Fast fashion. You probably have heard of this word often.
It means that the consumers buy and throw away clothes as easily as they eat fast food.
Just take a good look at the clothes you are wearing now.
Do you see the brand name, material type and washing instructions on the label?
But there’s one thing missing from your shirt’s label, and that is ‘water.’

Did you know? A staggering amount of water is used to make all the clothes we are wearing.
This means that the more clothes we buy, the faster this earth will turn into a big desert.

How many t-shirts do you buy in a month?
To Make One T-shirt
What do you think? Wouldn’t you agree that a heap of cotton would be needed in order to keep up with all this demand? And you know, the only way we can get all that cotton is to farm a whole lot of cotton plants.
But did you know, compared to other plants, cotton is one of the thirstiest plants around? A cotton plant needs a minimum of 500 mm of water for it to bloom. Because rivers are generally diverted to irrigate these parched cotton fields, river basins eventually dry up. That is why growing cotton leads to desertification all around the world.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. Additional water is needed for textile dyeing and the actual production of clothes. Producing just one t-shirt alone uses 2,700 liters of water, which is enough water for one person to drink for three years.
How much water do we need for a single Tshirt, a pair of jeans, for the textile indiustry per year?

The Aral Sea is gone

The Aral Sea, which means “Sea of Islands” in Greek, is situated in Central Asia, between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It’s hard to believe that just 50 years ago, it was the fourth-largest lake in the world with an area more than half the size of South Korea.
It has been shrinking since the 1960s after the two rivers, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, that flowed into it were diverted for cotton farming. While this process has helped Uzbekistan to become one of the world’s largest producers of cotton, this also shrunk the Aral Sea to one-tenth of its original size. Satellite images captured by NASA showed the Aral Sea drying up at a glance. As the Aral Sea dried up, the salinity of it increased, turning it into a ‘dead sea.’ This, along with the use of fertilizers and pesticides caused further pollution to the sea and completely killed all the fish living in it. Furthermore, winds that scour the salt and the dust from the dried-up lakebed cause salt storms which are threatening the public health.
There are indeed efforts to restore the Aral Sea, but the sea as a whole may never completely recover. Still we wonder if the Aral Sea, called “one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters,” will one day be restored.

Clothes Like These
You may say, “But I can’t just stop wearing clothes altogether!” And you’re absolutely right. That is why we have come up with some suggestions on how to be ‘FAPE (Fashion People)’ without having to buy new clothes. And you’d be surprised at how many options there are!

1. Make cashmere from naturally shed mountain goat fur
2. Prevent waste by utilizing WholeGarment (seam-free knitwear)
3. Develop materials that can be used for sustainable fashion
4. Redesign using discarded materials and/orfabrics
5. Socially disadvantaged groups (craftsmen) can participate in production for ethical consumption
6. Wear hand-me-downs or buy secondhand clothes
7. Hand school uniforms down
8. Alter small or big clothes and rewear

Have You Heard of the 3Fs?
To prevent desertification and land degradation, there are other things that are equally as important as fiber. They are food and feed, and along with fiber, three of them are known as the ‘3Fs.’
Our lives are dependent on the ‘3Fs’ which come from lands and forests.
Therefore, through sustainable production and consumption, we must, more than ever before, protect, preserve and cherish our very home, the earth.