How Does the Minneapolis Fashion Scene Prioritize Sustainability?
The Minneapolis fashion scene focuses on sustainability and diversity, in a world where fast fashion is growing rapidly, how will it keep up?
Picture by Eastman Childs
Why It Matters
When clothing was first made it was out of necessity. A way to protect ourselves from the elements. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that what we recognize as the fashion industry truly began. Collections were produced in two seasons: Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer. “In 1901, the average American family spent 14% of their annual income on clothing, and by 1929, the average middle-class American woman owned a total of nine outfits.” Says Jacqui Sadashige, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. Now, brands produce more than 52 “micro-seasons” per year, with some companies producing at a much faster rate like Shein and Temu, this is referred to as “Fast Fashion.”
Picture by Finlan Aldan
“Fast fashion is ‘fast’ in a number of senses: the changes in fashion are fast, the rate of production is fast; the customer’s decision to purchase is fast; delivery is fast; and garments are worn fast – usually only a few times before being discarded,” says Alex Crumbie in an article for The Ethical Consumer. An example of just how fast a lot of this clothing can be made comes from the BBC’s 2020 “Breaking Fashion” television program. In the program, we see In the Style, a Manchester-based fast fashion company reproduce a bodysuit worn by Kylie Jenner. The company has the piece designed, manufactured, and on sale within 10 days of Jenner being seen wearing the original garment.
So why is fast fashion a problem? Well, with cheap price tags, low-quality garments, and quick production times the earth and the people making the clothes pay the price. “I came across this statistic from Earth.org that says since 2000, clothing sales have doubled annually, while the average number of times an item has been worn decreased by more than 30%. The consumption is going up, the wearing is decreasing, and disposal is increasing” says Sadashige.
A report done in March of 2023 by the United Nations Environment Programme said that fashion was responsible for up to 10% of annual global carbon emissions. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change also estimates that emissions from textile manufacturing will increase by 60% before 2030. In 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that landfills received 11.3 million tons of MSW textiles. Even when someone tries to donate their clothing, they can still end up in the wrong places. The donation systems in the United States and the United Kingdom are extremely flawed. These countries send the unwanted textiles to places like Ghana and Chile where the excess of textiles end up being dumped in rivers and oceans. “At Ghana's Kamanto market, around 15 million items of used clothing from Western countries arrive every week. The entire population of Ghana is only 30 million,” reported CBS News in 2021.
“As you see with so many global issues, those who are already most vulnerable are going to be those that are at the highest risk. It’s interesting to note that globally, around 60-80% of garment workers are women. If you look at where fast fashion is produced and where these factories are located, they’re in the Global South, by and large. You’re looking at countries like Bangladesh, which suffered the notorious collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in 2013, where 1,100 perished, mostly women, employed by Western brands like Zara and Walmart. You’re looking at Indonesia, where there is a high economic dependency on the fashion industry. The workers there are not being paid fair wages and the factories lack oversight,” said Sadashige.
How MN is different
Minneapolis, ranked the 18th happiest city in the world according to a study by the Institute for Quality of Life, has a small fashion scene but a fashion scene nonetheless. Before World War I, the Twin Cities were a hub of dressmakersinspired by the fashion they’d seen in Paris and London. Today Minnesota has its own fashion week, Fashion Week MN. The state is known for its natural beauty, support for the arts, and diverse communities, all represented during the week, created by Sarah Edwards and Jahna Peloquin, in 2015. “We were never trying to be New York or LA, we were embracing it instead of trying to be something we’re not,” Peloquin said.
Picture of “Waste Monsters” at Fashion Week MN by Alexis Faible
While other cities can fall victim to a fast-paced life, and shy away from natural beauty, Minneapolis is known for its access to nature, and its earth-conscious residents. “The recycling cross-contamination rate, where non-recyclable material is recycled in Minneapolis, is 10% while the rates in other metro cities are usually 25-40%. Minneapolis’ organic compost contamination rate is at 1%, which is almost unheard of for a residential program” said Recycling Coordinator Kellie Kish in an article for The Minnesota Daily.
It may be due to the efforts of the Twin Cities communities that the Minneapolis fashion scene is as sustainable as it is. Local vintage seller, and Minnesota transplant Bel Moran said “The majority of the people here are more conscious of what their clothes are made of, who's making it, and that’s why we have such a large vintage and secondhand scene. I’ve never lived somewhere like that.” She also mentioned the amount of clothing swaps, and free events focused on ensuring that clothing doesn’t end up in landfills. “I’ve lived here 6 years and culturally this is the snowy city it’s the place where it gets cold. In the last few years, the winters have been rainier and mild. The effects of climate change are very tangibly seen in a place like this.”
The Vintage Community
all pictures above by Alexis Faible
Though there is no definitive record of the number of vintage stores in the Twin Cities, a high number of them exist in the relatively small metro area. Two of these include Moth Oddities and Olio Vintage, both located in Northeast Minneapolis.
Couple Yana Pietras and Ian O’Neill started Moth Oddities in 2014. They traveled the U.S. in their Jeep and found and sold vintage along the way. In 2021 they opened their first storefront. “We’re saving things from landfills. Buying vintage, buying used, prevents waste from accumulating faster,” says O'Neill. “Vote with your money, not throwing your money at Shein and H&M and all these places that are destroying the environment and filling up landfills all over the world.”
Similar sentiments are shared by Carrie Martinson of Olio Vintage. “It doesn’t matter if it’s older than 20 years old or less than 20 years old. I’d love to see more young people stop shopping on Amazon and either buy things from thrift stores or Turnstyle even. Just buying things used instead of new I think can have a huge impact globally on our environment and I would love to see that become important to people. Not just that they’re doing it but that they’re doing it consciously and consciously not buying fast fashion. Then it’ll maybe stop being a thing” Martinson said. Olio opened its doors in October of 2023 when a group of long-time vintage collaborators strove to start their storefront. “There’s a huge community of vintage vendors in the Twin Cities and we’re all a great community and support each other,” said Martinson.
Another unique aspect of the Minneapolis culture is the drive for collaboration. You’d think that there being so many of these stores so near each other there’d be more competition, but instead, the stores often work together. In August of 2024, Golden Pearl Vintage hosted the Back Alley Bazaar which was a collaboration of several vintage shops all coming together to sell their wares. In September of the same year, Moth Oddities hosted a Vintage Block Party that was another collaboration of local vintage stores. More recently, in October there was the Women Owned Twin Cities Vintage Fall Crawl where some of the women-owned vintage shops in the cities not only encouraged shoppers to visit different stores but even gave them monetary discounts for doing so.
The Production Community
Though Minnesota’s clothing production pales in comparison to places like New York, there are still communities in the area. Notably: Minnesota Made, Northmade Co., and Clothier Design Source. Freelance sewist, Katelyn Goetz, found herself in the Minnesota garment industry through the very thing that fuels it, community. Last fall she met Benjamin Kelly, better known as Dinosaur Hampton, in the backyard of an event hosted by friends, where he asked “Do you know how to sew? Do you want a job?”
Picture by Alexis Faible
Goetz is self-taught, learning in 2021, after being inspired by seeing people create slow, as in literally slow, fashion over social media. “I was watching these women make projects that could take months to make, and realizing that that was okay,” Goetz said. Now she is a freelance sewist working for two companies in the Twin Cities, as well as creating climbing mats for the climbing gym she used to work at. “I want to sew, I don’t care what as long as I’m learning and having fun.” She says. She also teaches a monthly Mends & Friends class at Moth Oddities. The class encourages people to come in with garments that need mended, or fixed, and the two mentors, including Goetz, will teach the person how to fix it.
What Can You Do?
Shop Used
According to ThredUp’s 2024 Resale Report, the global secondhand market is expected to grow to $350 Billion by 2028. One of the most budget-friendly and easiest ways to shop sustainably is by buying what you can second-hand. Local vintage stores, thrift shops, and salvage centers are great places to start. There are also incredible online communities and websites dedicated to selling and buying used goods. Notable examples are the aforementioned ThredUp, Ebay, Depop, Mercari, and Poshmark. Many cities have dedicated clothing swaps, or even “buy nothing” Facebook groups.
2. Shop Intentionally
“There’s so much happening in that space (sustainable fashion) that is really, really exciting. If we can somehow disentangle this idea that self-expression has to come with some sort of assertion of class, that will help. We shouldn’t be buying into the kind of visibility that says we need to dress a certain way to belong to a certain class or have a certain occupation,” said Sadashige. In ThredUp’s 2022 Gen Z Fast Fashion Report, 1 in 3 members of Gen Z said they felt addicted to fast fashion, and 45% of college students said it’s “hard to resist the temptation that fast fashion offers.” The report also found that nearly 40% of college students browsed fast fashion sites once a day or more, while 50% watched weekly fast fashion hauls. Social media does not only want your time, they want your money. That’s why almost all popular social media platforms, Instagram and TikTok for example, have built-in shopping capabilities, they rely on your split-second decision-making. YouTuber, Katie Robinson, says of TikTok Shop “It’s pushing us to buy as much as possible, without thinking about the purchase, or consequence of the items we’re buying…TikTok has mastered getting you to buy now, think later.” By slowing down and thinking about purchases intentionally, we can avoid buying items we do not need, and that we will use.
3. Wear What You Have
According to a 2019 article written for Glamour “It’s estimated that the average item of clothing is worn just 14 times, and in 2019 The Guardian reported that one in three young women considered an item worn just once or twice to be old.” This mentality is extremely harmful to the environment because we are getting rid of clothing after only wearing it a couple of times. YouTuber The Financial Diet said in her video Why Nothing You Buy Feels Good Anymore “One of the biggest trends we’re seeing amongst young adults is the almost complete disappearance of things like going to the cobbler, going to the tailor, buying clothes of higher quality and then investing in them long term with tweaks and repairs.” It’s extremely important to not only wear what we have but try to extend the life of our garments. Things like mending, tailoring, and generally taking care of the things we own can make them last much longer.
