<
https://theconversation.com/how-used-clothes-became-part-of-africas-creative-economy-and-fashion-sense-186575>
"In recent years the global secondhand apparel market for clothing and shoes
has grown exponentially. In 2002 used clothing exports were worth US$1.4
billion. Despite a slowdown during the COVID-19 pandemic exports were close to
US$4 billion in 2020.
Some of this growth has been driven by well known brands and high street
retailers developing in-house clothing resale and establishing partnerships
with digital secondhand platforms to find new uses for preloved fashions,
especially luxury fashions.
In the west, secondhand clothing has acquired a new cachet for its
sustainability and its role in circular economies. A circular economy links
production and consumption to minimise waste through reusing, repairing,
refurbishing, recycling as well as sharing and leasing. This has driven a trend
that by far surpasses the growth of the overall apparel market.
In addition to reuse and upcycling in the west, substantial volumes of used
clothing donated to charitable organisations continue to be exported to
countries in the global south, among them in Africa.
But the west’s over-consumption of clothing and the export it gives rise to is
not without problems. Firstly, secondhand clothing imports in Africa generate
millions of tonnes of textile waste. Secondly, the popularity of the secondhand
clothing trade has prompted arguments about its adverse effects on domestic
textile and clothing industries.
Time and again, controversies arise over whether to ban imports. But smuggled
imports of used clothing flow readily across Africa’s porous boundaries, making
bans largely ineffective.
I wrote about the international secondhand clothing trade in a book published
in 2000. My research was focused largely on Zambia. In the book I examined the
interplay between environmentalism, charity, recycling and thrift. I also
explored how secondhand clothes were about more than imitating Western styles.
And traced how items were altered into garments that fitted into local cultural
norms of etiquette.
Over the last two decades several processes with global scope have changed the
landscape in unimaginable ways. This is true in Africa too. Despite these
changes, I still think that, rather than representing fashion dumping, current
clothing practices demonstrate some of the cultural and socioeconomic benefits
of the used clothing trade. Holding significant value for those who create and
pursue them, such clothing projects have transformative potentials that are far
from trivial."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
