Alarmed at the fashion industry’s environmental footprint, business woman Lana Furman has sworn off shopping for a year. She explains why.
Tell us about your challenge, what does it entail?
The fashion industry is the second-largest polluter in the world and causes more damage to the environment than the airline and maritime shipping industries combined. Therefore, I decided to minimise my own carbon footprint by refusing to purchase any new clothes for a whole year, starting from March 1.
Why did you decide to do it?
Believe it or not, it started with penguins. I absolutely adore penguins, so I was devastated when I read a recently published article about the effects of global warming, which concluded by stating that if things didn’t change, we could expect most species of penguin to be wiped out over the next few decades. Now maybe I have too vivid an imagination, but it didn’t take me long to conjure up distressing mental images of melting icebergs and fluffy penguin chicks starving to death while their parents desperately plunged into roaring oceans looking for food that was no longer there.
So, basically, I was spurred on by my love of penguins and a steely determination to ensure they stick around on this planet for a long time to come.
Are you raising money for anything with the cash you’re not spending or is it more about the environmental impact of fashion?
It was never about the money — high street clothes cost next to nothing anyway. It’s about the true cost of fashion — water pollution, toxic chemicals, carbon footprint and textile waste that ends up in landfills. Clothing production has doubled in the last 15 years and is now exceeding 100 billion garments a year – do we really need that much?
So, if not new, are you buying second-hand and, if so, where?
Where can people see your journey?
Buying from local charity shops seems like the most sustainable form of shopping — it reduces the pressure on virgin resources, saves a perfectly good item from a landfill and benefits the charity of your choice, not a billion-dollar corporation. Since March, I’ve made a few trips to both the BSPCA and Dogfather charity shops and found some beautiful quirky items that I am happy to wear – you can see all my charity shop finds on my lanalovevintage Instagram account.
Were you a shopaholic before? Any idea how much you would have spent per month?
Shopping was never high on my priority list, but I still managed to buy a lot more clothing and accessories than I needed.
What have you found hardest to not buy?
Nothing. I think most of us ladies have enough clothes hanging in our closets to last for the next 20 years if not longer — and I have also been realistic about my own expectations and drawn the line at not buying second-hand undergarments. So, if that results in all my tights having ladders or holes in their toes by March 2019, then so be it.
Any tips for anyone wanting to follow your lead?
The best thing about this challenge has been the freedom it’s given me to experiment with items of clothing that I might not have necessarily considered buying brandnew from a store. I don’t spend too long pondering over the clothing in the charity shops each time I visit, I simply fill a big bag full of items that I like the look of and are of my size, but once I get home, I completely indulge myself in front of the mirror, trying things on with different accessories, and seeing what works and what doesn’t. And what’s great about this process is that having already purchased all the items I bring home, if a garment doesn’t work for me, it goes straight back to the charity shop, so they can resell it again. So, my advice would be to go out, experiment and have fun doing it.
