Degrowth: The Future Fashion Could Choose

Owing to fashion’s unmatched ability to reflect and influence culture at large, perhaps this industry is well-positioned to move society towards degrowth. It could be the future we choose.

After all, degrowth isn’t just about the economy. It’s about culture. For example, you might try swapping or trading your future fashion rather than focusing on its currency cost. You’ll notice how such small shifts can change your own experiences with clothes.

“We don’t want a world where fashion does not exist at all. We want a world where fashion is not overconsumption but freedom of expression”, Tsagkari says. “Imagining this new idea of fashion as something creative but also simple and accessible to everyone can be a great challenge.”

In 2021, the British Fashion Council’s Institute of Positive Fashion addressed the impact of the fashion industry. Their top key target outcome? Reduce the volume of new physical clothing.

Elsewhere, fashion is betting on the impact of circular business models as a way to decouple revenue streams from production and resource use. According to the Ellen McArthur Foundation, clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2015 while during the same period, utilisation of those clothes decreased by 36%.

It’s a necessary tactic for progress, when, according to Good On You, only 6% of large brands have a science-based greenhouse gas emissions target.

In the UK, The Restory is an aftercare service that’s gained a massive social media following for its luxury repair videos. Meanwhile, in the US, newcomer Lotte offers a remote sustainability styling service focused on your relationship with the clothes you already own.

An invigorating mass of small and independent brands, which aren’t constrained by public ownership, are rejecting corporate operations in favour of slower, localised, and intentional fashion production. They’re reconfiguring what is meant by the word “success” as they go. There’s so much creative potential when the pressure to exponentially expand ... See more

Degrowth ideas sometimes go by other names, too. “Post-growth”, “Altgrowth”, “Donut Economics”, “the Wellbeing Economy”—there are a constellation of terms and intersectional approaches, which could be why this topic is so vulnerable to its language being co-opted.

In addition, the language of degrowth is subject to interpretation and not always that accessible. When we hear the word “growth”, many of us have been conditioned to immediately associate it with goodness. That poses messaging challenges for the degrowth movement, as we make the case for moving to economic models that respect planetary boundaries.