Combatting fast fashion; one Tucson store looks to start a new trend

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The fashion industry is responsible for 20% of global waste water. Fast fashion is a term used to describe rapid production of inexpensive clothes while keeping up with the latest trends. But, a store in Tucson is working to combat fast fashion.

“This table has been used, it has been loved, people have set stuff on it, every one of these scratches tells a story,” said Tami Mitchell, owner of Midtown Mercantile Merchants. “You want to re-purpose it, renew it, and you want to reuse it so it doesn’t make a carbon footprint larger than it already did from the original time.”

Mitchell has been passionate about re-purposing clothes and furniture ever since she was a child.

“I would go with my dad to the garbage dump to get rid of things that we couldn’t get rid of on the farm, or things we couldn’t reuse,” she explained, “then I would start walking around and people would have beautiful works of art thrown into their trash, and I’d pick it up and take it home.”

The store features a variety of furniture pieces, clothes, shoes, decor, kitchen supplies, and more. Mitchell said she has around 105 merchants at the store.

The UN Trade and Development explains it as: “The fast fashion model is characterized by overproduction and over-consumption of low-cost clothes, which are often produced under poor working conditions.”

Global consumption of apparel has risen to an approximate 62 million tonnes per year and is projected to further reach 102 million tonnes by the year 2030. As a result, this same article says fast fashion brands are producing twice the amount of clothes today than in the year 2000.