Teru Toy – Research Process
We live in an era that encourages us to consume, to be more stylish, however, the mindset of people buying more stuff, chasing the latest fashion is also the key factor that is causing a huge amount of textile waste. According to the report from McKinsey Sustainability, clothing production has roughly doubled since 2000. While people bought 60% more garments in 2014 than in 2000, they only kept the clothes for half as long. However, the rise in clothing consumption also brings us a question on how do we deal with the increasing amount of textile waste? Though currently there are many ways to answer and explore this topic, I became particularly interested in the topic of upcycling clothes. Some studies show that upcycling may not only help reduce environmental impacts associated with the production and consumption of clothes but may also help reduce the production of new clothes (Farrant et al. 2010). However when we talk about clothes most people will think about dresses, shirts, coats, jackets or suits, etc… But in this project, I chose the question of how might we reduce the waste of discarded socks?
