Alexandra Palmer opened her class with an unexpected challenge for her students: try not to buy any new clothing this term.
“I also won't buy any new clothes,” says Palmer, a curator, author, and lecturer in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s Department of Art History. “We're in it together. The point is to change the discussion and shift our cultural thinking about sustainability so that we operate within our planetary boundaries. Textiles and fashion are an important part of this, and it’s a place where everyone can participate — once we understand the system.”
That opening challenge is part of her fourth-year course, Considering Sustainable Textiles and Fashions in the Age of Climate Crisis. Palmer’s students examine alarming global trends in fashion, such as escalating clothing production and consumption, and the ever-increasing environmental impacts of this industry. They also learn how to unravel greenwashing and make informed decisions about marketing claims related to climate change.
“The purpose of this course is to show students what’s going on and make them feel that they have agency so that they can respond in whatever way they choose,” says Palmer.
While climate change is often blamed on obvious sources such as the burning of fossil fuels and large-scale agriculture, clothing manufacturing is quietly doing almost as much damage.
According to the website Earth.org, of the 100 billion garments produced each year, 92 million tonnes end up in landfill. That’s the equivalent of a truck full of clothes arriving at a site every second.
How people buy and wear clothes has also changed dramatically over the last 30 years.
Fast fashion — a business model focused on rapidly producing high volumes of clothing, using low-quality materials and low wage labour to sell at low prices — has created a throwaway culture, with consumers buying and tossing clothing away more than ever before.
Earth.org reports that the number of times a garment is worn has declined by 36 per cent in 15 years. Today, many items are worn only seven to ten times before being thrown away. As a result, we buy 60 per cent more clothes today than we did 20 years ago, and we keep them for half as long.
Also distressing: fast fashion is giving way to ultra-fast fashion, with major international online clothing companies adding as many as 10,000 new garments made from cheap and unsustainable (non-circular) fabrics to their websites in a single day.
Compounding these issues is the fact that some fabrics—particularly polyesters made from non‑renewable fossil fuels—never break down in landfills. Creating garments also requires enormous amounts of water for growing fibres and dyeing, as well as other resources for packaging and shipping. Meanwhile, mountains of discarded clothing continue to grow in places like Chile and Ghana, which have become dumping grounds for the Global North — creating massive “clothing graveyards.”
The class explores alternatives to capitalism’s focus on endless growth and instead considers ideas like sufficiency and “enough.” Students discuss topics such as regulations, ethics, equity, laws, and tariffs. One example is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), where companies pay upfront for the end‑of‑life of their products, creating a real financial cost for overproduction.
If nothing changes, it’s predicted that global emissions created by the fashion industry will increase by 50 per cent by 2030.
It’s not that I wasn’t aware of the environmental issues around fashion and textiles, but it’s the kind of thing that’s easy to push out of your mind. I only really thought about it when I was buying clothes. Most of what I own are hand-me-downs or secondhand pieces, so I didn’t think much about what happens after. I only considered the environmental impact at the point of accumulating clothes.
Lily Kumar is a fourth-year art history specialist with a minor in South Asian studies, and a member of New College. She loves the course’s personal assignments, such as explaining the reasoning behind purchasing the clothing they wear to class and discussing their plans for eventually discarding those items.
“Rather than talking about specific readings, a lot of what we discuss are our own experiences, habits and thoughts about fashion and textiles in our own life,” says Kumar.
She was surprised that Palmer’s course focused on documentaries and short films.
“It wasn't an approach I was expecting for a fourth-year seminar, but it makes the discussions more accessible to everyone. They aren't shrouded in intellectualism or a coded vocabulary of theory. They’re more about real life.
“So for something like clothes, where every day we make decisions of what to wear, it makes sense. We also have a really diverse mix of perspectives and students from different departments, which has made the conversations far more dynamic.”
Has this course opened Kumar’s eyes in terms of fashion and its impact on the environment?
“It’s not that I wasn’t aware of the environmental issues around fashion and textiles,” says Kumar. “But it’s the kind of thing that’s easy to push out of your mind. I only really thought about it when I was buying clothes. Most of what I own are hand-me-downs or secondhand pieces, so I didn’t think much about what happens after. I only considered the environmental impact at the point of accumulating clothes.”
And did Kumar manage to complete the course without buying new clothes?
“I did!” she says. “I thought it was an interesting challenge, and I understand why Professor Palmer included it in her introductory lecture. It is almost like putting into practice everything we’re learning.”
So what can Kumar and the rest of us do as consumers going forward? It’s not that complicated. “Everyone can engage in this on some level,” says Palmer. “You can shop less. You can recycle, reuse, repair. You can have a clothing swap locally. You can decide you're not going to buy from certain retailers. The thing is to just really think about what you have and ask yourself what you truly need.”
Most people don’t understand the scale of the environmental impact of the fashion system. You can do something. Maybe you don’t need another T‑shirt. Your personal choices — no matter how small — make a difference.
Another suggestion is to become more informed by connecting with organizations like Fashion Takes Action – a Canadian non-profit group that’s committed to promoting and supporting sustainable and more eco-friendly clothing manufacturing.
The group is striving to eliminate textile waste, advance regeneration and optimize resource use across Canada’s fashion sector; empower Canadians to make informed choices about clothing through education and awareness; and support Canadian policy through research.
Or, follow the Ellen MacArthur Foundation — A U.K.-based organization that promotes a ”circular economy” for fashion that is built on driving the adoption of more sustainable clothing materials, a wider adoption of resale, repair and remaking practices, and more effective sorting and recycling infrastructure.
The students’ final project is a documentary video, and many are shared on the class YouTube channel. “Most people don’t understand the scale of the environmental impact of the fashion system,” Palmer explains. “This channel shares the thinking and information that the students have learned.” She adds, “You can do something. Maybe you don’t need another T‑shirt. Your personal choices — no matter how small — make a difference.”