Do you repair your clothing so you can continue wearing it or wear a stylish coat your aunt no longer wanted? If so, you are a part of the trend toward “slow fashion,” just like U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree. Earlier this summer, Pingree joined a group of colleagues to establish the Congressional Slow Fashion Caucus. What is “slow fashion” all about?

The slow fashion trend is rooted in the concept of sustainability, which, according to the United Nations, centers on “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Applied to what we wear, this entails reducing the amount of clothing we buy, emphasizing repair and reuse to maximize the lifetime of our clothes, donating wearable garments and recycling worn-out clothing. Slow fashion thus aims to save our money, natural resources and landfill space while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

This phenomenon counters “fast fashion,” which developed in the later 1990s. At that time, internet sites began to enable shopping without leaving one’s home, even as social media drove interest in personal expression to ever greater heights. To capitalize on these developments, clothing retailers sped up production cycles for garments that reflected high fashion and celebrity culture. This stylish clothing was often produced by low-wage workers in factories around the world. Now, identity-conscious consumers could quickly and cheaply acquire trendy clothing — and they could constantly update their wardrobes as styles quickly evolved. People began buying more clothes than ever while repairing and reusing clothing became unimportant or even undesirable.

As a result, the fashion industry now produces “more carbon emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined” (to quote Pingree’s website). And clothing that has been discarded, often before it is no longer wearable, is quickly filling limited landfill space; by one estimate (not the highest), textile waste amounts to 81.5 pounds per person annually in the U.S. Proponents of slow fashion favor a more sustainable approach to clothing, and in our next column, we will consider specific practices.

David Conwell is a former teacher and member of Brunswick’s Sustainability Committee.