Fighting Fast Fashion; One Tucson Store Wants to Start a New Trend

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The fashion industry is responsible for 20 percent of the world’s wastewater. Fast fashion is a term used to describe the rapid production of inexpensive clothing while keeping up with the latest trends. But a Tucson store is working to combat fast fashion.

“This table has been used, it’s been loved, people have put things on it, and every one of those scratches tells a story,” said Tami Mitchell, owner of Midtown Mercantile Merchants. “You want to repurpose it, refinish it, repurpose it so it doesn’t leave a bigger carbon footprint than it did in the first place.”

Mitchell has had a passion for reusing clothes and furniture since childhood.

“I would go to the landfill with my dad to get rid of things we couldn’t get rid of on the farm or that we couldn’t reuse,” she explained. “Then I started going and I saw people throwing beautiful works of art in the trash, and I would pick them up and take them home.”

The store features a variety of furniture, clothing, shoes, decor, kitchen items and more. Mitchell said the store has about 105 vendors.

UN Trade and Development explains it this way: “The fast fashion model is characterized by overproduction and overconsumption of cheap clothes, which are often produced in poor working conditions.”

Global clothing consumption has risen to around 62 million tonnes per year and is expected to reach 102 million tonnes by 2030. As a result, the same article says that fast fashion brands now produce twice as much clothing as they did in 2000.