Festival season is upon us and crowds are shopping for bucket hats, tie-dye clothing and cowboy boots to show off the trendiest wardrobes. But the downside of summer music festivals is dark: the waste generated by summer festivals is an environmental nightmare.
Second-hand fashion website ThredUp conducted a study called the Festival Fashion Survey, which found that an estimated one-quarter of all Americans plan to attend a music festival or concert this year. The season kicked off with Coachella over the Easter weekend. The worrying results of the study show that 42 percent of people are planning to buy a new festival outfit and almost a third are aware that the festival outfit will only be worn once – including 40 percent of those identified as Fridays-for- Future-known Generation Z.
The study, powered by retail analytics firm GlobalData, surveyed 2,000 Americans aged 18+ about their shopping habits for music festivals and concerts in February this year.
Festival-goers in 2022 are particularly excited after two years of pandemic and lockdowns, and anticipation is high to dress up to enjoy their favorite musical acts. Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd have been announced and fans are looking forward to experiencing the two-week Coachella festival in the desert of Southern California’s Coachella Valley.
Chicago’s three-day Lollapalooza festival in July features Doja Cat and Due Lipa, the Austin City Limits Music Festival spans two weekends in October, and whether it’s bluegrass, jazz or country, there are dozens of events spanning the weekends fill in between. This bulging calendar equates to a ton of single-use clothing discarded, polluting our planet.
Festival fashion is an ecological nightmare
Music festivals accumulate record amounts of waste each year as attendees throw away cigarettes, newspapers, bracelets, bottles, beer cans, toiletries, disposable cutlery, rain ponchos, sleeping bags, broken tents and plastic sheeting to be swept up and cleaned up the next morning. But less visible remnants also leach into the ground, and the polymers of many of these items remain in the environment for decades. The BBC estimates that major US music festivals generate around 100 tonnes of waste every day. It only takes into account what the visitors eat, drink and sleep in, but not what they wear and throw away when they return.
Therefore, ThredUp is addressing its message to festival visitors to say goodbye to disposable fashion. The e-commerce site has hired celebrity stylist and activist Karla Welch to create ‘ThredUp x Karla Welch’, a unique festival shopping experience that combines second hand pieces from the site with items from Welch’s celebrity styling will. The idea is to inspire festival fans with the latest trends worn in exciting and innovative ways, making used treasures more interesting versus fast fashion pieces. Welch has styled eight bespoke looks to take audiences through multiple weekends. The 30+ pieces in the selection come from Welch’s personal archive, which she often sourced for celebrities, and range in price from $14 to $225.
“Stylists are the arbiters of taste, dictating what’s cool on the red carpet, on the street, on social media and beyond,” said Erin Wallace, VP of Integrated Marketing at ThredUp. “We believe stylists have the power to redefine what’s fashionable by emphasizing circularity and reuse to fight industry waste.”
ThredUp estimates that 940 million pounds of carbon could be saved (which is equivalent to taking 564 million cars off the road for a day) if all festival shoppers had rented their outfits this year instead of buying new. The selection includes festival basics such as jeans, floral shirts, leather jackets and statement shoes.
“Thrift wear is one of the easiest ways to get a unique, eco-friendly festival look that makes you stand out from the crowd. Reusing all the great clothes that already exist is one of the best things we can do to reduce our fashion footprint.”
This possibility is certainly music to the ears of all festival fans.
This article was previously published on FashionUnited.uk. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ.