“After about 30 minutes I knew it was the right one,” reveals Lara Peters. She looks at her simple second-hand wedding dress shortly after she said yes to her partner amid the hustle and bustle at Utrecht train station.
Two days earlier, the bride found her dress in a pop-up store in the train station run by the Dutch organization ‘Free Fashion’. As part of its promotion of circular fashion, the organization has decided to target the wedding industry.
“It is very important to me to convey the message that you can make sustainable decisions at your wedding,” Peters, 42, told AFP.
To raise awareness of an issue close to their hearts, the sustainability communicator and her husband Mathijs Dordregter, 44, decided to have a wedding in the busiest train station in the Netherlands. The wedding was partly organized by ‘Free Fashion’.
“We know that in terms of emissions, producing a wedding dress is roughly equivalent to driving 250 kilometers by car. Because they are made of many different materials, they are very difficult to recycle,” Nina Reimert, project manager at ‘Free Fashion’, told AFP.
“So it’s a real nightmare at the moment. With 17,000 weddings per year in the Netherlands, you can do the math…” said 42-year-old Reimert.
In order to raise public awareness of this environmentally harmful overconsumption, ‘Free Fashion’ has launched an online appeal. The aim is to convince future brides to give previously worn dresses a new life.
“Celebrating love for the planet”
For Lot van Os, co-founder of ‘Free Fashion’, the wedding dress is a powerful symbol because it is usually only worn once. “If we celebrate love, we should also celebrate love for the planet,” he told AFP.
‘Free Fashion’ has around 800 volunteers and is commissioned by city administrations. They want to achieve their goals in the areas of circular economy and waste reduction. The foundation, which also presents itself as a fashion brand, also works with companies. There she organizes clothing swap campaigns for employees.
“We also talk there about the circular change that we have to implement. Because it is not a question of ‘if’, but of ‘when’ things will change,” said the 33-year-old Dutchman.
Vegetarian food and public transport
“There is already enough clothing in the world for the next six generations,” reads next to a clothes rail in the station’s pop-up store. Several dozen white dresses hang on it.
The bride and groom are aware of this alarming reality and didn’t stop at just one dress. It wasn’t just Dordregter who bought a second-hand suit, all of the couple’s guests also appeared at the train station wearing their most beautiful second-hand finds.
“Of course we will opt for a vegetarian meal at the restaurant and go there by bus or maybe by bike. Everything I bought for the wedding has already been used in previous weddings,” says Peters with a smile.
As for the fate of her dress after the big day: “It won’t end up in my closet!” affirms the bride. She is determined to continue this new tradition.
This article was created using digital tools translated.
FashionUnited uses artificial intelligence to speed up the translation of articles and improve the end result. They help us to make FashionUnited’s international reporting quickly and comprehensively accessible to a German-speaking readership. Articles translated using AI-based tools are proofread and carefully edited by our editors before they are published. If you have any questions or comments, please email [email protected]
