EO-09. Climate Change and Fast Fasion: Exploring the lens of Trash the Runway

Abstract
In this project, we interrogate fast fashion in the 21st century in the context of a changing climate, by assessing emergent trends in sustainable fashion as an alternative consumption pathway through the annual ‘Trash the Runway’ event in Boulder, Colorado. In this research, we interviewed and surveyed designers and analyzed workshops and activities that led up to their annual fashion show. We also interviewed and surveyed students at the University of Colorado Boulder who worked with designers to produce short films about them and their work. The project centered in decolonial practice by providing youth – who are often marginalized in decision-making processes – literal and figurative stages to articulate policy and behavior changes to address climate change and sustainability. We found that designers expressed reticence before the workshops and events to speak about climate change in everyday life, yet their design work creatively spoke powerfully for them, and they expressed less discomfort after the experience while they advanced their skillset as climate communicators. Moreover, we found that both designers and student partners reported that they think climate change will impact people greatly in the future. Also, while comparatively fewer respondents reported that climate change impacts them personally, our findings showed those noting personal impacts nearly doubled after participation in the sustainable fashion project. While engagement with sustainable fashion helps to de-fetishize production processes and link consumption habits with awareness of climate and environmental change, more creative work should be done through fast- and sustainable-fashion endeavors to draw out spatial and temporal considerations of climate change threats here and now.