This mental snapshot of a visit to Kohl's is lodged in my brain and won't go away: clothes as far as the eye can see, a dizzying sea of sizes, styles, colors and types, accompanied by deep discounts and the draw to accumulate Kohl's dollars to apply to some return visit opportunity that expires soon.
What if we changed the way we made and sold clothes; changed the way we thought about wardrobes and the way we wear them? A new ethos. What if we asked our clothes to do more but to be fewer: to last longer, fit better, be more thermally adaptive, recharge the electronica we carry, but not be so many hanging in our closets?
Instead of warehousing oceans of mass-produced clothes in department stores, what if we could digitally map the body so that a tailored, custom piece of clothing could be made and delivered directly to the user? Digital sports jerseys. Instead of buying new jerseys each season, develop digital jerseys that display the team logo, and player's name and number.
Defashion. Create an ethos that eschews the churn of hot fashion in favor of a less plentiful, more durable wardrobe: fewer colors and styles, fewer articles of clothing in the closet that are worn longer and across more of the places we work and live. Adopt a Finnish mentality towards wardrobe: the same corduroy pants worn day in, day out, week in, week out is sensible, bland, and cooler than the frenzied fashion and sales hunt.
Less factory, fewer slow boats from China. Fewer trains and trucks. Fewer and smaller stores. Smaller closets with fewer hangers. A new ethos that favors a few high quality, high function tailored pieces of clothing that last a lifetime.
Photo: coyenator on flickr
Tags: Energy, Energy Efficiency, Green Science
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