14 DAY TRIAL // Ever wondered what happens to your old clothes after you're done with them? Or maybe we should say "if" you're done with them. The fashion landscape has changed so much over the past decade and "accessibility" has become one of the most meaningful concepts of the contemporary world. High-end designers such as Chanel create clothing lines for the high street and we can buy Kate Moss' look for less than $100, provided we take a trip to Britain. Celebrities are "selling" their looks, encouraging people to dress like them "for less", while also selling the illusion that along with the clothes, we'll also be buying a little bit of their fame and fortune.
The alarming downside of this phenomenon is that since we now afford to buy more clothes, this means that we'll often buy things we don't really need (OK, more things we don't really need than usual) and we'll be more willing to throw things away or give them to charities such as Oxfam after wearing them only a couple of times. But have you ever wondered what happens to your clothes once they're out of your wardrobe - usually to make room for more unnecessary clothes that will soon go the same way? Charities pile up clothes in clothing banks, select the best pieces to sell them on eBay or in their own stores and recycle the rest, but all this is proving increasingly difficult, given the volume of discarded clothes they have been receiving lately.
"Disposability has caused an explosion of problems", one of the experts says in an interview with the Times Online. "Clothing is now given in such huge quantities to charities that they can't sell it all in the shops. The volume is increasing, while the quality is decreasing". What to do, then? Well, one answer is, we should recycle even more than we do at the moment. Over the past ten years, sales of new clothing have increased by up to 60% in the developed countries such as the UK and the States, so there are plenty of things to recycle. If we stop buying so many new clothes, would that help? Apparently no, since economies would suffer as a result. However you choose to look at it, there is no straightforward answer - so in the meantime, we're all advised to buy more second-hand clothes and fewer durable clothes. Would that work for you?