Words by Venetia La Manna
photograph by charlie engman
Venetia La Manna is a fair fashion campaigner who collaborates with The Or Foundation. This Points of View article reflects her opinions, not necessarily those of Atmos.
Earlier this month, I spent a week in New York City with “the clothing waste zombie.” Nine-foot-tall and draped in used garments, he haunted The Big Apple’s hyper-consumerist hot spots and shuffled his way into flagship stores in the hopes of finding his way home. His presence raised unsettling questions: where did his garments come from? Where do they go next? And crucially: who cares?
The zombie is a performance art piece by British artist Jeremy Hutchison. The idea dawned on him during an artist residency in Senegal in 2017 where he came across architectural forms made from bales of clothes on the streets. In a bid to understand more about the global secondhand clothing trade—which routinely sees clothing from the Global North end up in Africa to be resold —he then followed the reverse supply chain and traced clothes back to the countries from which they came—primarily in Europe and in the U.S.. And thus the “dead white man” was born.
The zombie’s most recent appearance was in part to bring attention to a campaign by The Or Foundation, a nonprofit working to tackle clothing waste and its effects on communities in Ghana. The campaign, titled Speak Volumes, is calling for industry-wide transparency, by demanding clothing brands share their annual production numbers in order to create data-driven policy and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) that makes brands responsible for their waste. The zombie, which is made from discarded clothes sourced from markets in Senegal, doesn’t speak—instead I interviewed passers by about their first impression of the zombie and their understanding of corporate responsibility as it relates to oversupply.
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The majority of people who I spoke with in Manhattan correctly guessed that our zombie was related to clothing and overproduction in some capacity. Others suggested that it was to raise awareness about repurposing and upcycling, seemingly inspired by his creativity. Others simply said “landfill” when asked what the zombie represented. The idea was to familiarize people with the idea of waste colonialism and—albeit indirectly—turn up the dial on Big Fashion’s oversupply.
Throughout the week, the zombie was trying to find his way home; back to the stores of the brands that produced the discarded garments that had ended up in Colobane, a giant secondhand clothing market in Dakar, Senegal, back in 2018. Undeterred by scaffolding collisions, he found his way through Times Square down to Wall Street, and eventually ended up in the flagship stores of multinational brands who are yet to disclose their annual production output, including Forever 21, and Nike, and even Patagonia, who rejected our request to Speak Volumes in 2023—despite being “in business to save our home planet.”
Exploitation is the thread that weaves the fashion supply chain together.
At one New York Fashion Week party, guests squealed with delight at the zombie’s arrival and asked to cuddle and hug him as they posed for photos. So why can’t we expect similar levels of care, enthusiasm, and excitement from Fashion’s multinational corporations? Especially the ones who claim to care about building a better industry.
It doesn’t take much for fashion companies to follow through on the claims they put on their impact reports. In 2023, a number of brands displayed true leadership by signing the Speak Volumes campaign, sharing their annual garment production numbers, and committing to continue doing so in their subsequent transparency reports. This data was not difficult nor time-consuming for them to obtain. All brands have access to this information. So why won’t they share it?
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Currently, estimates suggest there are between 80 and 150 billion items of clothing produced annually. The discrepancy between those numbers is enormous—70 billion. Without adequate data, we cannot hope to slow down the fashion system; to produce less with more intention; and to build adequate waste management systems suited for the number of garments we discard. It is crucial that the solutions we uplift are ones coming directly from the communities who are most impacted by Big Fashion’s systemic oversupply. The Or Foundation’s invitation to brands to share their production numbers and Speak Volumes is the first step.
The reality is that the system must change—and this change can’t come soon enough. To avoid missing a sale, Big Fashion plans to overproduce, placing higher volume orders with suppliers than they will ever be able to sell. In fact, estimates suggest that brands oversupply by 30%. Other studies show that between 10% and 40% of all garments produced are never sold but sent to landfill. Furthermore, brands often write off their unsold stock as tax deductions, which cushions any financial losses.
The systematic overproduction of Big Fashion is a justice issue. Not only does it perpetuate and reinforce waste colonialism in the Global South by companies in the Global North, it is also tied to labor rights violations.
Despite local efforts in receiver countries that import discarded garments and resell them in markets, there are too many clothes for the community to deal with. Many end up in the waste stream, causing environmental and humanitarian disasters. But how is fashion able to produce as many as 80 billion garments annually in the first place?
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Exploitation is the thread that weaves the fashion supply chain together. There are 94 million garment workers in the world, very few of whom have ever been paid enough to accumulate any savings. In fact, chronically low wages have left many workers in debt. Not only do these criminally low wages mean Big Fashion has millions to spend on marketing campaigns to keep citizens in the Global North hooked in a cycle of overconsumption, but poor wages for garment workers is linked to a system of oversupply.
“This business model of overproduction is an insult to the people who are tasked with sewing these garments that will never be sold. But the real harm comes from the fact that despite intentionally creating waste, brands continue to make a profit,” said Liz Ricketts, cofounder and executive director of The Or Foundation. “In 2018, H&M was left with $4.3 billion in unsold merchandise and the company still made a profit. In what world is $4.3 billion in unsold products considered good business? … Overproduction is a business model that is only profitable because people along the value chain are exploited, carrying the burden of bad business decisions so that brands can continue to produce more and more stuff that no one needs.”
“This business model of overproduction is an insult to the people who are tasked with sewing these garments that will never be sold.”
As my week with the zombie drew to a close, a few folks began to recognize him from social media. Despite his vocal silence, it seemed that the “Dead White Man”—and the clothes he was determined to return to the brands that made them—was starting to resonate with friends and strangers alike. So too was the significance of his mission.
To amplify the urgency of Speak Volumes, The Or Foundation launched a billboard campaign in the pinnacle of consumerism: Times Square. Among people taking selfies in front of glaringly bright adverts and TikTok dancers rehearsing and recording on repeat, huge billboards—positioned right above the Disney store and Forever 21—showed images of clothing waste on Accra’s beaches. Where fashion’s biggest brands would normally display their logos, the campaigns read: “Too Much Clothing, Not Enough Justice.”
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My Week With The Clothing Waste Zombie
