A dress, a warning, a wake-up call
Every time we see a piece of clothing on a catwalk, a red carpet, or we see it immortalised in a glossy magazine, we rarely stop to ask ourselves what happened before and what will happen next. We remain fascinated by the style and lines, ignoring the silent history of land exploitation, water waste, pollution from toxic dyes and additives, underpaid labour, forgotten hands, landfills, and incinerators, which hide behind every garment.
In our short film The Dress, Barbara Foz tells the life of a dress. One of many. From the raw material to the glamorous debut, up to the final desolate abandonment. A story that forces us to ask ourselves a question long denied: Can fashion exist without harmful consequences?
This article takes us to the source. Track the journey of a piece of clothing throughout the value chain, from seed to showroom and finally to landfill. Numbers, voices, and systems are laid bare to reveal the immense potential, including economic, constituted by change. Transformation starts with a new awareness and a new type of design.
1. The Hidden Cost of Fashion: Clothing in Numbers
- Approximately 40 million hectares of land are used for intensive crop production of fibers, such as cotton. An agricultural activity that generates the exploitation of a stunning space through ferocious deforestation and practices that do not respect the environment.
- The fashion industry generates approximately 92 million tons of textile waste annually. A value equivalent to the contents of one garbage truck per second.
- The production of just one kg of cotton consumes between 8,000 and 10,000 litres of water (the equivalent of what a human being drinks in two years) and accounts for 10-16% of global pesticide use.
We are not referring to anomalous or exceptional values, but rather to a constant of the system. Yet, despite the considerable use of resources and labour, garments are often worn less than 10 times before being discarded. Sometimes they are used only once. This modus operandi prompts us to reflect on our values and the kind of legacy we are leaving behind.
2. From the Earth to the Fiber: the exploitation of nature
Clothing is born from the raw material that can be of vegetable, animal or fossil origin. Natural fibers, such as cotton, linen, silk and wool, require time, care and work to be used in textiles. Synthetic fibers require the use of fossil fuels and chemical refining, resulting in significant energy consumption and a detrimental impact on the environment.
The cotton supply chain alone supports the livelihoods of more than 250 million people worldwide. However, the conditions in which many cotton workers operate are often precarious. Low wages, unsafe environments and abuses remain widespread in major producing countries. This type of social injustice has been raising, for years now, an uncomfortable question: how sustainable is a system that generates immense wealth in the face of the exploitation of people, animals and the environment?
Fashion, of course, is not only an ugly environmental and ethical issue, but it is undoubtedly a formidable economic engine. In addition to creating numerous jobs, it drives local and global economies, bringing value to millions of people. Fashion has great power. It influences the masses, culture and even politics, and is in turn influenced by them. And it is precisely because of this incredible impact, positive and negative, that it requires a hefty dose of responsibility. Fashion is not a game! And therefore, it cannot be disposable.
3. Transformation of Fiber into fabric
Raw fibers undergo various processing steps before they can be spun and woven. This transition requires both craftsmanship and heavy machinery, especially in the energy-intensive production of synthetic fibers.
- Polyester, for example, requires ~125 MJ per kg, enough to power a refrigerator for 23 days.
- Cotton fiber is responsible for the emission of CO2, ranging from 1.15 to 6.07 kg per kg of cotton produced. Although cotton plants produce oxygen during the normal process of photosynthesis, the agricultural and industrial activities necessary to obtain textile fiber produce a much higher amount of CO2.
4. Dyeing and finishing: the true cost of colour
Colour is one of the great seductions of fashion. Colour makes us beautiful; however, textile dyeing accounts for approximately 20% of the world’s water pollution. Every year, 21.9 trillion litres of polluted water are dispersed into the environment, equivalent to 8.76 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The eco-friendly price of dye is incredibly high. And it is mainly invisible to the consumer.
In China’s Xintang, known as the “jeans capital of the world,” rivers have visibly turned blue and black due to untreated sewage from dyeing plants. In India’s Tiruppur region, widespread dye pollution rendered the local water unusable for agriculture, leading to the closure of hundreds of dry cleaners by court order in the 2000s. However, despite the application of partial regulation, the damage to ecosystems remains difficult to reverse.
According to the World Bank, more than 70 toxic chemicals found in water come exclusively from textile dyeing. Of these, 30% cannot be removed with conventional treatment.
Thankfully, some players in the industry are working to find better solutions. Big brands are adopting digital dyeing and waterless dyeing technologies, such as Colorifix and DyeCoo, which reduce or completely eliminate water consumption. Others are collaborating with innovators in wastewater treatment, such as closed circular systems, or adopting natural plant-based dyes.
These advances show that colour doesn’t have to be an unsustainable cost to the Earth if we commit ourselves responsibly to sustainable innovation.
5. Design and development: creative waste
The style office is where the magic begins and where a lot of waste is conceived. Bangladesh discards 500,000 to 700,000 tons of pre-consumer textile waste annually, much of which is pure cotton, according to Reverse Resources. Italy collected about 160,000 tons of textile waste in 2022, while Japan generated about 460,000 tons in 2018 (sources: Statista and NeoTextile). These numbers reflect the increasing pressure on national recycling systems, as well as the untapped potential of pre-consumer and post-consumer materials.
At Eretikos iki, we are fashion creators deeply inspired by creative power, but fully aware of its consequences. That’s why we design with the planet and humanity in mind. At the base of every concept and every article, there is a great responsibility: to imagine not only the beginning, but also the end and the rebirth in a virtuous and also virtual circle.
6. Creation of the garment: craft and precision
The fabrics are cut, sewn, and assembled with skill to become garments. According to a report by the Clean Clothes Campaign, garment workers in many parts of the world earn less than a living wage, with some being paid only 1-3% of the retail price of the garments they produce.
According to the ILO, between 60 and 75 million people are directly employed in clothing production globally. However, according to UniformMarket, the garment industry, considering the entire value chain — from raw Fiber, to retail — supports more than 430 million workers. Many of these operate in precarious conditions, with gruelling hours and minimal protection, especially in regions with the highest production intensity.
We need a paradigm shift that gives the proper recognition and respect to the workforce, and fights the annihilation of the person pursued by FAST FASHION companies and beyond. True sustainability must take into account not only the environmental footprint, but also the dignity of those whose hands bring our garments to life.
7. Distribution: the carbon of convenience
Shipping, packaging, and delivery add an extra layer of emissions and waste:
- Fashion generates approximately 3 million tons of packaging waste annually (source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation).
- Global freight transport contributes about 8% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and textile-garment shipments are a growing part of the problem (source: International Transport Forum).
- One of the most overlooked issues in fashion is returns: In some regions, up to 40% of clothing purchased online is returned. Many of these items are not put back on sale. Still, they are incinerated or disposed of in landfills, exacerbating harmful emissions and the amount of toxic waste (source: Fashion for Good).
The convenience created by e-commerce and shipping speed has turned logistics into a significant contributor to pollution. From last-mile delivery to over-packaging, every garment returned multiplies its environmental impact. Addressing this issue means rethinking everything from packaging design to sizing accuracy and reverse logistics strategies.
8. You, the moon and your dress
A dress carries with it memories and evokes past emotions. It’s like a photograph, a song. It is the testimony of lived experiences, of victories and defeats. A dress is imbued with laughter, desire and the scent of moments that we cannot relive, but that we can retrace with the mind. Clothes, like books, are our biography: every fold marks a chapter and every stain is a punctuation mark.
When we throw away a dress, what are we throwing away? Just an object or the stratified archive of our life?
[…] Here, the costume, passed from mother to daughter or father to son, for generations, takes on a very different meaning from a dress to which we do not give importance. The costume knows how to tell stories that are enriched with new episodes over time and through the people who wear it. The costume changes personality while maintaining its style. It never becomes obsolete because it is built on tradition, passion, and love. When you wear it, your knees shake because you perceive its history and value. The costume is a precious and timeless jewel[…] Astrea Nicodemo
At Eretikos Iki, inspired by the voice of Astrea Nicodemo, we believe that objects, especially those we wear, bear the imprint of our soul. Discarding everything relentlessly means forgetting our history, our identity. What if, instead, we bought valuable garments and treated them as a container of memories, as a timeless jewel that changes personality, while maintaining its style?
9. The end we don’t want to see: waste
Most clothing is disposed of in landfills or incinerated. Few are reused. Even fewer are those that are recycled. The waste crisis in fashion is not an accident, but a systemic error. And it is a problem that we must address urgently.
Fortunately, innovative solutions are emerging that are catching on very quickly.
- LVMH’s Nona Source reuses leftovers from luxury fashion houses, giving high-quality materials a second life.
- Revolve’s REMADE project and COS Resell allow customers to buy and sell used items within the brand’s ecosystem.
- In Italy, Textile Hub Prato has become a model for industrial-scale textile recycling.
- In Ghana, The Or Foundation works to manage the massive influx of second-hand clothing, while advocating for fairness and justice in the textile and apparel supply chain.
These initiatives demonstrate that it is possible to create synergies between creativity, circularity, and responsibility.
To move forward and improve, we need to design circular products that have a robust end-of-life strategy at their core. We need to build infrastructure for reuse and recycling, and promote a cultural shift in which the value of a garment is based on quality and its impact on the ecosystem, rather than novelty.
10. A new chapter: NICE. NOS (not just sales)
At Eretikos Iki, we believe that clothing should not end up incinerated, buried, or abandoned in open-air landfills. That’s why we’re building NICE. NOS (Not Only Sale): A circular fashion community and platform dedicated to giving our garments a second life.
NICE. NOS enables people to:
- Reuse: Recycle or redesign with creative support.
- Repair: Learn from expert tutorials.
- Resell: Offer garments for sale through verified resale.
- Reconnect: Join a conscious global network that values every point.
NICE. NOS is not just a platform, but a movement. It is an ethical and sustainable, educational, circular and resilient system supported by the latest generation technologies.
We value what has value, like you!
One dress can really change everything.
The short film “The Dress” demonstrates that the beauty of a garment is not purely aesthetic, but is also influenced by the processes that occur upstream and throughout the entire value chain of the garment itself. Discarding a garment does not necessarily mean the end of it, but instead, it can be the beginning of something more interesting.
We invite you to rethink fashion with us, not as a passing trend, but as a regenerative force.
Eretikos Iki | #Dressupandempowerthefuture