Out To Dry

Between 2000 and 2015, global production of clothing doubled, at the same time the number of times clothes were being worn decreased by over a third. Simply put, we buy more clothes than we used to and we wear them less. When we are finished with them we give them to charity shops or put them out for recylcing by the council, but half of them will end up in a landfill anyway. The proportion of clothes made from synthetic fibres has doubled in the past two decades, with polyester accounting for nearly three quarters of all synthetic fibres used in textiles.

Synthetic fibres have always been associated with practicality and low cost as well as fashion style. When explosives company DuPont introduced the nylon stocking to the public in 1939, it caused a sensation, selling 4 million pairs in just one day, and largely replaced silk. Although DuPont also developed polyester, manufacturing issues meant that it wasn't until UK based Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) developed a practical production method in the 1940's that production began in earnest. Polyester is sometimes know as the tofu of synthetic fibres as it can be made to look like silk, cotton, linen, or wool. Although pure polyester has fallen out of fashion for many daily wear items like shirts, due to its hard wearing and sweat resistant properties, it reamins a popular choice for work, sports and active wear. Despite the trend towards natural fibres such as cotton and wool, synthetic fibres are still being used in around 60% of all our garments.

The fully automatic washing machine became a common home appliance around the same time as synthetic fibres were introduced. From the 1950's onward the futuristic, labour saving world of plastics and automation has become part of the fabric of our daily lives. The radical and liberating change this brought to many women's lives cannot be underestimated. Additionally fashion, once the domain of the weathly, has now become an essential part of our personal image. From sportswear designed to wick away sweat to sequin-embellished polyester to the nylon stockings which caused so much excitement after US troops brought them across the Atlantic in World War II, we have used plastic fibres to alter and mould the way we are seen, or to distract from the parts of ourselves we want to hide.

Microfibres are tied into sex, glamour, power and novelty, and also bound to insecurities and to social pressures, the intimate and the personal. Clothes - and the messages they send - are important, but the materials they are made from can have important implications that are not always obvious. Through hidden processes they can become woven into the environment around us.

A 2018 study found on average 24 microplastic particles 100g^-1 in the more urban part of the river Tame. In the report 'London's River of Plastic' researchers observed that every second, 94,000 microplastic fragments flow past Greenwich Pier. This includes 523 particles of glitter.