A group of year eleven students at Emmanuel College, Warrnambool have held a Recycled Dance where recycled vintage wear was the look du jour in lieu of fast fashion. The event comes as the Australian Fashion Council (AFC) calls for a product stewardship scheme to manage fashion consumption.  

"We wanted to do a formal in a way that's going to sustain our environment,” Paige Armistead, one of the dance organisers, told ABC news.  

"We had kids come in their parents' suits and their mums' dresses, it was really cool.” 

According to the Clothing Data Report published by the AFC in May 2022, Australia’s new clothing purchases are among the highest per capita globally with shoppers buying around 384,000 tonnes of new clothing (2018-2019). Statistics quoted by the Australian government in 2021 show each Australian buys an average of 27 kilograms of new clothing and sends 23 kilograms to landfill each year.   

The number of fast fashion brands in Australia is tipped to increase. Buoyed by the success of Uniqlo, IbisWorld predicts more fast fashion brands will test the Australian market in coming years as other markets hit saturation.   

To help manage Australia’s appetite for new fashion, the AFC recently called for a levy on clothing imports.  Imports make up most of the clothing bought in Australia, with local production just three per cent of the size of the import market.

The AFC are also working with industry representatives to design a National Clothing Product Stewardship Scheme, with the stated aims of improving the design, recovery, reuse and recycling of textiles. The scheme asims to provide a roadmap to 2030 for clothing circularity in Australia in line with National Waste Policy Action Plan targets. The plan has a number of targets including the reduction of waste generated in Australia by 10% per person by 2030.

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