He’s clear that polyester can be valuable. “Fabrics are not all created equal. Time is money, and the time a manufacturer requires to create any fabrication is part of the cost and therefore the final retail price for third parties to purchase,” Gaia explains. “Weaving techniques, dyeing, embroidery, finishing treatments, and compositions all play a role in the making of synthetic or natural fabrications.”
Cangioli echoes this: “In these cases, the value is not in the raw material itself, but in the design, engineering, and craftsmanship applied to it. Consumers may question high price points, but the cost of a garment is not solely determined by fiber composition.” Postrel thinks that “polyester is not evil. It is not toxic. Polyester production emits carbon dioxide and water. But it is not worse for the environment, all things considered, than competing fibers, notably cotton, which requires lots of land and water.”
Earley thinks that issues surrounding natural fabrics are often brushed over. “I would love to be surrounded by linens and muslins and silks and cashmeres. They are the loveliest materials, but none of them are light on the planet,” she says, drawing attention to the harms of cotton and viscose production. Earley believes it all depends on the processing: “You can have good polyesters […], and you can have bad cottons. Using polyester in high fashion makes a lot of sense. But we’ve got a massive battle to work with people to understand how it can be used in better ways.” Likewise, if all brands were to suddenly dispel polyester and revert to cotton, the environmental impact would be immense.
One hope is that recycled polyester, used by Prada, Ganni, and Stella McCartney, could offer a lifeline. Unifi has transformed 46 billion plastic bottles into its fiber, Repreve, which uses 41% less greenhouse gas emissions compared to virgin polyester. “Our recycled platform helps brands create new products, without using new materials, and this decreases the environmental impact of Repreve versus virgin polyester in several categories,” says Melissa Henkle, director of brand sales and marketing at Unifi.
No Kill Mag’s Moorman is less encouraged. “Recycled poly mostly comes from plastic water bottles, which in some ways is worse,” she says. “Recycling plastic bottles into polyester fabric sounds circular, but it isn’t — it pulls bottles out of an existing recycling system, converts them into a form that can’t be recycled again, and still sheds microplastics with every wash.” Plus, recycled fibers are often shorter, and therefore lower quality, than virgin.
Still, Earley is optimistic: “It’s hugely better […] we have this potential to create really viable recycling loops.” Various cutting-edge developments are advancing right now, including enzymatically recycled polyester from Carbios and bio-based polyester from Kintra Fibers; whether they are scalable is another question. For now, recycled polyester is a semi-circular solution.
Fakemink’s take, then, is relatively real. Polyester can be dressed up as a chic fabric through both a PR spin and design ingenuity. Undoubtedly, too, it has applications both in terms of form and function. But for now, at least, the fabric’s unsustainable credentials make it something to be used and bought in extreme moderation, best to be considered, perhaps, as the long-haul flight of clothes shopping.
