The insidious effect of the fabric in your stretchy jeans

Your favourite pair of form-fitting jeans, workout leggings or stretchy hoodie represents a huge problem in the global fashion industry.

They may be forgiving after a big lunch, but almost anything with stretch is made with fossil fuel-derived products, which deteriorate faster than their natural counterparts.

Our clothes are under threat. Climate change is affecting the quality, availability and price of natural fibres like cotton, silk and wool.

Amid demand for low-cost clothes, retailers rely on synthetic materials, perpetuating the climate change cycle and driving up the price of quality materials.

Fossil fuel fashion set to take over

The world is producing more textiles than ever, with 116 million tonnes of fibre produced in 2022. That’s 15.6 kilograms per person, up from 8.2 in 1975, according to Textile Exchange’s Materials Market Report. By 2030, it’s projected to rise to 17.3 kilograms per person.

Over two-thirds of those textiles are made from plastic and fossil fuels. A report by the Changing Markets Foundation found polyester production tripled between 2000 and 2018 to 60 million tonnes, overtaking every other kind of textile.

Plastic has crept into almost every item of clothing available, University of Technology Sydney fashion and textiles designer Mark Liu said – and it’s driving down clothing quality.

Elastane, such as Lycra or spandex, is a huge culprit. Most clothes now have 1 - 2 per cent elastane, which allows manufacturers to produce fewer sizes due to the stretch. It’s a petroleum-based product that is nearly impossible to recycle, with a shorter lifespan than natural fibres.

“With anything elastic, it just dies – each of those garments has a timer on them,” Lui said.

He said the rise of online shopping and fast fashion had also changed consumer expectations.

“When people are buying garments for $5, often with free shipping, they can just buy another one if it falls apart … you’re not expecting that much,” he said.

Australian Fashion Council head Jaana Quaintance-James said she was incredibly concerned about the impact of climate change and the ability of local manufacturers to compete with lower-priced polyester imports.

Limited clothing import tariffs are set to be scrapped altogether in July under the government’s “removal of nuisance tariffs” reform, making it more difficult for the few who manufacture onshore to compete.

“We need to invest in our capabilities here – we have incredible cotton and wool. How can we as an industry come together, create value and keep more of that happening in Australia?” she said.

She said the Australian fashion industry was embracing recycled, renewable and sustainable manufacturing methods but needed greater investment and support to grow.

Natural fibres under threat

The quality and quantity of natural fibres such as wool, linen, cotton and silk are under threat thanks to climate change.

70-year-old Nan Bray quit her job as a climate scientist two decades ago to start a merino wool farm in Tasmania. She sells fibres to US luxury fashion brand Another Tomorrow and produces yarn for her online store.

Bray is incredibly concerned about the industry’s future thanks to El Nino and La Nina weather patterns causing back-to-back floods and droughts affecting the availability of feed and quality of wool.

“Less rainfall means less feed, less feed means fibres with less tensile strength. Once the tensile strength drops below a certain threshold, mills can’t work with it as it breaks, and farmers can’t sell to the higher end of the market, such as fashion retailers,” she said.

Global wool production has gone backwards in the past decade from 1.22 million tonnes in 2005 to 1.05 million tonnes in 2022, according to the Textile Exchanges Market Report.

Cotton, too, is under threat, Sydney University Institute of Agriculture Professor Daniel Tan said.

“The fibre length is determined by heat and water. If grown on dry and hot land, you get shorter fibres which don’t have strength and break easily,” he said.

He said heavy rains, overcast days and floods also cause crops to yellow and rot.

Cotton production has increased by just 5000 tonnes in the past 40 years, and across the next decade, production of the water-hungry crop is expected to decrease.

The Cotton 2040 report found that 40 per cent of cotton-producing regions will experience shorter growing seasons by 2040 due to the number of days above 30 degrees.

Founder of Sydney fashion label KITX Kit Willow said the skyrocketing prices of natural materials and drop in quality were having a big impact on business.

“Every single season for the past 10 years, the price of silk has gone up. Every order comes at an increased price, while the silk quality is thinner. In the next 10 years, virgin silk will be a luxury,” she said.

Silk production volumes declined by 54 per cent between 2015 and 2020 as high heat and humidity impacted the Mulberry leaves the silkworms rely on, cocoon quality and larvae growth.

Linen prices have also surged, Willow said, with her suppliers increasing costs by 35 per cent in four years.

She said she may have to look for ways to decrease costs, such as by moving manufacturing abroad, as consumers couldn’t absorb the price costs.

“Some manufacturers are mixing natural fibres with synthetic or viscose, which in turn accelerates climate change and waste … it makes the clothes cheap financially, but very expensive on the planet,” Willow said.

Designer Kit Willow at her boutique in Sydney’s Paddington, which already has a circular manufacturing model.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Climate impacts could threaten an estimated $65 billion of apparel exports by 2030, according to McKinsey & Company’s 2024 State of Fashion report.

Does the consumer care?

General manager of Uturn Recycled Fashion Katie Revie said the quality of secondhand clothing the warehouse received had declined significantly in the two decades the company has been in operation.

About 10 per cent of the donations it receives can be resold, with the rest reused, upcycled or cut into cloth.

“There’s more what would be considered disposable fashion coming through the doors,” she said, defining it as clothing developed with a single-use in mind, such as poor quality, corporate event-branded shirts.

General manager of UTurn Recycled Fashion Katie Revie said the quality of donated clothes has been getting worse and worse, while the quantity has increased.Credit: Nikki Short

Revie said people’s care for their clothes had also decreased. Many fast-fashion items arrived stained, and the poor-quality clothing made it unviable to repair.

“Customers are seeing garments as disposable due to the low purchase cost and poor quality of fast fashion,” she said.

According to the Australian Fashion Council, in 2022, Australians bought an average of 52 items of clothing a year, or 15 kilos, and threw away 23 kilos of clothing. The average item cost $6.50.

Fashion designer Jordan Gorgos said there’s a huge difference in quality between vintage and in newer items he recycles into new clothes.Credit: Jessica Hromas

Emerging Sydney designer Jordan Gorgos said there needed to be more transparency around fabric composition and manufacturing process.

“You might have a cotton shirt, but the threads and embroidery are polyester. When we cook food, we’re told what’s in it, whereas in fashion, that doesn’t happen,” he said.

Gorgos stressed there’s no blanket rule to sustainability.

“It’s better for someone to buy a shirt they can afford versus someone buying a natural $700 jacket they never wear,” he said.