The second Circular Fashion Expo kicked off this Saturday at the Siebel Center of Design. Throughout the day, visitors could be seen browsing a variety of homemade, handcrafted or thrifted items from vendors.
Visitors could also bring in their own clothing and exchange it for tokens, which they could then use on other clothing items within the exchange. At the very end, the expo’s main highlight was a student-led and created fashion show.
CFE was founded by Josh Jay James, senior in Business, and is based on a circular economic model as a response to the waste that the fashion industry creates. According to Earth.org, 92 million tons of clothes are discarded every year and even though clothing production has doubled, the lifetime of a garment’s use has decreased.
A circular economy addresses the environmental impacts of fashion by creating a system in which clothing items are repurposed, extending the lifetime of each garment.
“Circularity is the highest form of sustainability,” James said. “This includes resale, upcycling, rental — anything that takes to ensure that garments receive their highest value in the system.”