Should we ration fashion? Lessons in sustainability from the second world war

Fashion culture now would benefit from studying the ‘make do and mend’ attitude of the second world war, says Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell

• Read more from the spring/summer 2020 edition of The Fashion, our biannual style supplement

A wartime-style economy is often cited as a potential path towards meeting our international carbon emissions agreements. In debates about the fashion industry, the idea of a shift as radical as the one that took place in the second world war is frequently mooted in conversations about sustainability.

Clearly this is a problematic comparison. It is important not to romanticise the violence of war or glamorise the reality of political states of emergency. But there is a reason the idea keeps being raised. The war is the most recent time in which the economy was overhauled in the face of an existential threat. It is the closest demonstration we have that quick, radical change is possible if we all come together.

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