What clothes would the planet want us to wear?

Journalist and author, Lucianne Tonti is the fashion editor of The Saturday Paper and a regular contributor to The Guardian where she writes the weekly series Closet Clinic. Lucianne has also written her first book: Sundressed: Natural Fabrics and the Future of Clothes – which she spoke with me about on Inside Ideas this week.

The fashion industry, one of the world’s worst emitters, causes around 10% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, something Lucianne in her book shows can – and is – changing.

“Now we have arrived at a place described as ‘ultra-fast fashion’.,” she tells me. “We are consuming 60% more clothes now than the year 2000 and by the year 2030 that will have increased by another 60% so in real terms for the average person that’s a lot more garments that are being produced, but also thrown away because the quality has declined. The end result of fast production is cheaper, inferior garments that you don’t want to wear for a long time.”

The book is also a guide to how to make sustainable fashion decisions.

She says: “If we want to have a sustainable fashion industry, we have to dramatically reduce the amount of clothes that we make and that we consume.  So we need to buy less, wear what we already own more and only invest in pieces that we’re going to be able to keep and wear for a really long time.”

Catch up with my latest podcast for more from the pages of Sundressed.