Dear Modern Thinker,

Let’s start with a personal story of mine.

When I graduated with an M.Sc. in Economics & Business (if you want details I majored in International Business and minored in Data Science) - I thought I was ready to face the world and grace it with my knowledge.

Wrong!

In fact, after seeing a life-changing documentary called The True Cost (about how exploitative the fashion industry is), I realized I had no clue what a positive economy looks like.

Clearly, there is at least one industry that I do not ever want to support the way it is: the fashion industry.

Hence, I found myself torn between going the “business-as-usual” path, or… to take the road less travelled.

I’m the kind of person that when I see a problem I get super excited. Seriously.

Why? Because problems are puzzles and I love finding solutions. (Hence the nickname The Circular Fashion Detective™)

Immediately I realized that this broken system has been created by humans, and hence humans can also create a healthier system.

It’s always easy to express negativity towards things that don’t work the way you’d like them to do. But the best bet you can make is on yourself to participate in the solution.

So now I found myself on a quest to “change the rules of the game”, but I needed to do one thing first:

Learn the rules of the game, before you can break them.

This is where my academic background comes in. If there is 1 valuable skill I acquired from it it’s this one : how to acquire factual knowledge.

Books are our friends, so here are 5 books I read to re-educate myself and to prepare for giving the fashion industry a make-over 💅🏻

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

Dr. Kate Raworth

If you ask my which famous economists I admire, it’s in the first place Dr. Kate Raworth. Admittedly, I had not heard of her before trying to figure out what this thing called “the circular economy” is about. Then I found her book, and her TED Talks, and interviews.

I read Doughnut Economics from cover to cover and felt reborn. Because I was; that is, my “economist self” got a new identity: that of a renegade, circular economist.

My favorite quote of the book is this :

Drawdown - The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming

Dr. Paul Hawken

This book is very thick, was my first reaction. At the time I was not the avid reader that I have become. Yet, my curiosity made me blind to the volume of pages.

I read it cover to cover, and just could not put it down.

What attracted me to this book was its promise to show how “it can be done”!

This quote captures the essence.

This book has formed the foundation for the PROJECT DRAWDOWN organization, which has an informative website.

I realized I needed to learn about ecology, climate science, marine biology, materials science, and then - given that I wanted to challenge the status quo of the fashion industry - how exactly clothes are made.

A book I picked up that promised to teach me about how design and sustainability go hand in hand was this one by professor Kate Fletcher and Lynda Grose, with a foreword by Paul Hawken :

Fashion and Sustainability: Design for Change

Professor Kate Fletcher & Lynda Grose

I started to learn about the way sustainability can be defined (which is incredibly difficult and nuanced), as well as about longevity in fashion.

Now you probably have heard the quote “make it last”, which comes down to longevity of a garment, pair of shoes or accessory.

If you are not bored yet, then I’d like to introduce two more books to you that I would highly recommend you read too.

Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes

Dana Thomas

Our relationship with our clothes today is different from how our ancestors engaged with them. What has remained over time is how we use clothes as a tool to communicate with others about ourselves.

We buy things we don’t appreciate, wear perhaps only one time, and then discard them while still in perfect condition.

My take is that we simply do not appreciate - perhaps for a lack of education about processes - where our clothes come from, whose hands have been involved in the process, and what went on in the designer’s head when creating the concept.

We have created mountains of waste from clothes that are simply not appreciated. All because we buy too much “stuff”.

Anyway, last but not least, this book by another economist: Dr. Pietra Rivoli.

The Travels of A T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade

Dr. Pietra Rivoli

A very compelling story of an eye-opening adventure tracing the life of a simple T-shirt from its birth in an American cotton field to its eventual destination in Africa.

Cheap clothing comes at a cost, which is what is documented in The True Cost (the documentary that changed my relationship with fashion forever).

Understanding the true cost as well as the consequences of the choices we make when buying clothing is crucial for making informed decisions instead. This furthermore helps working towards a more equitable and sustainable global economy.

Because, guess what, fashion connects everyone and everything on this planet.

Concluding remarks

Knowledge is power.

When you see a problem and desire to change it but don’t know how, then getting your nose in the books is the best first step you can take (speaking from experience).

Remember that much of the problems we have today, such as from air pollution, comes from systems created by humans. This means that sustainable alternatives can be created, also by humans. Just probably ones with a different perspective than the ones who created the unsustainable system.