The simple solution to our obsession with clothes made from plastic

Artist and activist Marina DeBris makes high-fashion creations designed to shock and disgust.

A mini-dress made from matted wads of discarded fabric scraps. A corset of disposable straws, with plastic forks dangling from the waist. Skirts of knotted plastic fishing line with a bodice made from takeaway soy sauce containers.

All her outfits are made from rubbish DeBris finds washed up on beaches. Much of what she finds is textile waste: scraps of synthetic clothing that take decades or centuries to biodegrade.

Her message is clear: look what we consume and look where it ends up.

“It is kind of thrilling to hit that sweet spot of something being interesting enough to look at, drawing somebody in, and then when they look closely and realise what it is [they have] this look of almost horror.”

Her creations tell the story of a world obsessed with plastic — and a fashion industry unwilling to deal with the consequences of it.

Why we love synthetic clothing

All it takes is a glance at a clothing label to see the scale of our obsession with plastic.

Commonly used textiles like polyester, acrylic, nylon and elastane are made by burning fossil fuels to create a type of plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

Other recognisable fibres like viscose/rayon, modal and bamboo are known as semi-synthetic, as they’re derived from natural materials that have been chemically broken down and reconstituted.

“We estimate around 62 per cent of the clothes in most people’s wardrobe is made up of plastic, either pure polyester garments or some kind of blend,” says Tamzin Rollason, a lecturer at RMIT’s School of Fashion and Textiles.

“They kind of sneak into our wardrobes, often without people really realising it,” she tells ABC Radio National’s Blueprint For Living.

There are plenty of reasons why the clothing industry relies so heavily on synthetic textiles. They tend to be durable, quick-drying and wrinkle-free, and are often used to create stretch in garments like jeans or activewear.

They’re also much cheaper and more available than natural materials like cotton, wool or silk.

According to The Australia Institute, polyester accounts for over half of the clothing sold in Australia.

In a report on textile waste in May 2024, the research institute warned that, “given how readily these plastic clothes are disposed, textiles are at risk of becoming the new single-use plastic”. 

It also found that more than half of Australians, when polled, were not aware that polyester is derived from petroleum.

When did we start wearing plastic?

“Human-made fibres appeared at the end of the 19th century, but they really started to have an impact in the mid-20th century with the development of the industrial chemistry industry,” Dr Rollason explains.

That industry created an iconic garment in 1939: the nylon stocking.

“The nylon stocking was a very significant commodity post World War [II], particularly in Europe, where silk stockings were expensive and difficult to source,” Dr Rollason says.

“The American soldiers coming into Europe during liberation were bringing nylon stockings as a way of courting the local women.”

Not only did this spread the word about this exciting new material, but it signified a “sense of endless possibility”.

It was a period known as The Great Acceleration, when new technologies were increasingly allowing middle-class families to emulate the lives of the rich. 

White goods like electric irons and washing machines made household chores quicker and easier without the need for paid help, while synthetic fabrics offered the appearance of wealth at an affordable price.

“Those easy-wear and easy-care textiles could give the middle class this veneer, this look of leisure,” Dr Rollason says.

Popular media at the time reflected “futuristic humanity” with “brightly coloured plastic-looking fashion”.

In the 1970s and 80s, fashion favoured velour, velvet, sequins, spandex and the ubiquitous polyester: all synthetic fibres.

And as the fast fashion industry took off in the 1990s, synthetic textiles proved “absolutely essential”, Dr Rollason says.

“That’s because the production of natural fibres, like wool, cotton and linen, requires land, animals, water and people to process them. And we just don’t have enough of those resources to produce enough natural fibres to meet the demand for fashion as it stands at the moment.”

The cost of convenience

Our reliance on plastic-based textiles comes at a hefty environmental price, from production to disposal.

“We estimate that nearly 1.5 per cent of the global oil production goes into producing plastic,” Dr Rollason says.

“There’s a lot of processing that goes on, which means that we’re … producing chemical waste. There are also significant greenhouse gas emissions that come from processing plastics or oil into textiles.”

At the other end of the fabric lifecycle, synthetic fabrics take much longer to biodegrade than natural fibres.

“Plastics are incredibly durable. They’re resistant to moisture, they are pretty much resistant to any sort of fungi, so they take thousands of years to break down and disappear out of our ecosystems,” Dr Rollason says.

Yet in many cases, synthetic clothing simply isn’t made to last, explains Nicole Jenkins, an author, fashion historian and collector.

Her private collection includes more than 10,000 garments covering 200 years of Australian fashion and features plenty of plastic-based textiles, including pure polyester dresses from the 1950s that “feel like wearing an umbrella”.

But without optimal conditions to control for temperature and humidity, many of her polyester garments are degrading, she says.

“[Synthetic textiles] are very prone to something called inherent vice: a future deterioration that is built into product manufacturing,” she says.

“For example, in the 1960s in swimsuits and bras, [manufacturers] would put a kind of padded foam in the bra cups … It starts to break down if the conditions aren’t perfect.

“Another [example] is those lovely little 60s vinyl go-go boots that were so fun that teenagers loved. Most of those don’t exist anymore because the vinyl has become very cracked or slimy.”

And along with “devil’s dust” — the term fashion conservators use for crumbling synthetic fibres — plastic-based clothing presents other issues for wearers.

“You need to be able to sweat in something and know that sweat will be absorbed by the fabric and dissipate … Synthetic fibres just don’t do that,” Jenkins says.

“And polyesters are made from coal and petrol, so they really hang on to stains.”

Eco-friendly alternatives

While biodegradable alternatives to synthetic textiles are emerging, currently “they don’t have the performance capacity of what we’re used to with plastic textiles,” Dr Rollason says.

For example, they tend not to absorb dye as well as synthetic fibres, which means they can’t necessarily be made in the bright colours we’ve come to expect from fast fashion.

“They’re not economically viable, they’re not scaleable … It’s kind of a ‘watch this space’ area,” Dr Rollason says.

She also warns against relying on natural fibres to solve the problem because, while they do decompose much faster than synthetics, they’re resource-intensive to produce. They also tend to use plastic in other ways, like in zips, buttons and thread.

But there is one way consumers can take action.

She points to a quote from legendary English designer Vivienne Westwood: “Buy less. Choose well. Make it last. Quality, not quantity.”

“I’m all about second-hand because you can get amazing things out there … Op shops are bulging with really good-quality things.”

She sees her collection as not just a valuable archive of fashion through the ages, but a reminder of how attitudes around clothing are changing.

“We learn from the lessons in the past and we look towards a better future.”