Podcast transcript: How Do We Make Fashion Fair?

A transcript for the How to fix podcast episode ‘How do we make fashion fair?’ embedded in the Spotlight article ‘The Fabric of Society’.

[music plays]

Rich Williams, Presenter: Hello and welcome to ‘How to Fix…’ a podcast all about the behind-the-scenes innovations that are solving society's big questions. I'm your host, Rich Williams, and across this series, we talk to the cutting-edge researchers, activists and politicians from the University of Leeds who are taking ideas from the lab to the streets to make this world a better place.

Now, we all want to do our bit to address climate change and pollution, but what about the clothes we buy? How do they impact the world we live in? And with fast fashion brands selling clothes for incredibly cheap prices, what of the workers who make them and what happens to them once we throw them away?

This podcast will address those issues and might just challenge some of the preconceptions and myths we have around the fashion industry and the clothes we choose to wear. The problem of fast fashion is a complex one, but how do we fix it and stop the piles of wasted clothes and the huge carbon footprints they leave behind?

[music changes]

[audio package: a montage of broadcast news archive with music playing underneath]

Newsreader: For many businesses, the cost of sustainability simply isn't a price worth paying, and fear is the time for change is running out.

[sounds of protestors chanting “fast fashion isn’t free”]

Speaker 2: The fast fashion industry has an impact on climate and the people who suffer the most in our climate emergency are those often living in poverty.

Speaker 3: We look at every little detail of the product. So, whether that's our labels on a garment, right down to the back-neck label in our product. So we believe that at each step of the process you can improve. For minimal cost, you can make a big difference.

Speaker 4: Like, 10% of the stuff that I bought I’ve actually worn. Yeah, a lot of them are just left there.

Speaker 5: It's not sustainable. People need to, like, actually buy consciously and think about what they really need.

[indistinct protestor chanting]

[music outro – audio stops]

Rich Williams: With me to discuss how to fix fast fashion are three guests from the University of Leeds who are making a real difference. First, a very big welcome to Mark Sumner, Lecturer in Fashion, Sustainability and Retail.

Mark Sumner: Hi Rich, really nice to be here.

Rich Williams: We also have Bethan Bide, Lecturer in Design and Cultural Theory.

Bethan Bide: Hi, Rich. I'm looking forward to it.

Rich Williams: And Matt Davis, Associate Professor at the University of Leeds’ Business School.

Matt Davis: Hi, great to be part of the conversation.

Rich Williams: Mark, let's just start with you, because something I did mention in the intro here is some of the myths around fast fashion. It's probably worth starting with these, because people might have an image in their mind when they're thinking about fast fashion of towering landfill sites, cramped, sort of sweatshop-style factories in Eastern countries. It's not necessarily all about that, you've been debunking a lot of these myths. So why don't we start there? What are the things we think we know and what's the reality?

Mark Sumner: So, a big part of the research that we're doing is trying to unpick some of those well-established myths that are out there, and a lot of our research is really trying to get down into the nitty-gritty of understanding what is fast fashion. What does it actually mean?

And fast fashion is actually much more about an attitude towards shopping rather than fast fashion brands. Fast fashion, we'd argue, is also a really interesting change in sort of the socio-economic relationship that people have with fashion. If you go back 100 years, maybe 50 years, many people in the country wouldn't have a range of fashion clothes because they just couldn't afford it. But what we now see with fast fashion, that's actually been changed, and lots of people can now engage in fashion, and fashion is a really important part of society and culture.

So, what we're trying to do is actually understand all of those connections. And at the same time, as you said, the fashion industry has a really big carbon footprint, big water footprint, and also there are lots of workers – something like 400 million workers across the world – who are reliant on us buying clothes because they're getting paid to make those clothes, or to make the fabric, or to make the yarns, or grow the cotton.

So, we've got this very, very complex system when we're trying to unpick all of that and to make it accessible for people to actually understand what that means for when they're actually going out and buying clothes.

Rich Williams: And this is one of the key things here, is looking at the fact that it's not just the item of clothing that you pick up in the shop, but it's the journey that it's been on, and how many people are in that journey, and therefore might be affected if we were to, say, reduce the amount of clothes we buy, for example.

Mark Sumner: Absolutely. So, a big part of the research we've been doing is looking at what the impact would be if we actually stopped buying clothes in the UK and just artificially said, “right, there's going to be no more purchasing.” What does that actually mean?

And the repercussions of that, we mapped through COVID. We used COVID as an example, and what we saw is the garment makers in places like Bangladesh, the fabric producers in countries like India or China, yarn producers, the people growing the cotton and producing the fibers – they were all impacted in the sense that they didn't have orders coming in, and therefore they had real problems in terms of earning money, which put them at, you know, some really high risk in terms of things like modern slavery.

So, the consequences of actions here in the UK, for example, can ripple all the way across the world. And what we're trying to do with our research is, as I say, is unpick those connections and actually start to get people to think about those connections in a different way and actually try and put the perspective of the workers, for example, in that discussion. To actually get people to think about, well, what does it mean to have a sustainable piece of clothing? What does it mean for us? What does it mean for the environment? What does it mean for the workers?

Rich Williams: Okay, question number two – and this is one that's probably worth setting from the start here as well – is to do with the clothes that we actually buy. So, talk to us a little bit about the research, the really recent research that you've been doing in conjunction with Primark, because this is to do with clothing durability. Maybe the myth being, well, if you buy expensive clothes, they're going to last for much longer, much better clothes than the cheap stuff, where you just buy them, throw it away. That's not necessarily the case, though, is it?

Mark Sumner: Yeah and that's really interesting. So the research that we were doing, and we're on our third iteration of doing this type of research, is to debunk this idea that more expensive clothes are going to last far longer than lower-priced clothes.

And the research has demonstrated, yet again, the results have demonstrated, that there is no connection or relationship between the price you pay in the store and how long that garment would last for. We have seen some garments that are absolutely fantastic in terms of their durability. They'll last for a very, very long time, and they may cost 1/10 of a more expensive garment, but last twice as long.

So, we've got this really strange dynamic going on that the price that you pay has no relationship with the durability. And I would argue – and we haven't done all of the research on this yet – but I'd argue that the sustainability of the garment is also unrelated to the price that you pay as well. So, there's this really interesting dynamic that's going on there.

Rich Williams: I think a lot of people will be surprised to hear that.

Mark Sumner: I'm sure they will be. And, you know, when we get to publish all of the data and [we’re] able to push that information out, hopefully it will become clear where we’ve based this information on and how we've come to those conclusions.

Rich Williams: Bethan?

Bethan Bide: I think people might be surprised to hear it, but actually, it's not a new phenomenon. So, when you look at historic clothing, you see this again and again. I've just recently been doing a bit of work with museum collections, looking at two very different objects. One of them, an evening dress by the couturier Lucile; so early 20th century, think 20s glamour. But if you look at these garments, they are basically falling apart. They were kind of made incredibly badly. I mean, I don't even know if the person doing this had any sewing training, you know, the kind of thing that maybe you bought to wear once, but you bought it in a beautiful Mayfair salon. It cost you a fortune.

And I've also been doing a bit of research with an old coat made by a company called Alexon, which was worn by Dot Cotton on EastEnders for 20 years, and it was bought secondhand. So the actress Jean Brown liked to have Dot's costumes bought from charity shops because she thought that was the kind of thing that the character Dot would wear. And it's in fabulous condition. And it was, you know, worn on set for 20 years. It's in incredible condition, and it was a relatively inexpensive, ready-to-wear coat.

So, I think it's interesting to think about the fact that, again, this is not a new phenomenon.

Rich Williams: Talk to us about fashion from a cultural point of view, because it's not just a case of, obviously, we all wear clothes. You know, everyone puts on their clothes in the morning. I feel terribly inadequate talking about this; I’m in, for the 3,500th day in a row, a pair of black jeans and a black T-shirt. But clothes from a cultural point of view, have a significance and an importance as well that we can't disregard.

Bethan Bide: Absolutely, and I think, you know, not to get too Devil Wears Prada on you, but the black T-shirt and the black jeans, it's still a fashion choice. It's still you expressing something about how you want to come across, about a professional identity. And this is something that's often overlooked in conversations about fast fashion.

So, fashion, we tend to describe culturally as being a frivolous thing. I think there's a lot more judgment about buying fashion objects than there is about, let's say, buying electronics. You know, getting the latest laptop, getting a new phone, is somehow seen as something that you need. But actually, fashion is needed too.

So, for hundreds of years, really, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, when fashion textile products became a bit cheaper, a bit more available to the middle classes, we have seen that people have bought clothes and worn clothes in order to express who they are.

And part of that is expressing how you're different from everyone else around you, so trying to wear something a bit novel. But also part of that is keeping up with the latest fashion trends to show how you fit into society. So, who are you aligning yourself with? Who do you want to look like? How are you going to kind of fit into certain class groups, but also subcultural groups? How are you going to express yourself and who you are through clothes?

And it plays a really, really important social function. You know, we live in a consumer society. Buying stuff is one of the key ways we have to shape the world around us. And we can debate whether or not that's a good thing, but that is the world that we live in.

Rich Williams: Yes, Matt, you wanted to come in here.

Matt Davis: Really pleased you're talking about the identity and the social pressures we have around this and influences as well. There's also a pleasure thing in this. And I think that kind of fashion and going shopping is part of that leisure activity, that enjoyment that people get as well. I think it's not just a functional item we're talking about. All the social processes and the activities that go with it as well, it's really ingrained.

Mark Sumner: It's really challenging, as well, this idea of where we are now in terms of self-identity. Fashion is a great way of communicating and also building your self-identity. But now that self-identity is so fluid, it's really quite interesting – the role that fast fashion plays within that idea that we can have many different identities, or what we might call “personas”, and we use fashion to demonstrate the persona or the identity that we're particularly interested in at that particular time. And, particularly important – in fact, I'm going to get myself in trouble with Bethan now, [I should say] – particularly important for this time, but actually, it's been going on for hundreds of years, hasn't it? The whole idea that fashion projects things, you know, this idea of psychogenic need, which is all about projecting your status in society. Fashion has been talked about as the most powerful nonverbal communication device that humans have…

Bethan Bide: Mm-hmm.

Mark Sumner: And I think the evidence just keeps backing that up, that fashion plays a really important role in people's lives. So, when we're talking about sustainability, when we're talking about fast fashion, we have to layer into that discussion how important fashion is for culture, for society, but also for individuals. It isn't just about the carbon footprint; we've got to bring all these other aspects in as well.

Bethan Bide: And I think, as part of, again, that idea of importance, I think when you start thinking about individual stories and talking to people, so doing something we call “wardrobe studies”, which is where you sit down and talk to people about their wardrobes, you really get a sense of that importance.

And I was reading something the other day that was an interview with somebody who fled Nazi Germany as a Jewish refugee in the late ’30s, arrived in the UK, and realised that the wardrobe he’d brought with him marked him as an outsider. So he had all these kind of incredible fur coats and suits, but they were very German, and he described how he spent ten years trying to learn to dress like an Englishman so he could fit in.

And Moss Bros – the high street chain that I’m sure many of us are familiar with – was really important to him in terms of finding his place in his new country, because he trusted them to dress him like an Englishman, and he could therefore fit in. And he became very successful; he ended up working for Sotheby’s, the big auctioneers.

But for him, going shopping in this high street store, Moss Bros, what we might think of as being quite an ordinary thing, was enormously important and really helped him get over this very, very difficult time and all the trauma he’d suffered. So I think, again, it’s just such an important thing for us and how we feel about ourselves.

Mark Sumner: It’s beyond that as well, isn’t it? Because, you know, what we’ve been doing with our research as three researchers working together as part of this team, we’ve been looking at the importance of fashion for the people that wear their clothes, but actually understanding the importance of fashion for the people who are making the clothes.

So, when we talk about, you know, a garment being made in Bangladesh – you know, it says that on the care label – what we’re talking about there is, the garment may have been made in Bangladesh, but there’s a whole supply chain that could spread across half of the world, of people working to make the materials, to create the yarns and the fabrics. They are also incredibly reliant on fashion. It’s really important to them in terms of their livelihoods, and that’s what we’ve been trying to bring out in a lot of the research we’ve been doing, is bringing the voice of the workers to the debate about what sustainable fashion is. Because sustainable fashion is about this sort of global impact, not just environmentally, but also, you know, in terms of the workers as well.

Rich Williams: Just really interesting to hear all of that, because you just think of clothes being clothes sometimes, and actually, just having that conversation around, “wait a minute, there’s so much more that’s underpinned there,” from a cultural, societal, and economic point of view. That this isn’t something where you say, “well, the easy way to fix it is to do X,” which is “buy less clothes, and nd we don’t need all this kind of stuff.” Actually, this is really important stuff for our society.

So I guess the question is, is this a thing of sustainability, then, in terms of how we do that? I mean, I’m wearing a T-shirt today. I was looking into some of the research that you’ve put out there – blew my mind how many litres of water it takes to make a T-shirt. And I can’t quite remember what that number is, but it’s thousands of litres.

Mark Sumner: Seven thousand litres.

Rich Williams: Seven thousand litres, right, so there you go. So if I’ve got twenty T-shirts in my wardrobe, it doesn’t take too much maths to work out, that seems like a bonkers amount of water, alongside then the chemicals that are required for dyeing and the transportation.

Actually, the transportation being the least damaging in terms of its carbon footprint – you’d think it would be the most – but actually it’s the creation of these [garments]. So, tell us a bit about that process and how we manage that better.

Mark Sumner: I’m not sure how long we’ve got to go through the process – it is very, very complex – but we are starting off essentially with producing the materials. And there are going to be environmental and social impacts associated with that; some good, some bad. You then have to turn those materials into a yarn that involves a lot of electricity to spin the yarns. Then we’re getting into this idea of turning those yarns into fabric. So, you know, your T-shirt is a knitted fabric, through an industrial knitting process.

And what we’re talking about there is very broad processes, but within each of those processes there’s a huge amount of complexity to make sure that what’s being produced is actually going to do the thing that it needs to do ie. provide you with a T-shirt that’s going to last for, let’s say, fifty washes or a hundred washes. So there’s this whole process that’s built around doing that, and there’s a lot of work going on within the industry. And the industry is under a lot of pressure to improve the way it’s doing these things, and to reduce both the water footprint and the carbon footprint.

But what’s really interesting – and challenging – about the fashion industry is, for example, at least eighty countries across the world grow cotton, and they grow cotton in very different ways. So in countries like Australia, the water footprint is significantly less than 7,000 litres, whereas in other countries it’s much higher. So you’re almost in this point where, saying “well, your T-shirt and its environmental and social impact”, to actually really understand what the impacts are, we need to know exactly where it came from, who made it, how they made it, and have full traceability right down to the cotton fields. And we don’t have that. So it becomes really difficult to say whether your T-shirt is actually sustainable or not.

Matt Davis: But even more so, in terms of what’s sustainable. There’s so much that we can lump into this term “sustainable”. So are we talking about, is it the water consumption that goes into production? Is it the embedded carbon? Is it actually the working conditions that people are exposed to? There’s so many factors that kind of fall within that, I think, as a fashion brand or a designer, the trade-offs you’re having to make between those [factors]. To reduce the carbon impact, for example, you might be increasing water usage, you might be sourcing from countries that are less desirable.

And I think there’s a role for consumers here as well in terms of, I think, communicating a bit more strongly around actually what they value, and then actually kind of seeing that through. There’s a huge, kind of, I think disconnect between what people say they believe and say they care about, and what they actually go out and buy, and what they support. And I think that makes it particularly difficult for fashion brands, for other retailers, to do the right thing, even if they can understand what the right thing and the right issues to prioritise are.

Mark Sumner: And it's really interesting. We've done quite a lot of public engagement, so Bethan and I are allowed to leave the university every so often and talk to the public. And it's been really interesting talking to people about where their clothes come from, and exploring this, you know, complex chain, and then thinking about what sustainability means, as, you know, as Matt said.

And what we find is, lots of people sort of walk away from talking to us, scratching in their heads going, “Yeah, I don't really know what sustainability means for me. I don't really know what I should be doing.” And I think part of the research that we're doing is really to try and help consumers explore these different aspects, and then to start thinking about, you know, how they as individuals, can think about framing what a solution would look like for them, and how they can maybe buy better to reduce their impact, but at the same time, make sure that they're supporting, you know, workers that are making the clothes.

Bethan Bide: So, as part of some of the project, we’ve been working with a youth group alongside Leeds museums and galleries to think a little bit about what cotton clothes mean to them, and how they shop. And one of the things that’s been so illuminating for me has been, actually, the value of getting people to really start asking those difficult questions, and move away from the idea that there’s one solution or one simple set of behaviours.

So initially, when we first talked to this group about what sustainable fashion meant, they very much said, “Oh well, it’s buying from a charity shop; it’s not buying new stuff.” And then as we have talked to them, and let them engage with the voices of the workers we’ve been working with in the cotton supply chain in India, they’ve changed their minds a little bit. And they’ve said, “Oh, well actually, we are part of this bigger and more complicated supply chain, and maybe as consumers we have a bit more responsibility with that.”

But we’ve also spent a lot of time talking to them about what fashion means to them. Because I think sometimes when we go shopping – and I know I’m guilty of this, and I mean, I think about fashion and what it means to me all the time and I still do this – where, you know, I’m having a bad day and I want to buy something to cheer myself up. And I don’t necessarily think through, “Well what is it about that thing that’s going to cheer me up? What am I actually going to get pleasure from?”

And actually, inviting people to think a little bit more deeply about what something will bring to them – how it will enrich their lives, what’s going to bring them joy – helps people make those choices better, I think. You know, if you buy something that you know you’re going to wear a hundred times because you love it so much you’re going to wear it until it falls apart, that is ultimately going to bring you a lot more joy, and it’s going to be a lot more sustainable, than some of the other consumption choices you might make.

Mark Sumner: And it's interesting, isn’t it, you know, wearing something a hundred times, or until it falls apart, it’s really hard to know that at the time of purchase, because often what we’re doing when we’re wearing fashion is building a relationship with the item. And we know that, you know, lots of research tells us that people will hold on to things if they’ve got a story that goes with it, that’s related to an event or related to, you know, something that’s happened in their life.

It flips on the other side, as well. One of my PhD students did a really interesting piece of work looking at why people throw clothes away, and she interviewed a woman who was going through a really messy divorce, and as soon as the divorce was completed, every single piece of clothing that she had that reminded her of her partner, she threw away, got rid of it all. And it’s just really interesting how complex these relationships are with our clothes, which really does get left behind when people start talking about sustainability and sustainable fashion. They just get really into this sort of big picture, it’s “the brands have got to do this, and fast fashion is broken, and, you know, carbon footprints”, and what we forget is, you know, these clothes are really very intimate to who we are and what we actually do.

Bethan Bide: There’s still an importance of understanding what your clothes are doing for you there, to know, I don’t want anything that reminds me of this. So I know a vintage fashion dealer, who obviously spends a lot of time thinking about the importance of clothes, and she bought a very, very expensive dress at a particular moment in her life, which was sort of her life was falling apart – her partner left her, everything was kind of going wrong, she had to move house – and she didn’t wear that very expensive dress for two years, because she didn’t know what to do with it.

And in the meantime, she met someone else, she got pregnant, and she wore the dress to register the birth of her new baby, because she said, “I want to change the way I think about this dress, I want this dress to mean something different to me going forward.” And I think that she could do that because she had that kind of knowledge about what fashion was doing for her, how she was storing memories in it. So I think, again, just getting people to think about the value of fashion is really important as part of this.

Mark Sumner: It’s interesting as well, so, in terms of the research project with the Indian workers…

Rich Williams: So forgive me, this is called Cotton’s Hidden Voices right?

Mark Sumner: Cotton’s Hidden Voices, yeah, exactly. And what we’ve been doing with that project, we’ve been working with some partners in India who, with us, have been interviewing workers across the whole of the Indian supply chain, from cotton production all the way through to garment factories.

And the whole idea of the project was just to get an understanding from the workers about their perception around fashion, but not just about making the fashion, but also what fashion means for them. And they have exactly the same views that we have about fashion. You know, one of the ladies that we spoke to said, “I’m constantly teased by my family because I’m always shopping for new clothes.” And then there’s an older fellow that works in the cotton fields who says, “Well, I’ve got two outfits – one for the festival and one for working in the cotton fields.”

And those characteristics, you can see layered across all sorts of cultures. So it’s really interesting talking about these stories, and they’re all, you know, completely valid stories. But, that Cotton Hidden Stories project is really trying to bring to [the] UK, and sort of Western cultures, this idea that fashion means the same thing for lots of people around the world. But actually, the workers themselves probably have a more intimate relationship with fashion, because not only are they wearing it, they’re also making it as well. You know, they’re also really involved in that really complex process. Their livelihoods are, you know, really reliant on the fact that, you know, the fashion industry exists.

So we’ve got these really interesting sorts of stories coming out from the workers that, you know, just reflect very much the sort of stuff that we hear in the UK, but also, levels of stories that are just completely unique to the workers.

Rich Williams: Listening to you describe all of that, it's all interlinked, isn't it? There is so much going on there. You just think of it as, like I say, being the clothes that you've put on. But it's not, and I know you mentioned, it's more than just big brands showing corporate responsibility, but Matt, from that point of view, in terms of business and brands and corporate responsibility, what are the things that can be done to improve sustainability and to fix that side of the issue?

Matt Davis: Yeah, well, I think one of the big things, if we’re looking to actually see really meaningful change, is driving this with the business case. So I think, actually, just rather than relying on brands or others to do the moral thing or the ethical thing, it’s really establishing that this is just good business in its broader sense.

So I think there’s a responsibility on consumers to actually shop in a way that rewards brands who are investing in, you know, more sustainable supply chains, better working conditions, higher-quality clothes, and so on – and actually following through with what people say they do care about. And often, I think that’s one of the real challenges: of kind of being, you know, maybe shouldering higher costs and what have you, if you’re investing in this as a business, but then not getting a competitive edge if you’re being undercut by others who aren’t doing the right thing, because it’s just a voluntary thing to be doing, and [if] your consumer isn’t willing to pay any more or buy the sustainable option, then it disincentivises.

So I think there’s a real, real kind of need for consumers to do things here, and I think for a bit more, I think, honesty within the industry as well, around where the trade-offs are, and what’s possible to fix, and what needs to be done in collaboration – or asking for governments and others to really help drive meaningful change as well.

Rich Williams: In terms of consumers – talking about from a brands and business point of view – I think a lot of people might think, just because they haven’t given it the full thought process, Well, I’ve bought the stuff now, so that’s it done really; I can’t really affect any change on that. But once you’re in possession of those items, there are things that can also be done to make the item more sustainable as you own it.

Mark Sumner: Absolutely, and you know, once you’ve bought a product, the whole idea [is that] we’ve embedded all of this energy, all of this water, all of these chemicals, and there’s all of the sweat and tears from the workers to actually make that product. The very worst thing that we can do with that product once we’ve bought it is put it in the back of the wardrobe and never wear it. Because what that means is you end up going out and buying another product and just leave that one sitting there, you know, just going stale.

So, for consumers, I think it’s really important that they make a very clear choice. As Bethan was saying earlier, just stop yourself in the middle of that purchase and just say, “Why am I buying this? Is this the thing that I really need?” Because what we know from a lot of the psychology about the buying process is [that] it is almost habit. We see so many who are people going out and buying clothes just because it’s the time of day, they’ve got their phone out, they’ve got nothing else to do, and they just click on something and buy something. So, there’s something about consumers buying their stuff...

Rich Williams: Matt?

Matt Davis: Love the fact we're coming back to psychology! But making it a conscious choice as well, because you're right, we slip into automatic things. We love easy solutions, easy kind of choices, where we don't have to think; it's not something that's taxing. And I think one of the big issues with sustainability is it's hard. Everything we've talked about today – trying to think through, well, has this got longevity? Is this good value? Where's this come from? We're asking a lot of consumers, and I think there is a need to stop and think through the choice we're making.

But I think there's also something, again, on the brands here, to make it easier for consumers to do the right thing. So, how do we label things? How do we communicate information? How do we make sure we're being honest as well? So we talk about greenwashing – so, you know, it's a spin on the marketing claims around sustainability – and it turns people off, or kind of makes people think they're making an informed decision, a good decision, and actually, it's not. It's no more sustainable, maybe, than a cheaper option, or…

Mark Sumner: It's complicated. I've seen examples where products have been sold, so there were Fair Trade T-shirts being sold in a store, and consumers were picking them up, seeing the Fair Trade label on the T-shirt, and putting it down. And we went up to them and said, “Why did you put that down? And you went and picked up another product that was just conventional cotton,” and they said, “Well, it's got Fair Trade on it, so it's going to be more expensive.” And actually, it was exactly the same price as the other one.

This communication thing is really quite complex, you're not underplaying that in any way at all. But as Matt says, you know, it's really hard for consumers to work out what makes a product a sustainable product. I mean, going back to the durability project that we've been doing, we looked at product and we thought, well, that definitely is going to be really durable. We're sort of experts in textile science. And then when we got to the end of the testing, we went – it was a terrible product. Why was it so bad? So it's really complicated for consumers.

But going back to your question about, you know, what consumers do when they've bought the product: wear it, use it. And if you're not going to wear it, and if you're not going to use it, don't put it in the cupboard and let it sit there for five years. Donate it to someone else, or sell it on eBay, or sell it on, you know, any other sort of platform. Get it back in circulation so someone else can actually make use of that. And, of course, the very worst thing you can do with clothes is throw them in the bin, because that really is not a good thing to do.

Bethan Bide: And I think washing, as well, is such an important thing, that, you know, we might not think of it as something that actually has a material impact on the carbon footprint of our clothes, but it really does. So, can you wash that at a lower temperature? Do you need to wash that every time you wear it? Actually, could you wear it out and it’ll be fine for another wash?

Matt Davis: You have an answer about that and I have lots of arguments with my wife, because I'm trying to do what I think is a sustainable thing, which is get an extra wear or so out of something, and I get told off!

Bethan Bide: Yes, absolutely! And I think, think about what it's made of. So I know that, you know, if you've got something that's made of wool, actually airing it out will generally get rid of the kind of smells and it probably will be fine.

Mark Sumner: I've got a classic example of that. I've just finished doing Lands End to John O'Groats on my bike, well on a tandem with my partner, and I was wearing a wool-base layer. Nineteen days of cycling, wasn't washed once, picked it up in the morning, and it didn't smell at all.

Bethan Bide: Nobody threw you out of a coffee shop when you tried to go inside!

Mark Sumner: Well I can’t guarantee that! But, what’s interesting is this idea about the washing and caring for garments. You know, there is this idea that, you know, because washing, again is so easy…

Matt Davis: It’s a habit thing isn’t it?

Mark Sumner: It’s a habit thing, yeah – 50 years ago, I can remember, almost 50 years ago, with my grandmother actually turning the handle on the mangle as part of the washing process—she spent a whole day just doing washing.

Now, stick it in the machine, an hour, get it out, and it's all done. So we've got this sort of culture now that, you know, convenience is really important. People are washing clothes more than they’ve ever done before, and washing clothes is probably the worst thing that you can do with your clothes. It causes shrinkage, it causes it to fade, it causes it to pill, and it just makes it look old. And particularly if you're wearing black – and I like wearing black T-shirts – very quickly they'll start to fade and go a bit grey. Sometimes they go a bit greeny grey. So, yeah, there’s all of these things that consumers can be thinking about. And of course, if you reduce your washing, you're saving money, you're saving detergent going down the drain. There's all sorts of benefits. Of course, what we're not saying, though, is don't do any washing ever. We do want people to be socially accepted.

[laughter]

Bethan Bide: Yeah and I mean, you know, as someone who deals a lot with historic clothes, it's when you deal with some of the older stuff that couldn't be washed… Yeah, it turns out, if you wear something for, kind of, 20 years and don't wash it, it will have a residual smell. So I think everything's about a balance.

Mark Sumner: Does it have sort of a crusty feel to it as well?

Bethan Bide: Oh, I tell you, some of the dubious stains, we call them, where you go. I don't actually want to know what that is.

Matt Davis: Oh, my head is full of images that I didn't want at the moment from both of you.

[laughter]

Rich Williams: Well just for clarity, because I'm sat next to Mark – smelling fresh, which is just important [to note].

Mark Sumner: Thank you!

Rich Williams: My black T-shirt’s never had more attention in its life. The idea of wearing it [is] for it to have no attention whatsoever.
[music plays]

Rich Williams: Let's just try and round this up. I mean, the conversation is absolutely fascinating and goes off in all sorts of directions, so I don't know how easy it is to do this, but we've been asking on all our podcasts. And, of course, this topic is challenging, but we are asking the question of how to fix – how to fix fast fashion.

If I just said to you all, the one thing that, if you could see, could be a shift in either people's attitudes towards it, or business attitudes towards it, or global attitudes towards it, what that one thing would be that might just start to move things in the right direction? What would that be? And Mark, I'll start with you.

Mark Sumner: Oh, great. The one thing for this massive problem we've got!

[laughter]

I think if we take a business perspective, as Matt said, I think, you know, businesses need to be able to have a much better understanding of where their clothes come from, how they're made, and then take some responsibility for actually managing that process, to work with their suppliers across the whole of the supply chain, to make sure that what they're doing is reducing things like environmental impacts – carbon, water, chemicals, etc. – but at the same time protecting the workers in terms of worker rights.

And that's a really easy thing for me to say, but it's a really complicated thing to actually do. But if we could find a way of creating legislation that made it a minimum standard to achieve some of these things – and this is where government have got a huge role to play – if we could find a way of doing that, so building on, let's say, the Modern Slavery Act, and actually extending that to cover other aspects, I think what we'd start to see there is a momentum building in the industry, across the industry, that actually would lead some really big – to say, global – changes in terms of how fashion is actually done.

Rich Williams: Bethan, obviously you look at this from a kind of cultural sort of standpoint. So what would it be for you?

Bethan Bide: I think it would be to say: love your clothes, and that is to think about what you're wearing, why you're wearing it, and why it gives you joy, because that will help you buy in a more conscientious way, so you won't be buying so much stuff that you don't need, and it'll also help you wear stuff for longer and get more use out of it.

So I think actually, if everybody spent a little bit more time thinking, fashion is important, what does it do for me? Why do I choose the clothes that I choose? That level of kind of consciousness would give everyone a bit more joy in their lives, but it would also lead to more sustainable behaviour. And I think it should be fun as well. You know, I think actually I'm proposing something that I think could enrich your life a little bit.

Rich Williams: Matt, finally, yourself.

Matt Davis: Yep, so I'm going to steal off both Beth and Mark, I think, as well. So I think here for consumers to recognise actually how powerful they are and how much power they have to shift what happens. So I think this idea of knowledge – it's picking the part of sustainability that you really care about, whether that's around the ethics, work conditions, you know, whatever it might be, and get clued up. So actually understand what is a good choice for that one part that you think is really important and that kind of actually means something to you, and then make conscious decisions. So buy in a way that actually matches the values and things you say you care about, so you reward the companies that invest in this and do the right thing. That's really powerful. Creates a market, rewards people doing the good stuff.

Mark Sumner: And again, there's a challenge there, isn't there, about understanding the information that's out there. And I know we started off talking about myths, and there are a lot of myths out there about which companies are doing really good stuff and which companies are doing not so good, and it's not reflective of reality. You know, we've worked with, and of course, we can't name brands, but we've worked with a lot of organisations, and we know that some of those brands that are talked about in not such a good way are doing some fantastic stuff. So this idea of doing the research, getting that information – you need to do that in a really good, robust way. So you're not actually relying on, you know, a journalist or a blogger…

Matt Davis: Or you could maybe look for academic experts and others, and maybe, you know, that's always good, and we love to reward academics, don't we?

[laughter]

Mark Sumner: Absolutely. What a great way to finish!

[laughter]

Rich Williams: Thank you all so much. I know you joked at the start about sometimes you’re let out [of] the university, I suspect it's because you're in a room debating it 24/7, is the reason why you're not going anywhere.

But thank you so much. Mark Sumner, Lecturer in Fashion; Bethan Bide, Lecturer in Design and Cultural Theory; and Matt Davis, Associate Professor, Organisational Psychology, Socio-Technical Systems, and much more as well. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Matt Davis: Thank you very much!

Mark Sumner: Thank you very much!

Bethan Bide: Thanks for having us.

[music plays]

Rich Williams: Loads of research, as always, coming out of the University of Leeds on this.

I’m Rich Williams. This has been ‘How to Fix…’ and hopefully this podcast has shown that although society is facing some huge questions at the moment, there are some incredible people constantly researching and innovating to help tackle those issues.

And speaking of the big issues, we’ll be discussing another one in the next episode.

[credits spoken by the producer] ‘How to Fix…’ was presented by Rich Williams and produced by Kasia Tomasiewicz. The audio producer was me, Jade Bailey, and the lead producer was Anne-Marie Luff. ‘How to Fix…’ is a

Podmasters Production for the University of Leeds Communications and Engagement team.

[music outro]

ENDS