OUT OF THE FAST LANE

Tucked around the corner of Oxford street is #14 William Street in Paddington, home to Emily Kate Syme’s EKOLUV boutique store. Hidden away from the busy city, the landscape takes on a new spirit. It is as if the whole street has been washed over with a soft, pastel colour palette. Terrace houses are placed side by side, in varying shades of yellow, pink and white.

Here, the lungs of the city get a little break from the constant drove of pumping air into the fast paced, relentless arena that is Oxford street. The narrow road serves as a quiet relief from the hurried pace. A purple haze envelops the area, like a Monet waterlily painting, almost like the city is giving out a collectible comforting sigh, as if to say, ‘ahh, this feel good.’ I feel myself breathing more easily, my mind slowing down to take in the serenity of the space, and to be in the moment.

It is a unique, mindful experience.

Piercing through the haze is a startling black ball of fluff, bounding up at me, immediately as I enter the door. “Sooty down,” says Emily, scolding the pug poodle mix.

“Sorry,” she says, apologising to me, but I don’t mind. Like Toto from the Wizard of Oz, Sooty weaves about my ankles. A white sign inscribed with EKOLUV in black running writing is placed on the small, but brightly painted cream terrace house. The olive green door ajar, with a little round bronze knocker on it, like a garland tree branch. Emily greets me with a warm smile, her tall, 5’9 slender frame dressed in a grey long sleeve and a navy blue corduroy skirt. She lives just above the store, the royal blue felted stairs with a beaming white trim leading up to her cozy home.

“Our entire store is zero waste,” she tells me. We stroll past racks of clothing, passing loose cotton shirts adorned with black and white squares, a bright azul dress with billowing, ruffled arms, and a faux fur white snow coat, draped over a wooden ottoman. “It's the first of its kind, I know definitely in Australia but I haven't seen or heard of anything like this overseas either,” she says of the store. The weight of her statement is not lost on me, as I have learned that being 100% zero waste is an extremely arduous task. “It’s really hard to do,” UTS Design Fellow Mark Liu says. “Most people don't have the skill to do that, or the imagination to put it together in that way.”

It’s no wonder then, that we opt for the convenience of fast fashion.

“Imagine being rich and you could buy anything you want. Before fast fashion, most people could only afford to buy one expensive thing, and that was enough,” says Mark. "But if you can buy anything you want, because you can make these retail purchases, why wouldn’t you? Fast fashion is like being super wealthy, but it has democratised that feeling. It's addictive. It stimulates your brain and produces certain chemicals which are very clear.”

Consumer culture has carefully trained us to buy cheap clothing in excess. To fill the spaces for what’s missing in our lives. Filling a hole. Every billboard tells us that we ‘need this now’ to be happy. If you have that one thing, you too can reach that unattainable, fleeting state of bliss, just beyond your reach. Fast fashion retail therapy numbs pain, due to it is quick and accessible nature.

“The appeal of fast fashion is that idea that clothing can be cheap,” says National Manager at Ethical Clothing Australia, Angela Bell.

"People think, ‘Oh, I've got this bargain. I only paid $10, or I got this for $15.’ And none of us have been thinking, what does that mean? How did they produce a it for $15? And is it going to last you for the value of $15?” It is a temporary fixture.

“I think, sustainable fashion usually costs more, as well as fast fashion in the long run, just like good food costs more than cheap McDonald’s,” Emily reflects.

“But it only goes so far,” she says.

“So like a cheeseburger. It satisfies you right now. But long term, it's like a quick fix. So fast fashion is a quick fix, but it's not actually going to satisfy you long term.”

The elixir wears off, and this hole in our hearts bursts open once again as the object of our affection starts to wither away at the seams, or go off trend. And then the whole cycle starts up again. We venture out to search for the next thing to satisfy us.

“If I feel bad, instead of actually resolving my problems, I can just buy something,” Mark muses.

“It’s like gambling. If you were flipping a coin and just looking at it, it's not fun. But if you flip the coin and start putting money on, it produces chemicals in your brain that make you feel really happy. So, same mechanism,” he says.

People feel the pressure to turn out a new outfit every time, to reinvent themselves.

Instead of considering the longevity and value of an object, we think about how it can satiate us now. But it’s not just an emotional strain we experience.

“Fast fashion, is having a really negative impact in terms of not recognizing the true cost of clothing and manufacturing,” says Angela.

“The fast fashion model is very much a take, make, waste model. It's not caring about properly produced materials that are going to last a long time, because we’ve been told, basically, we should be able to buy items cheap, and dispose of them, and buy the new ones, again.”

Fast fashion might be inexpensive in the short term, but the long term effects are devastating for the environment, and take an emotional toll on others.

“Manufacturers are going to go countries where they can pay them the lowest wage possible,” says Angela. "Women are being paid as low as 50 cents an hour overseas.” “We take about 6000 kilos, every 10 minutes of textile waste in Australia that goes to landfill, 95% of that waste could have been recycled or up cycled,” Emily says, as we gander about the boutique.

“So imagine if what we focus on is instead of creating so much waste, is turning what's already out there, that waste into reusing, repurposing. There's just so much already out there in existence. We don't need to buy new, ever really.”

EKOLUV features an array of second-hand clothing items, but you wouldn’t think it from first glance. It looks nothing like Vinnies. It feels warm and light, clean and effortless. But really there has been a lot of work to make it appear this way.

“It's just like everything in life, doing the right thing is always harder,” says Emily.

“A lot of people think of op-shopping as, 'Oh it's dead person's clothes,' or it's dirty, or it seems second best, it's not good as new,” Emily says. “I’ve been op-shopping since I was a little girl. It was a way for me and my mum to connect. She was a single mum. And that's all we could afford,” she taps her foot on the floor as she speaks.

“Basically, I just grew this love of op-shopping. So I've always done it my whole life, I still do.” Emily makes a beeline to other side of room. The long black block heels of her knee high boots clomp along the hardwood floors. Her signature look, she tells me. She moves purposefully.

“Like this,” her hand dips between a yellow spotted sundress and a pastel blue skirt with brown lines, plucking a coat hanger that reveals a garment, holding it up to me, “…used to be a dress, we turned it into a top and skirt. So we're trying to make vintage more modern, more accessible.”

It's a green and white checkered gingham two piece. She places the garment back on the rack with a tiny clinch. The cool staccato sound of metal clanking echoes throughout the store, bouncing off the cream walls, as the coat hanger finds it place back on the thin, but sturdy wooden frame. Everything here has been constructed by Emily herself.

 “So everything you see in the store is being either up cycled from trash, diverted from landfill, or bought second-hand,” she says. 

“We wanted to change the stigma and elevate sustainable fashion as luxury. So then people think, ‘Oh, it's not just hippie shirts, it's not just dirty used clothes.’ That's what we aim for with the boutiques, we try to make it the high end.”

New doesn’t necessarily equate to better or greater satisfaction. The inundation of choice tells us otherwise. Our insatiable greed, access to, and over consumption of fast fashion has more than allowed us to fill our wardrobes to our hearts content. But as our wardrobes grow, so too it seems does our dissatisfaction. With each purchase comes our expectations that this will be the article of clothing to finally bring us the joy that we search for. Each spur of the moment purchase being worn only a number of times, not bringing us the joy and meaning we’d expected, then just as quickly discarded, thrown away, unable to satisfy our longing for something we can’t quite seem to grasp.

“Looking at an investment in a piece, you want to think about, am I going to be wearing this in 10 years’ time?” Angela asks.

Consumption and the over stuffing of our wardrobes has not been accompanied by the fulfilment of our hearts. Our wardrobe may runeth over, but our cup remains dry. 

“It's really changed our mindset around how we shop, and creating huge issues at the ends of a product, and contributing to landfill and part of these environmental issues that we're all having to now reflect on,” says Angela.

“I think fast fashion is responsible for not producing at a true cost. It's not true cost in impact on the planet, it's not true cost in terms of the payment of the workers in the industry, and it's not true costs in terms of what happens at the end life.”

The mere possession and ability to buy whatever we want isn’t as satisfying as we had originally anticipated, as we search for meaning, and for connection with what we are wearing.

“What you wear, your fashion is a statement. It says something about you,” says Emily. 

We are searching for something deeper, something that identifies us, that stands testimony to our values, for connectivity, and our desire for an ethical, fair and sustainable world for all. Our desire to leave our mark on this world and perhaps more importantly to know that through our choices and actions, we too can, and have somehow made a difference.