The concept of durability is often in conflict with one of the great principles of fashion: moving compulsively between trends and styles. Normally, the ecological and recycling are made by pure marketing, because, let's not fool ourselves, the fleeting nature of the trend is in itself, anti-ecological.
But what if sustainable fashion itself becomes a trend? Then great, because we don't pollute, we don't exploit children and, moreover, it allows us to continue being consumerists.
Europe throws away nearly six million tonnes of textiles every year. Only 25% of these clothes are reused after a recycling process.
The ecological discourse is becoming increasingly important in the fashion industry, whether it is to meet real demand, for reasons of image or a combination of both factors, and has become an increasingly popular trend over the last ten years, and is on the rise. In the early 2010's the big brands launched collection and recycling programmes for clothing where in large recycling plants like the one in Wolfen, Germany, 350 tons of garments from all over Europe arrive every day, collected in containers or in shops.
The recycling process is laborious; after separating the garments one by one and selecting which ones can be resold on the 'vintage' market, the thousands of tons of used clothes are squeezed into containers to be sent to countries in Eastern Europe and Africa as a second hand market, or to go directly to the shredder.
Thanks to the technology, the decomposed and shredded fabric is once again recycled and suitable for re-packaging in 'sustainable' collections. Let us not deceive ourselves, this process, however recycled, wastes astronomical amounts of energy resources.
