Black Friday is just around the corner. Many brands are preparing for a huge devaluation of their goods. People are already on the lookout for the best deals and signs like “shop until you drop” are everywhere. Black Friday is annually ‘celebrated’ the day after Thanksgiving and the biggest starting signal for sale each year. Where the day before we all counted our blessings, we now excitedly count our achieved discount. Where the day before we claimed to be grateful for all wealth, we suddenly seem to not have enough. It might not surprise you that Black Friday is not our thing. We want to speak out against the system that arouses dissatisfaction and is not making us any happier on the long term. Right before the prices are about to drop low, we would like to share our view on this. And hopefully inspire you to not let the madness get to you. Here’s why.
Together, all around the world, we consume 100.000.000.000 pieces of clothing EACH year. This number has doubled in the last 15 years. However, we are wearing our items much less – about 36% less on average and even fewer in Western countries – and as easily as we buy new stuff, we throw away our clothes. Our generation is known to toss clothing away twice as likely compared to older generations because we think it’s ‘unfashionable’ or we are just into something new. All in all massive amount of clothing is discarded each year. “But we are recycling, right?”, is what we hear a lot. It might seem like recycling is becoming the norm, but sadly enough 73% of all clothes still ends up in landfills or is incinerated and only 13% is repurposed. Only 1% of the discarded clothing is actually reused into new clothing (Ellen Macarthur).
Out of all the materials that are used for fashion production, nearly half of them are cotton, but not even 1% is organic (Organic Cotton). Using genetically modified cotton in production takes an extensive amount of water and chemicals such as pesticide and insecticide. 20% of the worldwide industrial water pollution is due to the textile industry (Ellen Macarthur). A fibre even more frequently used is polyester, which takes around 98 000 000 tons of oil each year to produce and therefore has a huge impact on our planet (Ellen Macarthur).
fast consuming behaviour has a giant impact on both the environment and the lives of the people who make our clothes.
The reason why all of this upsets us, is because not only the environment is paying the cost for our overconsuming. Our behaviour has a giant impact on the lives of the people who make our clothes as well. Most people never consider how much impact it has when a new item goes over the counter. We have gotten disconnected from the people who work day and night to provide us with our endless demand for new garments. Our planet counts around 40 million persons that work in the garment industry, 85% being women (The True Cost). Most of them live overseas and their working conditions are far from what most of us in the West are used to. Their wages are not enough to even serve the basic needs of them and their families, let alone get an education. As long as we are not willing to pay an honest price for our wardrobe, théy will take the hit. That coming Friday, when already unfair prices will hit rock bottom, is nothing else but pure tragic. One of the solutions for you as a customer is starting to buy less, and when you buy new stuff to choose for sustainable and vintage items. Are you ready to open your eyes to take in the mess we made? To take in what we are doing to our planet? To take in how we practically steal from the garment workers by accepting demanding such low prices? Are you ready to let common sense speak and will you skip Black Friday?
So no discounts here. Sorry. We thought about turning kuyichi.com black for one day, but we chose to skip the madness and focus on doing our thing like we always do. This Friday should not be any different from any other Friday. We want to inspire people to quit the madness, too, and think for themselves.
We believe that it’s possible to do good and still make profit. We would rather sell less, but truly sustainable products to loyal customers who we know will come back after a while, than make people buy crappy things they don’t need. We’re here to make the world a better place. Just like our name, we stand for colour and spreading nothing but positivity. Though this article might not seem so smiley, our motive comes from a deep desire for fair production and happiness in every part of the chain. Let’s turn this Friday into colour again and turn it around to a day of gratitude.
- (source: A new textiles economy – 2017 –https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/publications/A-New-Textiles-Economy_Full-Report_Updated_1-12-17.pdf)
- (source: Organic Cotton – Market Report 2019 – https://store.textileexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/woocommerce_uploads/2019/11/Textile-Exchange_Organic-Cotton-Market-Report_2019_2.pdf)
- (source true cost: https://truecostmovie.com/learn-more/human-rights/)