On a Saturday in February, high school senior Kaylee Lemmien sifted through racks of clothes at Tinker Tailor, a little shop in downtown Elk Rapids, a community of about 1, 500 people in northern Michigan.
“I’d visit this a fairy, sequins, light blue dress with a tulle trousers. It’s got a fabric- up again, sort of open”, Lemmien said. “Very pretty”.
Tinker Tailor often alters garments, but on this day it was selling them — prom dresses, to be exact. Dresses in a variety of shapes, sizes, and shades — short and long, neons and colors, silk and glitter — lined the containers. People in the area donated the clothing and consigned them to the Elk Rapids High School graduation in May in an effort to give them a fresh career. The initiative, which is called Green Style, targets speedy fashion.
When a local charity party approached her with the thought, she “immediately locked onto it,” according to Zoe Macaluso, chairman of the Eco Club at Elk Rapids High School. The Eco Club hopes to inspire other local schools to do their own culture tasks by using the initiative to lead by example.
High school students around the country are making one of many efforts to address fast fashion, clothing produced cheaply and quickly enough to stay on top of rapidly changing trend cycles, in their own lives and through lobbying. Although these efforts are smaller, experts claim that they can change how people, especially young people, view their roles as customers. That’s particularly important in the age of rapid style, when an online dealer like Shein drops up to 10, 000 new products a day.
” Fast style is a pattern driven by newness”, said Shipra Gupta, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois Springfield. It typically treats its goods like fast-deflated meal.
The increased emphasis on conservation and thrifting may seem counter to the rise of speedy style. It’s been described as a dilemma, specifically for Gen Z. Gen Zers express a desire for sustainably produced things and adore thrifting, according to a McKinsey email from last year. On the other hand, clothes “hurries” render up some of the most watched and produced content on social media.
High school students can combat that by raising awareness in their communities about the effects of style on the culture. Next year, for instance, a high school in New York put on a graphite- natural graduation. To help those who were experiencing homelessness, a pub in New Hampshire organized a clothes travel. And a catalogue in Athens, Georgia, often hosts a” Glittery Your Prom” vintage formalwear event with an eye toward conservation.
Strong style encourages people to cycle through clothes swiftly, with severe repercussions. However, it’s challenging to obtain reliable information on how much harm the fashion industry causes to the environment. One reason for this is that less than half of brands track all levels of their complex supply chains is due to its lack of transparency. Some nations have made climate pledges, but they consistently fail to meet their objectives. And while important legislation to address the issue is pending in some U.S. and European countries, policy progress has been slow.
According to Gupta, having a desire to purchase more can be triggered by constant exposure to new products. The students in Michigan are harnessing that enthusiasm and turning it toward more environmentally conscious shopping, she said, by organizing an event like Sustainable Style in the community.
She said that community involvement can help us launch that grassroots movement and influence how the members of the community view what it means to be a responsible consumer.
Events like Sustainable Style can reduce local consumption by giving attendees a place to donate and purchase used evening attire. That is crucial, especially in small towns where choices are constrained.
Elk Rapids students used to typically order dresses online or travel to hubs like Grand Rapids, which is a two-hour drive south.
“You kind of have to drive to Grand Rapids, and you have to go to a mall, and you have to buy a new dress”, said Macaluso. This only gives me another chance to say, “Oh, I have a chance here to help the environment a little bit,” the statement continued. So I’m going to take it.'”
Initiatives like these can, perhaps most importantly, inspire others to consider how fashion and the environment interact with the environment outside of high school prom.
“I think it’s very meaningful, because it starts to engage consumers, especially the young generation”, said Sheng Lu, an associate professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware.
Innovative grassroots initiatives have reduced local fashion waste in other locations, and in recent years, major brands have been attempting to figure out the kinks of reselling used clothing.
Although the Elk Rapids effort is relatively small, Lu said, it can help inspire local action.
As for sophomore Addison Looney, who was shopping with her mother, “I honestly was pretty nervous coming in here. But there were a lot of great selections. … I was a little unsure about it. But I picked one out.”
The front of the dress has beading and is soft lavender. Addison’s mom, Sara, said she was excited to buy her daughter a secondhand dress.
“Knowing this is just a great opportunity to shop local, and to obviously save money”, she said. “But also just the resale aspect of it,” she says, “to kind of keep dresses going because they’re typically only used once.”
Macaluso claimed that they have been able to pique people’s interest in purchasing secondhand clothing. The prom event even led Tinker Tailor— which had mainly been in the business of altering clothes, not selling them — to set up a “Dress Vault” in the store so people could continue consigning, donating, and shopping for secondhand items.
“I think it really just builds off that idea of, hey, these dresses didn’t go bad, they haven’t expire,” she said. “And they can find a new home”.