Timeless Fashion: How Nora’s Needle is blazing the Trail From Fast to Forever the African Way

From Mali to Mississippi, Bamako to Birmingham, clothing has been a means of identity and an outlet for personal expression. Garments were created to signify status, beliefs, occupation, and more for thousands of years! 

Today, clothing and the fashion industry contribute to how people assess others and what pedestal they place them on. However, this comes at a cost. With growing populations and fashion trends rising and falling, the amount of clothing in landfills is mind-boggling. In the United States alone, over 17 million tons of textile ended up in landfills in 2018. That’s double the amount thrown away in 1998! In addition, the decomposition time for fabrics may take over 200 years. Clearly, fast fashion is not sustainable and is hurting our planet. 

More than ever, the world needs to produce clothing in a way that allows future generations to survive and thrive. Sustainable clothing manufacturers can halt the tide of climate change by preventing mass textile waste. Thankfully, many fashion brands are becoming eco-conscious and using low-impact fibers while creating timeless designs that can be upcycled to reduce waste. 

When people think of clothing, they generally don’t think of chemicals, energy, carbon footprint, water, and other resources that go into creating it. Unfortunately, textile production requires all of these and more. Consider this: To make one cotton shirt, it takes about 2,700 liters of water! Once the clothing goes into a landfill, the chemicals used to bleach the fabric and the dyes can seep out of the shirt and into the groundwater used to supply people with drinking water. In addition, the decomposition process can release greenhouse gasses such as methane into the air. There are textile recycling programs, but unfortunately, less than 16 percent of textiles (including sheets, clothing, and footwear) are recycled.

Even more damaging to the environment is the disposal of synthetic fabrics in landfills. The plastics industry, for example, has developed many synthetic materials used in fast fashion clothing that can take hundreds of years to biodegrade. Polyester is one of the most common forms of synthetic fabric and can take up to 200 years to decompose completely. Additionally, sequins and spandex, popular costumes for parties and events, are non-biodegradable. 

Conversely, many fabrics are sustainable and easy on the environment. For example, organic cotton can take only five months to decompose, making it one of the most biodegradable fabrics consumers can support.

Happily, the tide of conscious consumption is turning, and environment-centric people and companies are actively working to reduce textile waste. Some of these companies are well-known, like Patagonia, H&M, and Northface. They have organized methods to minimize textile waste, such as recycling programs, apparel trading platforms, repair programs, etc. For example, H&M allows anyone to bring any article of clothing to their stores and send it to the nearest recycling plant free of charge. 

A growing number of Nigerian-based fashion brands are towing the sustainability path and working to conserve our environment.

Nora’s Needle, a clothing brand based in Lagos, Nigeria, blends traditional African wear and modern fashion. The brand is sustainability-driven with a portfolio of handmade 100% African cotton Ankara dresses, pants, and jackets. Our sustainability comes from the ability of the clothing to remain timeless despite the ebbs and flows of fashion fads.

 

By crafting clothing that can outlast changes in the fashion world, we prevent clothing from being bought for a season and discarded once it’s out of fashion. In addition, our process of designing, manufacturing, and distributing clothing occurs in an environmentally friendly and ethical way. Since our pieces are 100% made from cotton, you can rest assured that they will decompose organically within five months if it does end up in a landfill.

At Nora’s Needle, we help you break free of the herd by steering you away from fast fashion- the industry’s attempt to push out cheap, popular clothing that quickly turns over to capitalize on popular trends. Fast fashion has a huge environmental tag, and the result is low-quality materials that wear out faster and add more textile waste to landfills. In addition to the raw tonnage of garbage, the rapid techniques used to produce these clothes with cheap dyes and printing inks turn them into toxic waste to the environment over time. 

The high-quality African cotton that we use to create our products is durable, with the goal for the clothing to last you a lifetime while maintaining relevance. In addition, we reduce Textile waste by practicing timeless fashion- designs that will always be in style. That way your dress will stay in your closet rather than in landfills. Break free of the herd. Wear your values. Join the movement.