles what we can’t sell.”
Caroline: Nowadays, FABSCRAP works with about 400 mostly fashion brands, everything from J. Crew and Express to Marc Jacobs and Oscar de la Renta.
Cristen: They also work with interior design companies, and the costume and set departments for Broadway plays. The Fabscrap business is catching on like high-waisted leggings
Caroline: Or like those tiny Matrix glasses that I wish people would stop wearing
Cristen: Oh, god.
Jessica: Anybody who started a business is gonna hate what I'm about to say.
Cristen: No, no!
Jessica: Like we have done no sales or recruiting to businesses. And I would like to take credit for that and just say, like, that's how great this service is. But I actually think like that's how pervasive the problem is. And more and more people are recognizing the problem. And so what was once like low-hanging fruit of businesses who got it, like more fruit is dropping like daily. And so more and more companies are starting to understand their impact and want to do something even if they're not ready to talk about it yet. Um, it has all been word of mouth. And so, yeah, we've we've grown really, really quickly.
Cristen: How much fabric has Fabscrap kept out of landfills?
Jessica: We are just over 400,000 pounds in the three years we've been operational. So we've collected that much, but only 3 percent of that 400,000 went to landfill in the last three years, which is exciting.
Cristen: How many Brooklyn Bridges is that?
Jessica: Oh, man.
Caroline: When we come back, producer Sam takes a field trip to the FABSCRAP warehouse to see all that waste in person.
Cristen: Don’t go away.
[Midroll ad 1]
Cristen: We’re back. And so is producer Sam!
Sam: It’s me!
Cristen: Hello! So Sam, you’ve actually seen Jessica’s fabric waste-saving operation with your own eyes, right?
Sam: It’s true! I took a field trip all the way out to the deep deep depths of Brooklyn to visit the FABSCRAP warehouse. OK, it’s honestly a five-minute drive from my apartment.
Caroline: OK, honestly no matter how far away that warehouse was, you would’ve gone because you were super excited about it. So, what were you hoping to see?
Sam: Well, Jessica mentioned how actually seeing the mounds of trash — or in this case, fabric scraps — really drives home the extent of our waste issues. So I decided to go look my waste in the face.
Cristen: OK, so tell us about the space, what was it like to face that waste?
Sam: OK so the Fabscrap warehouse is part of the Brooklyn Army Terminal, which is a huge warehouse complex. And when you walk into their space you’re immediately confronted with a massive pile of black trash bags — we’re talking floor to ceiling, and all of those black trash bags are filled with fabric scraps.
Caroline: So like a mountain of fabric trash?
Sam: Yes! Except not trash! It’s gonna get reused. It’s a mountain of fabric resources!
Cristen: A mountain of fabric opportunities
Sam: Exactly. Jessica estimated that the weight of that trash bag mountain was somewhere between 65 and 70 THOUSAND POUNDS. And they’re picking up new bags every week, so basically Jessica’s goal right now is to sort more than they bring in so that pile does not continue growing.
Cristen: OK this is reminding me of how I’m trying to manage my email inbox. This really sounds like a lot of work!
Sam: Yeah, it is. Volunteers come out to the warehouse every single day to sort that big pile of trash bags. And, they get paid in fabric. On the day that I was there, a group of fashion students from Pratt was pitching in.
Sam: How do you feel looking around right now, seeing this mountain of bags, seeing these students here?
Jessica: I mean, it's - I get really excited when there's people who are like going through all the usable fabric and getting excited because I think - I think the misconception is like different from other thrift stores where stuff is used, like all of this is brand new. And it's really sad that it would have gone to landfill. And so I think this is really eye-opening for students to understand waste and see it in this volume, but then immediately like 2 feet away, also see it as a resource. So understanding that like what was coming in as trash for recycling like also has so much usable potential. And it's within feet of each other that they're seeing that distinction, and I think it's really exciting. They're going to go be interns at brands or start their own lines. And so for them to have this experience and that information can really like produce a lot of change as they - as they grow in the industry and share.
Caroline: OK Sam, so is the whole warehouse just trash bags?
Sam: No no, so along the walls there’s also shelves of fabric for sale, and that includes actual full rolls of fabric and also fabric remnants that are maybe 1- to 3-yard cuts. They have yarn, they’ve got zippers, they’ve got buttons — it’s like a JoAnn Fabrics if the fabric at JoAnn Fabrics was castaways from Marc Jacobs and priced at $5 a pound! And because it’s so inexpensive, that means it moves pretty quickly.
Jessica: So one of the things that like fast fashion does as a trick is like change its windows every two weeks, so you always feel like there's something new and you have to buy before you miss out. And we like very naturally have that same process because what we get is so limited in quantity. When it's gone, it's gone, that like if you see something you like, there's a real like urge to like get it now. And so, yeah, there's a real urgency I think when you find something you like to actually act on it.
Sam: I definitely feel that.
Sam: It definitely worked on me. I brought home 7 POUNDS of fabric from that warehouse.
Caroline: I mean that’s a lot, but it’s better than buying new stuff at the Gap, Sam!
Sam: Exactly! Because that could have been 7 pounds of fabric that was in the trash instead. And now I’m gonna make my own new, cute clothes out of it. I got some amazing gold brocade that is gonna make an adorable festive skirt to wear to holiday parties and a knit that’s printed with airplanes. It’s so cute and I can’t wait to make into a sweater coat.
Cristen: I can’t wait to see pics on Instagram! But you mentioned all the sorting still has to happen by hand — and that kinda old school workflow is something we wanted to talk to Jessica about too
Jessica: In reality, textiles are now a waste stream and a commodity more similar to glass or plastic or paper. And all of those recycling technologies and companies have been private for a while. And that's also why they're further along. Like plastic sorting is really cool. It goes down this conveyor belt. Lasers shine through it and then puffs of air will separate it based on like what the laser reads as, what type of plastic it is
Cristen: That’s cool
Jessica: Like plastic recycling is really amazing, and textile recycling like is still a person picking it up and like reading it or feeling it like one by one. It's like decades behind.
Caroline: When volunteers are sorting, one of the things they’re looking at is fabric type. And keeping their eyes peeled for one particularly problematic material...
Jessica: We do a little bit of sorting by fiber type because we can't shred and recycle spandex. So we are sorting out spandex even if it's like 1 percent spandex. We'll sort out spandex.
Caroline: What is the deal with spandex? Like why can’t you recycle it?
Jessica: So we're saying we're recycling, but what's really happening is like we're shredding it and it's becoming insulation. So it's a little bit more down cycling. Recycling would really be like fabric back into fabric. Not quite there yet. So in that shredding process that happens, spandex melts as opposed to acting like another fiber that would just kind of pull apart into smaller and smaller pieces. So spandex, because it's not a fiber, it's like an additive to the fiber blend behaves in a way that's like problematic. And that's also why we can't shred leather because leather is not a fiber, it's a skin.
Caroline: So what I'm hearing is that my athleisure —
Jessica: Oh, it's troublesome.
Cristen: I know as soon as we - in reading up, the note about spandex jumped out and I was like, Caroline, I was like wearing my leggings. I was like, oh, no.
Caroline: Well, and everything - like these jeans I'm wearing have a percent of spandex in them.
Jessica: Everything has spandex in them these days yeah. I mean, part of that is I think we've evolved as consumers to want things that are comfortable and like move in a way that like clothing didn't used to like, I don't know. I look back at photos from the 90s and my jeans were so stiff.
Caroline: Oh. Yeah. Straight and stiff.
Jessica: Like they weren't. And we didn't expect them to, like, fit in the way that we do now. And so there's spandex in almost every fabric that we've seen. and sometimes it's really hard to avoid. I have - I have leggings, like everybody has workout clothes. So just maybe making the investment in the spandex that's going to last the longest so you can continue to use it and it's not something that it's like after a couple gym sessions like that pair's done.
Caroline: That's happened. I'm like, how long can I wear this pair of workout pants that has a hole in the crotch.
Jessica: As long as your underwear matches.
Caroline: Caroline, you have a lot of black underwear to match those workout leggings.
Cristen: So what other types of clothes are the most problematic in terms of waste?
Jessica: I mean, definitely the fast fashion because it just like doesn't last as long. And I think people when you pay $5 for something, you kind of get that like its resale value is not that great. And so there's not a lot of attempt to consign it or keep it or pass it down or even swap it. It's like the planned obsolescence thing. Is that like a phrase you guys have. OK. So ok.
Cristen: I don't know this. Educate me.
Jessica: Planned obsolescence is the idea that like if a company makes a product knowing in the ways that it will wear out or become obsolete, then that means they can resell another one. And so like H&M or fast fashion in general is like, they've perfected that process and that like trends move so fast they're moving new things to their store every two weeks. And because it wears out quickly and it's obsolete in terms of like style or fashion, then it's being disposed of.
Cristen: And those way-too-disposable clothes are much likelier to belong to women
Jessica: Men, I don't know if it's just because trends don't change is faster. They keep their clothes longer or there's less like style change or fit changes. But like men's clothing is not as robust.
Caroline: That is such a good point. And so interesting because think about it - just from - think about it just from the fashion perspective, like men's fashions, tbh haven't really changed since like 1800. You know what I mean. Like there's - they're just still wearing suits and ties.
Jessica: Yeah. I mean I think it's also they have less styles. Like, for example, my husband's always like, When you get dressed you could wear a skirt or a dress or a shirt or like pants and shorts. Like you have all of these options. Like I have pants or shorts. Like they just don't have as many different options for like what's socially acceptable. And so even just by that, like their quantity is lower.
Cristen: So Caroline let’s talk about how fast fashion happened in the first place. Because get this: In her book Fashionopolis, journalist Dana Thomas reports that we buy FIVE TIMES more clothing each year than folks did back in 1980.
Caroline: Yeah, by the time mid-1990s, 140 new malls were being built every year! Malls and shopping were Americans’ new fave pastime.
[90s Mall Madness board game commercial]
I’m mad about shopping!
We’re mad about Mall Madness!
Catch the madness, it’s Mall Madness
First one out of the mall with all their stuff wins
I was born to shop
It’s Mall Madness
Sam: Oh my god Mall Madness! I feel like I am Generation Mall Madness, and when I was in high school way back in 1998, I actually worked at Old Navy. It was there that I saw first hand how well the fashion marketing machine worked. Every time they would air a new “Item of the Week” commercial, that item would immediately sell out
Cristen: Oh I remember Old Navy in the late 90s because those Items of the Week were on trend, but they were also super cheap. And if we just look at other bigger stores and brands like an Old Navy at this time, their prices were dropping because the price of making their clothes was dropping with clothing manufacturing moving overseas where they could pay garment workers less.
Caroline: Plus, technology advancements at the time also allowed retailers to design, make and ship their clothes much faster to both create demand and respond to it.
Cristen: So by the time you saw a picture of a celeb on the red carpet or a model on the runway, stores like Zara, Forever 21 and H+M were already in the process of knocking off the design and sending it to stores.
Caroline: In Zara’s case, if designs are successful, they get to live on the racks for about a month, tops, before they’re replaced by even newer looks. That is a big way to keep shoppers coming back
Cristen: And that’s also a big reason why the dude who runs Zara is among the 10 richest men in the world.
Caroline: Must be nice! So, how can we break that cycle? When we come back y’all, we’ll find out what we can do on the individual level to TRULY clean out our closets
Caroline: Stick around.
[Midroll ad 2]
Jessica: You don't have to start by like changing the whole system because yes, the whole system is really big. And so finding like the thing that resonates with you. For me, it was trash. But maybe it is like finding a way to purchase clothing where you're looking at the company's labor practices or you're looking at like, is it natural or synthetic and like finding the thing that, like, really resonates with you and what you’re passionate about and just making that change first.
Caroline: We’re back with Jessica Schreiber of FABSCRAP. Who has definitely found what resonates with HER.
Sam: Yeah, and sustainability is also resonating more within the fashion industry as a business opportunity
Cristen: Yeah, brands are recognizing a generational shift that seems to be happening. You know, our - our Generation Mall Madness seems to be coming to a close, and surveys consistently find that Millennials and Gen Z shoppers ARE more committed to sustainable clothing. But I know for me at least, a big problem is affordability
Jessica: I think in general, sustainability has an access issue. And so right now, I do feel like being able to shop sustainably is kind of a more privileged thing to be able to like - I'm going to shop my values - like that's something that not everybody can do. However, there's like definitely a resurgence in thrift. And so you can find really nice things that are affordable. Thrifting, I think, has kind of lost its stigma, that like, oh, it's dirty and it's used. So like thrifting is a way to consciously still indulge your shopping habits. I also think there's ways to just like learn more about making clothing last longer and shopping more responsibly. Picking pieces so that you can wear them multiple seasons or in multiple ways. And then also like learning about the fabric so you can care for it. If those key pieces last longer, you can just buy your like H&M necklace that's going to like accent this appropriately or whatever it is. You can just buy one or two key pieces instead of several shirts every month.
Caroline: Yeah, I definitely try to take care of my stuff. It's just sometimes I lose control of my thighs, and they rub a hole in the legs of my pants and I can't be helped.
Sam: OK, Caroline, me too. I currently am wearing a skirt because my black jeans have two holes in the crotch, but you know what? That can be helped. Because almost any dry cleaner or tailor will patch those thigh holes for you. My black jeans are currently at the tailor getting fixed.
Cristen: That’s such a helpful reminder that we can make our clothes last longer because on average, Americans wear something just seven times before retiring it. And real talk, y’all: I have a lot of clothes I have not worn even close to seven times. So Sam, do you have any other tricks up your tailored sleeve for how we can take better care of our wardrobes?
Sam: You bet I do! Let’s play a little round of Unladylike Home Ec — or shall I say Home ACK — as in, ACK! My clothes are destroying the planet, and I don’t know what to do about it!
Caroline: Cue the gameshow music!
Sam: Come on down, Cristen and Caroline! OK, so the soles of your boots wear out. What are you gonna do?
Cristen: Ok, I might double up my socks but if it rains I’m out of luck. Uh … I know I’m not supposed to say this, but throw them out?
[buzzer sound]
Sam: No, you take them to a cobbler! And then you can say you have a cobbler, which is a very adult thing to have.
Cristen: Honestly the only cobbler I’ve ever had is the kind that I eat. Alone in a room.
Sam: OK, moving on. Next question. You have a sweater. It’s very pilly at this point. What are you gonna do?
Caroline: OK well obviously you don’t get rid of the sweater! You just … embrace the look and rock that pilly sweater? Give it to your dog?
[buzzer sound]
Sam: I’m sure my dog Penny would look fetching in my old Madewell, but NO! Let me tell you about a handy dandy item called a sweater stone. It basically looks like a pumice stone that you might use on your feet, but you rub that on your sweater, and it takes all those pills off for you!
Cristen: Sam, I need to get a sweater stone asap, and also this reminds me of when I was a freshman in high school when this very rude girl looked at the sweater I was wearing and said, “How long have you had your sweater … It’s really pilly.”
Caroline: Well damn, she shoulda just thrown you a sweater stone!
Cristen: Or handed me one. She’s gonna give you a black eye!
[bell sound]
Sam: OK, final question. You are trying not to wash your clothes as much, but they’re starting to smell a little funky. How do you handle it?
Cristen: Um, douse them in Febreze and put them in the microwave
Sam: Honestly, could work, uh …
[buzzer sound]
Sam: I was going to give you a more simple tip, and that is: Grab yourself a cheap handle of vodka, pour some in a spray bottle, dilute it with water, and you spray that right on your stinky fabrics! It kills the germs and gets rid of the smells. Just you know leave it to air out a little so you don’t smell like a alcoholic when you walk into work
Cristen: That’s what I was gonna ask!
Caroline: I mean what would the difference be really on any given Tuesday? I mean Sam I do think that’s my favorite cleaning fact though
Sam: Whatever works. Whatever works.
Caroline: OK, so I know how to preserve my clothes a little better thanks to Sam and her gameshow. But Sam, another thing I’ve done is actually halted shopping for brand-new clothes altogether. Now, when I do shop, I’m perusing resale sites, places like ThredUp — which, yes, has been an Unladylike sponsor — and Poshmark
Cristen: Yeah, and you also Caroline are really good about selling your clothes as well.
Caroline: I’m broke, I gotta get money.
Cristen: Well, and those new resale sites are something we definitely wanted to ask Jessica Schreiber about as well
Cristen Do you see the rise of resale and like online thrift as a positive development in all this?
Jessica: Yes. So this is like signaling that, like this isn't trash, like these materials still have value. Whether or not you're continuing to use them. And it's extending the life of those items and making them more accessible and giving people access to new clothing in a way that it's not requiring new resources. I think - I think though, that whole resale system is a little bit of a double-edged sword. I don't - I don't know if there's been a full environmental assessment of the shipping —
Caroline: Yeah
Jessica: — back and forth of all of these things everywhere. And so I don't know if that's fully part of the like environmental accounting.
Cristen: Well, politically, what are what are the big changes that you are seeing happening in this space? Not even just - just in the U.S., but even abroad?
Jessica: Yeah. I mean, I'm really excited about France just passed textile EPR. EPR stands for extended producer responsibility, which basically says, like, if you're making fabric or making clothing, like you have a responsibility for its end of life and what happens to it and whether or not it's recyclable.The other big like political piece that affects all of this is so much of our used clothing is donated slash recycled by actually just moving it to another country. And because the volume of that has increased so drastically and most of that volume is now fast fashion and the quality kind of sucks, a lot of those countries are considering not accepting any more imports of clothing. And so that is going to drastically change how we choose to deal with it here
Caroline: Yeah, because then it's going to be like back in Albuquerque where
Jessica: We're going to have to - Its going to be in our face. Yeah, we're going to have to deal with like the volume and where it goes. Yeah.
Cristen: Not to suggest that Albuquerque's full of trash.
Caroline: No. No. But you
Jessica: Breaking Bad would have you think.
Cristen: And maybe having that fashion waste in our face — like all of those garbage bags in the Fabscrap warehouse — could actually help with some accountability.
Caroline: Jessica’s hopeful that can translate to the consumer side, too.
Jessica: And so I think in a lot of ways, fashion kind of traces that in like we've now really come to understand like what we eat is important. What we put in our body is important. And I think the next step is like what I put on my body and like next to my skin for 12 or something hours a day is important. and so I don't know if we're as quick on the uptake as we could be, but it's there's a shift for sure.
Cristen: Jessica, we have one final question for you. And we ask all of our Unladylike guests. What is the most unladylike thing about you?
Jessica: I'm almost always carrying something that I'm just waiting to dispose of properly. And sometimes those things are just like in the context, I'm like, if they knew what was in my bag right now. Because I'm waiting for the opportunity to recycle it or the plastic bottle.
Cristen: So I think I think what you're saying is you're maybe always carrying around a little bit of trash.
Jessica: Oh always. But aren't we all?
Caroline: Oh, yeah. Emotionally, definitely. Love emotional garbage.
Cristen: OK, Sam, Caroline. We’ve been talking about such a huge issue, which is fashion waste. And honestly, all of us are contributors. Everyone who wears clothes. All the governments who aren’t doing anything and all the brands who are skating by. Um, but the conversation with Jessica has gotten me thinking a lot about my clothing habits, and I’m curious about how y'all are feeling with your closets?
Caroline: Well, talking with Jessica convinced me that I needed to do less laundry. Since talking to her, I’ve already cut back on the amount of laundry loads I’ve done because I don’t want my clothes to wear out.
Cristen: Caroline, I’ve been doing that too! And let me tell you that I just love a great excuse to be like ‘You know what, no, I shouldn’t do laundry today.’ But Sam what about you?
Sam: For me, I’ve honestly really stopped buying new clothes. It’s been months since I bought anything new I think.
Cristen: Sam! This is kinda huge, right?
Sam: It’s a really big deal! This is like prime Uniqlo season for me. And I haven’t bought a goddamn thing at Uniqlo, and I’m very excited about that. And then like I mentioned in the episode, I have started sewing my own clothes, and honestly I think that’s a huge reason why I haven’t been buying new clothes. Because I’ve been kinda channeling that energy into buying fabric and patterns. Which maybe isn’t as great on my wallet, but it does mean I’ll be making things and not buying new things instead.
Caroline: Sam, that’s pretty inspirational.
Cristen: I’m proud of you!
Sam: Thank you!
Cristen: Well, unladies — we want to know from y'all if you’ve been struggling with the conversation around the environment and fashion and fast fashion in particular. Have you been thinking about it? Have you been troubleshooting it in your own ways? Tell us how you’ve escaped the fast-fashion trap. Email us at hello@unladylike.co, hit us up on social @unladylikemedia or find the THREAD for this episode in our private facebook group.
Caroline: Head over to unladylike.co to find the sources and the transcript for this episode. While you’re there, sign up for our newsletter to get actually good news about women in the world delivered to your inbox every Wednesday
Cristen: Sam Lee and Nora Ritchie are our producers. Abigail Keel is the senior producer of Unladylike. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Additional editing this week from Tracey Samuelson. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing, sound design, and additional music is by Casey Holford. Our executive producers are Chris Bannon and Daisy Rosario.
Caroline: Special thanks to Andi at Stitcher
Cristen: We are your hosts, Cristen Conger
Conger: and Caroline Ervin. Next week …
Haley: I mean can you honestly imagine Kendall Jenner ever talking about pooping? I don’t think so. Guess what? She shits just like you and me.
Caroline: She’s had her asshole complete lasered off.
[laughter]
Cristen: Yes y'all, it’s gonna be a real shit show. Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike so you don’t miss this episode. Seriously, even though it’s about poop. It’s gonna be great. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you like to listen
Caroline: And remember, got a problem?
Cristen: Get unladylike.
