Made with the help of clothes “promised to the trash”, simply recovered from the militants’ entourage and tied together, the long chain was unrolled around 3:00 pm in the rue de Béthune, one of the most important shopping streets of the centre.
“We come to denounce the industry of ‘Fast Fashion’, that is to say the fact, for the big brands, to renew in a very fast way their collections at very attractive prices, to reinforce sales and marketing, by producing in socially unjust conditions and with a lot of waste”, explained to the press Jules, one of the militants of the group.
“We also want (…) to invite people to question their consumption patterns and to inform them, with precise data” to “make them aware of the destructive aspect” of this industry, he added.
“Am I going to wear you more than once?”, “4 percent of the world’s drinking water goes to the textile industry”, “In 2018, 129 billion garments were manufactured”, “A Vietnamese worker is paid six euros a day”, “One pair of jeans = 285 showers”, were some of the signs worn by the activists. A few meters apart and preceded by a cart full of used clothes, they marched to the Main Square, sometimes calling out to passers-by without blocking them.
“On average, a Frenchman throws away 12 kg of clothes a year! Fast Fashion is the second most polluting sector in the world after oil, it pollutes as much as international flights and maritime traffic combined,” deplored Jules, who also came to “propose alternatives to consumers”, such as flea markets, second-hand shops or donations. “We want a real policy of relocating textiles, producing locally, buying less and better,” he concluded (AFP).