Greenwashing is a problem to face now. And the designer Wendy Ward fights him “respecting him to the sender”

When it comes to Greenwashing in fashion, A dress communicated as “sustainable” that is consumed after three washes is more than a quality problem. In fact, it is the symptom of a system that consumes resources with the same voracity with which it produces. How to make the difference? What we wear certainly tells who we are, but more and more too which side we are on: to give a considerable example of courage and originality in this sense was recently the British designer Wendy Ward. In recent weeks, in fact, he has made himself talk about himself for starting A protest starting from his final clothes, respecting them by mail to those who have produced them.

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The activist wicks them carefully and respected them to companies who appear on the label, accompanying them with handwritten letters. These are worn clothing well before the promised time: the frustration thus turns into action, turning on a community that is still growing with the hashtag #Takeitback – so Ward has developed a real guide to replicate the steps – in order to press pressure on the brands and offer a concrete example of Guerilla epr (i.e., extensive responsibility of the manufacturer).

The goal is to bring the short circuit of consumption: The synthetic fabrics – such as polyester, mixed cotton, non -biodegradable threads – end up being incinerated or accumulated in gigantic open -air landfills, as happens in Chile. The shops that offer the option to collect the used instead, they can only recycle them that a minimal part. The so -called «take-back Schemes»In fact, a flop are proving, given that over 75% of the donated heads ends destroyed or parked in warehouses. Even sustainable supply chains do not support this weight, and just think that charity shops and collection companies find themselves having to refuse tons of clothing because they unable to manage Fiber without value.

Wendy Ward’s gesture does not need megaphones: it is silent but eloquent, and it is from here that it can be born a wider and more necessary reflection on what the same activist has defined, in an interview with The Guardian“A difficult problem, but also hidden”. And, if not all we can or want to send a dress to those who produced it, each of us can choose to live in fashion differently.

A first gesture, today more than ever urgently, is that of repair: recalling a garment is not only a practical act, but a declaration of love towards what you have and a refusal of the culture of use and throws. In the Circles of sewing and collective mend More and more numerous – spaces that are flourishing in many cities, halfway between the laboratory and the refuge – also rediscovers the value of the slow time, of shared manual skills, of the dress that returns to live with an extra story on him.

The cards on the table are also changing in the online spaces, and more and more creators choose to Telling a conscious wardrobemade of garments that last, who pass by hand, that resist the test of time and fashion. Showing a dress purchased years ago or discovering the second hand stores are decidedly more “cool” gestures than the last decade, especially thanks to the change of paradigm conveyed by the new generations. It is a story parallel to that of glossy windows, an invitation to slow down, to choose, to ask yourself: “What do I really need?”.

Before being eliminated, each dress can be rewritten. Change the buttons, shorten a sleeve, use a scarf as a top or a dress as a skirt doing layering. It’s not just a matter of styling, it’s a way of unhinge the principle of replacement: instead of wondering what we are missing, you can ask ourselves “what can I transform?”. Some do it with irony, others with a hyperminimalist aesthetic, others still with almost theatrical inventions. Everyone, in different ways, shows us that creativity applied to their clothes can be liberating and deeply personal. It is not only sustainability, but a form of language.

Taken individually, each of these actions might seem without any weight. However, added up, they become a front, creating a small army of careful consumers, critics, capable of citing the Greenwashing and ocular every choice consciously, often also awakening one’s imagination. Wendy Ward’s gesture is emblematic not because rare, but because it shows us a concrete possibility: overturn the mechanism, return responsibility to those who producerewrite the relationship between those who create and those who wear. And remember, every time we open the wardrobe, that even a part of our way of being in the world is played there.