Without doubt, the Black Friday weekend (bleeding into Cyber Monday) has become the biggest shopping event of the year in Australia with eye-watering discounts as retailers try to out-do the next shop.
And no wonder. Black Friday has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States since 2005, even if it still pales in comparison to singles day in China (which is on another level entirely).
Now don’t get me wrong, I love a bargain as much as the next wolf. But buying shit you don’t need just because it’s cheap is exactly the reason we’re in this climate change mess to begin with!
Something has to change.
Introducing Black Fridye.
Which is why we’ve decided to take a stand for the second year in a row by asking you stop buying new clothes on Black Friday and instead refresh those old favs you don’t wear anymore because they’re looking a bit faded.
The concept is simple: you send us old clothes, we give them a new lease of life by over-dyeing them black.
We call it Black Fridye (geddit?) and you can think of it as our little antidote to rampant consumerism.
Why should I care?
Because… the planet!
It's estimated that we can reduce the original carbon, water and waste footprint of our clothes by up to 30% for every additional 9 months we keep wearing them (WRAP 2017 PDF). Easy to do with an incredibly powerful effect.
Which is increasingly important when we collectively buy 60% more clothing than we did only 20 years ago, but wear them half as much before throwing them out (McKinsey & Company, 2014).
It's estimated that we can reduce the original carbon, water and waste footprint of our clothes by up to 30% for every additional 9 months we keep wearing them.
In the average UK wardrobe, 30% of clothing has not been worn in the past year and each garment is worn only 14 times before being thrown away (WRAP 2012 PDF). Closer to home, 24% of Australians have thrown away an item of clothing after wearing it just once in the past year. Yes, once! (YouGov 2017)
And according to our own research here at Citizen Wolf, 1 in 5 Aussies chuck their black jeans simply because the colour has faded. We reckon that’s borderline criminal considering we already landfill 23 kg of textiles per year on average per person in the lucky country!
Quite simply, the longer we wear the clothes we already own the better it is for the planet.
So how does Black Fridye work?
It couldn’t be easier.
Buy re-dye credits for each garment you want to refresh and then get the clothes to our factory in St Peters. We’ll send them back to you in January so fresh, so clean and so very black with return postage included in the price.
Buy re-dye credits for each garment you want to refresh and then get the clothes to our factory in St Peters.
This year we’re super excited to be supported by our good friends at Nique, the Melbourne based fashion label who knows a thing or two about minimalist black clothing. They’ve very kindly offered to open up their network of seven stores in Sydney and Melbourne as drop off points and they’re even going to cover the postage to get your clothes back to St Peters. Amazing, right!
The whole idea is to make choosing the sustainable option a no-brainer. Because there is no Planet B and business as usual is not going to solve the existential climate crisis.
So make green the new black and put your planet where your mouth is this Black Fridye.
