YORK – Industry designer and academic Dr Talia Hussain sets her sights on circular fashion, in general, and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in particular, in our latest Ecotextile Talks podcast.
Dr Hussain, of Loughborough University London, tells our host, Philip Berman, that the Ellen MacArthur Foundation got its sums wrong in its influential ‘A New Textile Economy’ report in 2017 which catalysed the circular fashion movement.
That report claimed that reusing discarded clothing could save the industry $460 billion annually – but Hussain argues this is misleading as collecting and reusing used garments could actually cost the industry $460 billion in lost sales.
“This is the core problem of the report,” Hussain tells Berman. “There isn’t any evidence that it would stay in the textile industry. So this is $460 billion of revenue that will be lost to the global garment industry if they adopt these recommendations for circular business.
You see this figure pop up all over the place – it’s treated as very credible and authoritative, and it’s now driving policy
“You see this figure pop up all over the place. The UN uses it, the EU uses it. All kinds of people are using this figure to put a size on the supposed opportunity of adopting these circular business models and it’s been treated as being very credible and authoritative for a very long time, and it’s now driving policy.”
Hussain advocates for a broader, more critical approach to sustainability in fashion, one that goes beyond circularity to address overproduction, labour conditions and the industry’s inefficiencies.
Subscribe to Ecotextile Talks podcasts and radio shows by following us on Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music. Why not have a look around our complete podcast archive here.
