How Climate Change Is Killing Fashion

By Kaelyn Barron on September 24, 2014

Nope, it’s not just the polar bears facing a population decline anymore – the leggings, scarves and cashmere sweaters of North America need saving, too.

Image Via http://www.thequeerish.com

As each new school year approaches, students across the country are mostly concerned with one thing: how they will look when they make their grand entrance on campus.

I mean, it’s not forking over hundreds of dollars for textbooks or shopping for graphing calculators that makes us count down the days to autumn. It’s fashion. And maybe the promise of warm pumpkin spice lattes.

However, each year fall seems to visit us a little later than the year prior. Here we are, late September, the season officially in full swing, and temperatures outside my door are a crisp, refreshing … ninety-five degrees.

Now, granted, I live in the Inland Empire of Southern California, where we’ve grown accustomed to this absurd and inhumane trend in weather patterns; but sunny SoCal isn’t the only region experiencing less-than-fall-like temperatures.

In the coming week, even New Yorkers can expect temperatures reaching over eighty degrees, a far cry from weather that would be appropriate to sport the latest trends seen in the city’s recent Fashion Week extravaganza.

The negative effects of the long-lasting heat are far-reaching. Some major retailers have taken notice of the alarming trend, which has already jeopardized their need for constant turnover and diminished their seasonal profits. Several companies, such as Kohl’s and Target, have partnered with meteorologists to match their buying cycles with consumer demand.

Image Via www.flickr.com

So what’s a scholarly fashionista (or fashionisto) to do? When it’s warm enough to wear your white denim shorts that you bought in May the first week of October, that new cable knit and your favorite stiletto boots might be neglected at the back of your closet for weeks to come, unless you’re comfortable arriving to your first lecture as a sweaty mess.

At the University of California, Riverside, for example, the first day of classes is Oct. 2, already a later starting date than most schools across the country, and they are facing ninety-one degree heat.

The solution, unfortunately, is unclear. It seems one must choose between living by the fashion world’s calendar or living comfortably in last season’s attire.

One thing students can do is stock their wardrobes with labels whose manufacturing methods encourage sustainability and leave a smaller carbon footprint, hopefully preserving what precious time we have with our leather gloves and coats in the years to come.

That, and maybe order that grande pumpkin spice on ice.

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