“…..for each day of the year, I will choose one item of clothing from my wardrobe, and deconstruct its footprint. I haven’t figured out in what form this will take, but I know I want to feature these metrics (at the very least): water, energy, chemical consumption, kilometres travelled/countries of origin, solid/liquid/gas wastes generated, and number of labour hours and rates.”

I think the fashion industry has been able to get away with murder – literally – over the years and the average consumer is oblivious to the abundance of issues (that require attention) that are associated with their clothing, accessories and footwear purchases.

I love being kept up-to-date with style and appreciate the ‘sense’ in fashion, but also think it’s an incredibly wasteful industry; full of excesses. I think consumers need to ‘smarten’ up and encourage ethical production and processes with the power of their dollar. I want to enable change within this industry with my background in grassroots campaigning and organising (I am an activist at heart) and acquired engineering and problem-solving skills.

​Deconstructing My Wardrobe is exactly that – for each day of the year, I will choose one item of clothing from my wardrobe, and deconstruct its footprint. I haven’t figured out in what form this will take, but I know I want to feature these metrics (at the very least): water, energy, chemical consumption, kilometres travelled/countries of origin, solid/liquid/gas wastes generated, and number of labour hours and rates.

In the age of being an informed purchaser with our lifestyle choices such as ingredients in food, types of preservatives, whether they’re locally sourced/packaged, yada yada yada….. You would think a piece of garment or your latest sneakers would carry similar product information resemblance. And can anybody say that this is the world in which we live in now? Let me tell you, NO.

For as long as I can remember I was always troubled by this phenomena. The motto I’ve lived by since I started earning money has always been “it’s not about fashion, it’s about style.” I love strutting around in the latest fashion statement as much as the next avid follower, but as I got older I realisedmy body shape dictated what I can and cannot wear. 
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It was by pure chance I stumbled across Lucy Siegle – she’s my hero, you see. I was at a crossroads in a long-term relationship that made me, in February 2014, upon the possibility of migrating to the UK, think about exploring my passions in fashion further. (There were multiple attempts of finding full-time employment under my current job ‘title’ to no satisfactory result).

Gaining momentum by this magic moment, I promptly scrounged the web and Twitter for inspiration. I picked 5 profiles to become victim to my unsolicited message that read something like, “Australian Engineer slash environmentalist looking to make a (footprint)change in UK Fashion, any advice?“

And then a miracle happened. Lucy asked me to email her. And this is where it all began. All these questions I had in my head about the true crimes of fashion… Lucy had already answered them. She wrote a book about it!!!

I suppose everybody needs clothes and shoes and jeans and handbags and accessories and whatnot to keep us warm and healthy and look OK most of the time, so Deconstructing My Wardrobe is not about pointing the finger at a product and stacking it up against another. There’s no good or bad. There are only scales.

It’s about how the items in your wardrobe match your own ethical views on the product’s footprint. So I guess it’s about tolerance, and I’m preaching this: we need to keep helping the good guys (or at least the people who try to have a conscience on this topic) with our dollar, help them keep getting better and their efforts, and strive for excellence. This way, I’m hoping we can normalise good and ethical practices, and keep less good ones at bay… with the aim of pushing these practices out of the bell curve and labelling them outsiders. (In good time, of course. Rome wasn’t built in a day).

When you know the garment you’re wearing is made with love by the people who stitch the buttons, handled with care for the Earth and the environment, and injected with passion for the betterment of the human beings, animals, communities and factories sewing them together, one thing’s for sure: you will undoubtedly feel good, and YOU become the better person.

​Najah Onn, Perth, April 2016.