The current environmental and human exploitation of the fashion industry will not end by going to the thrift store or buying so-called ethical or sustainable clothing.

These things do help in a small way, but they are ultimately just chipping away at the edges.

This might feel a little defeatist–like there’s nothing we can do except cross our fingers and hope that the capitalist class will see the flaws in their ways and change.

If that is what you’re waiting for, unfortunately, the competition and profit-model of capitalism makes that hope impossible.

But, if we know that true environmental and ethical change has to come from the point of production, that means that the very workers in sweatshops, in textile mills, and in garment factories, have immense power.

These workers have the ability to disrupt or even outright end the dual exploitation of people and planet at the hands of fashion capitalists.

Indeed, some of the biggest gains in worker liberation and environmental justice didn’t stem from sustainable clothing hauls or choosing to buy less.

They came from textile workers agitating for change.

From the 20,000 women going on strike across New York City in 1909 to demand better working conditions, to the Lawrence Textile Mill Strike, to the 400,000 strong textile strike all over the US in 1934, to the collective efforts of hundreds of textile unions after the Rana Plaza collapse that forced major clothing brands into a legally binding accord demanding more humane conditions and better pay for factory workers.

When textile workers collectivize, and consumers show solidarity by boycotting and divesting, they are remarkably successful at disrupting the flow of profits into capitalist wallets.

But these are all just small stitches in a much larger tapestry of change.

Because fashion is so intertwined with capitalism, we need to end capitalism in order to end fast fashion.

There are many paths towards more ethical and environmentally sound clothing practices.

A future with clothing not reliant on worker exploitation, pollution, or waste is one in which the workers laboring in textile factories communally own that textile factory and decide democratically what gets made.

A factory where the designers are the workers and the workers are the designers.

In this economic model, production is not based on how much we can make and sell, but instead how much we need to feel comfortable and happy, thus degrowing art production and lessening our environmental impact.

As Tansy Hoskins notes “Socially organized production would end over-production because no one not reliant on wages is going to vote to work 15-hour days seven days a week on an assembly line to produce 20 billion pieces of clothing.

The only people that need such vast quantities of clothing are the people that sell them at a profit; under collective ownership their role would have ceased.”

In addition, collective ownership means an end to disasters like the Rana Plaza collapse, because no worker is going to vote to work in deadly conditions.

In short, the model of socialism would put an end to the waste, pollution, and exploitation that is crucial to fashion under capitalism.

But revolutionizing our economic system won’t happen overnight.

Workers need to build power, we need to organize and we need to build networks of solidarity across industries.

Along the way of building that power, we can implement methods that reduce the harm of the current industry.

This might look like prioritizing hemp fibers in production over synthetic, fossil-fuel-based materials, raising wages, making and buying more durable clothes that last ten years instead of ten days, or even finding ways to continue to use fabrics after they’ve ripped or torn.