Sophia Angeles

“Sustainable fashion is important to me as a student because I think that our generation especially has been pushed to always be wanting to buy more and continue consuming, but this is obviously not economically or environmentally sustainable. Having observed trend cycles becoming shorter and shorter, it has made me want to focus on reusing and repurposing what I already have, as well as shopping second-hand to reduce my impact.

Fast fashion is a problem in my eyes because of their unsustainable production models that create so much waste and emissions. Also stemming from this production model comes the issues of promoting consumerism, overconsumption, and labor exploitation of workers to supply their rapid manufacturing.

I hope in the future the fashion industry pivots to focusing on garment quality over quantity, so we can have well-made clothing that lasts instead of cheap and flimsy clothes that end up in the landfill after a couple of wears. I also hope to see more producer responsibility when it comes to clothes ending up in landfills and that more brands create recycling or repurposing programs.”

Learn more about the work CALPIRG students are doing on UCLA’s campus.

Sophia joined Kathryn Horvath (Waste is Out of Fashion campaign associate, PIRG) and Prissila Moreno (OSPIRG Waste is Out of Fashion campaign coordinator) to train students on how to run a successful campaign targeting fast fashion on their own campus. You can watch the webinar, “Trash talk: How students can tackle fast fashion” below. You can also view our free resource packet here.