Abstract

Current patterns of consumerism in the fashion industry result in overproduction, over-consumption and rapidly increasing waste. The author considers the implications for the environment of the cradle-to-bin-approach within ‘fast fashion’ consumption. The concept of re-use is presented as an alternative to these end-of-life options. ReFashion as an intervention reclaims discarded clothing and remakes new clothing items for return to the fashion stream. This paper, informed by design practice within a Master’s thesis, articulates issues arising from the development of a series of ReFashion prototypes using post-consumer textile waste sourced in New Zealand. Post reflective analysis of this process has revealed key issues in terms of quality and an unexpected encroachment of ‘fast fashion’ within the locally available secondary textiles. As a consequence fashion manufacturers and importers in New Zealand need to address the issues of low grade textile in the production of imported fashion product. However, anomalies in collected New Zealand data obscure any comparison with international standards and unverified issues have failed to provide any incentive for change. The implications of the rapid growth in ‘fast fashion’ consumption have mainly gone unnoticed in New Zealand.