“Fashion is the deliberate inculcation of obsolescence.” -Paul Hawken

Some people might not think that food and fashion have much in common, but in our global consumer society that’s obsessed with cheaper and faster, they definitely do. I write about this topic over on the Brooklyn Fashion and Design Accelerator blog. My latest article is all about expiration dates.

Just like we used to put all of our food to use, and fix our appliances instead of buying a new one, if a go-to shirt got a hole in it, there was a time when we would sew it up. But the darning needles and sewing machines of our mother’s and grandmother’s generations have all but disappeared, because in the world of cheap fashion, you can just as easily buy something new.

Cheap fashion is just the same as cheap food; there’s no economic reason stopping us from tossing out the old stuff and buying something new, and that in turn, leads to waste of huge proportions. Consider in 2012, 35 million tons of food was thrown away in the U.S. In that same year, 14.3 million tons of textile waste was generated. But the difference with fashion is that it’s not just worn out clothing that gets us to bring a new item into our wardrobes. It’s a perceived expiration date.

Read the full article here.

Image: David Goehring