From the Fall of Bespoke Tailoring to Post-Consumer Textile Waste

As the era of industrialization evolved and the conditions of WWII created rapid demands for women’s uniforms, standardized sizes were born in the US. The fall of tailor-made clothes and the rise of standardized sizes contributed to the problem of hyperconsumerism, due to the easy and fast accessibility to in-style clothes beyond the population’s necessity. Creating a chain effect resulting in fast fashion and massive post-consumer textile waste.

What are Bespoke Tailoring and Standardized Sizes?

Bespoke Tailoring, otherwise known as custom tailoring, is a tailor’s process of taking measurements from a specific customer to create clothing pieces accordingly. Standardized size is used to create the standard sizing measurements of clothes considered to fit the majority of people. The average for each body part is calculated and this becomes the average or 'Standard Measurement'.

What Made Mespoke Tailoring Better Than Standardized Sizing?

The process from being measured to waiting a certain period of time to get your custom-made clothes, made consumers appreciate their garments more. However, today getting new clothes is much simpler and quicker. Easy access to clothes creates a less intimate relationship between the garment and the consumer. This emotional detachment makes it easier for the consumer to part ways with their garments.

***Manchester factory girls making men's shirts on Wheeler & Wilson machines, 1909.***

The Era of Industrialization

A major decline in tailor-made clothes began when the era of industrialization influenced the technological development of sewing machines. According to Love Your Tailor, “As sewing technology evolved, it became possible to buy ready-to-wear clothing that looked and felt comparable to tailored items. In the 1900s, tailoring was no longer a necessity, but it became somewhat of a luxury for the truly discerning man or woman. As you might imagine, bespoke tailoring began to decline with the rise of factory-made clothing, so it became somewhat of a niche occupation.” Since the population of wealthy individuals has always been compressed, tailoring to their needs has always been feasible. Therefore, tailor-made clothes became a custom most affordable for clients of higher social status.

WWII and Women’s Standardized Sizes

***World War II women’s military uniforms, 1940s.***

Standardized sizing for women in the US originated in the 1940s, during World War II. According to Bold Metrics, “The government needed to provide uniforms for female factory workers, so they conducted a study known as the Women's Army Corps (WAC) survey to determine the most common body measurements among women. This survey collected data on over 15,000 women and created a standardized sizing system for women's clothing based on bust, waist, and hip measurements.” (2023). The use of standardized sizes allowed the US government to meet the sudden demands for a wide variety of uniforms.

Hyperconsumerism

***Female youth wearing 70s dresses, 1972.***

According to Bold Metrics, “in the 1950s, the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) developed a new sizing system called "Misses" and "Junior Misses" that focused on age as well as body measurements” (2023). In the 1970s tailor-made clothes declined further, with the rise of casual clothing and the accessibility of clothing in a variety of colors, patterns, and textiles. Standardized sizes allowed the fashion industry to produce a wider variety of clothes. Allowing consumers to have instant access to many clothing pieces at the touch of a rack. Creating more possibilities while meeting the constant consumer demand.

Fast Fashion

According to Alex Crumbie, Fast Fashion is the result of “pressures on workers to produce more and at lower prices” (2023) to meet the large population of consumers’ demand when they turn to the newest rapidly selling trends. By facilitating a wide range of clothes of standard sizes, the creation of standardized sizes has played an influential role in the increase of hyper-consumerism and the formation of fast fashion. According to Co.Design, “In the late ’90s and early 2000s, fast fashion became the industry norm. H&M’s business model was copied by other retailers, from Zara to Walmart to Gap.” (2021). These major retailers began to sell clothes in bulk while meeting the constantly changing trends and styles. This norm adopted by these major retailers contributed to the post-consumer textile waste problem we have today.

Post-Consumer Textile Waste

**Textile waste a major source of landfill and pollution. 2023. Swapan Photography/Shutterstock.**

Post-consumer waste is the side effect of standardized sizes, hyper-consumerism, and fast fashion in that order. Post-consumer textile waste is discarded damaged, worn-out, or out-of-style clothes. According to Martina Igini, 92 million tonnes of textile waste is produced every year. In America alone, an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste – equivalent to 85% of all textiles – are sent to landfills on a yearly basis. That’s equivalent to approximately 81.5 pounds (37 kilograms) per person per year and around 2,150 pieces per second countrywide. Igi also learns the number of times a garment is worn has declined by around 36% in 15 years (2023).

The Zero Textile Waste Movement

**Recognize the label in dropoff boxes, 2011.**

According to NYC.gov, “Since the program launched in 2011, Refashion NYC has collected over 17,000 tons of textile waste. By the end of Fiscal Year 2023, there were 2,360 buildings participating in refashion NYC and more than 1,826 tons were collected. In Fiscal Year 2023, DSNY collected 3 tons from its refashion NYC DSNY Garage Pilot.” (2024). Refashion NYC is the official clothing reuse program in affiliation with Housing Works and NYC Department of Sanitation to help facilitate textile donations, through an accessible in-building service. According to Housing Works, “Every year NYC residents throw away approximately 195,000 tons of clothes, towels, blankets, curtains, shoes, handbags, belts, and other textiles and apparel.” (2024).

The Americas Act

According to Maliha Shoaib with Vogue Business, the Americas Act, introduced by US senators, Michael Bennet (Colorado) and Bill Cassidy (Louisiana) is a bipartisan bill that includes over $14 billion in incentives to encourage circulatory textile reuse and recycling from recycling from businesses and textile manufacturing companies. (Shoaib, 2024). This is part of amending the consumer textile waste problem, strengthening manufacturing independence from other countries like China, and increasing job opportunities. Shoaib also explains this bill focusing on recycling “comes at a pivotal time. Textile-to-textile recycling company Renewcell filed for bankruptcy last week, highlighting the difficulties faced by startups that are trying to change an industry while still operating within it.” (2024). However, she explains how experts are more concerned with why the Fashion industry could not help prevent Renewcell’s unfortunate bankruptcy. (Shaib, 2024).

How Can Individuals Help Contribute to Zero Textile Waste?

Creating a healthy relationship with clothes is the first step. Thinking about why we buy each garment and how we use it can help us determine if we should purchase it or not. Putting a stronger effort into each piece consumers buy can reduce how much they buy and waste. When consumers purchase clothes, they truly connect and identify with it, these clothes become hard to replace. Consumers take care of them more so that it can last longer. This is how one can repair and maintain a healthy relationship with clothes. Visit https://www.grownyc.org/clothing to see the locations where you can drop off your textile.

Let’s have a sustainable behavior in mind to help restructure our positive experience while purchasing our clothes, based on the following key factors:

Does this piece identify with my personality and usual interests, alone or if combined with my collection of garments?
Can I combine this piece with the garments I already own? How many of my garments would work with the piece?
Will I be comfortable wearing this to most casual or non-casual places I frequent, such as work, errand runs, casual gatherings, dinners, or parties?
Is the fabric durable?
How many of these do I really need?

When caring for your garments, Earthday.org advises us to think about the following factors:

Try wearing your clothes more than once before washing
Sort your laundry according to label instructions
Try to use laundry detergents without harmful chemicals
Avoid dry cleaning, drier, or ironing. Try to practice drip drying as much as you can.
Rearrange your wardrobe by rotating your clothes to ensure even usage and maintain their condition.
Reuse or repurpose clothes you no longer want to use.
Make sure to store out-of-season clothes properly.
Let's re-design and fortify a more intimate relationship with our garments.

We want a relationship that accommodates our style and helps us express our identity and individuality while contributing to a more sustainable world.

Our relationship with our clothes is meant to be intimate and go hand in hand with our identity. These values can get lost in the process of hyperconsuming. Because we are alienating ourselves from the fundamentals of valuing our garments, for the sake of prioritizing quantity and staying up to date with the latest, we stop seeing our wardrobe for its fundamentals. Staying up to date with the latest brand, instead of the latest style can be problematic, as brands can become more expensive and harder to keep up with without causing economic and environmental problems.

References

Bold Metrics. (2023, April 14). A History of Standard Apparel Sizing. https://blog.boldmetrics.com/a-brief-history-of-standard-apparel-sizing

Co.Design. (2021, January 27). H&M is one of fashion’s biggest polluters. now its foundation is on a $100 million quest to save the planet. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90596456/hm-is-one-of-fashions-biggest-polluters-now-its-on-a-100-million-quest-to-save-the-planet

Crumbie, A. (2023, April 12). What is fast fashion and why is it a problem https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/fashion-clothing/what-fast-fashion-why-it-problem

Delancey Dame Vintage. (2012, May 28). American Women: The Forgotten Heroes of WWII. https://delanceydamevintage.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/american-women-the-forgotten-heroes-of-wwii/

Earth Day. (2022, March 9). Toolkit: How to Care for Your Clothes. www.earthday.org/toolkit-how-to-care-for-your-clothes/

Housing works. (n.d.). RefashionNYC. https://www.housingworks.org/donate/re-fashionnyc

Igini, M. (2023, August 21). 10 Concerning Fast Fashion Waste Statistics. Earth. https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/#

Love Your Tailor. (n.d). The History of Tailoring. https://www.loveyourtailor.ca/tailor-blog/the-history-of-tailoring/

Sanitation. (2024). Textiles. In The NYC Department of Sanitation: Zero Waste Plan (p. 4). pdf, nyc.gov. Retrieved April 4, 2024, from https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/downloads/resources/reports/zero-waste-plan/zero-waste-plan.pdf

Shoaib, M. (2024, March 6). A new US bill incentivises circular fashion in a bid to compete with China. Vogue Business. https://www.voguebusiness.com/story/sustainability/a-new-us-bill-the-americas-act-incentivises-circular-fashion-in-a-bid-to-compete-with-china

The Chain Effect