Symposium to explore ‘Second Life of Fashion’

That violet sweater you dispatched to St. Vinnie’s awhile ago may not be occupying a hanger in some other purple-lover’s closet.

Only a small percentage of our cast-off garments are resold in thrift stores or sold as rags, explains Beverly Gordon, a UW–Madison professor in the Department of Environment, Textiles and Design and the university’s folklore program.

“Fully half of the material donated to recyclers is shipped overseas to the Third World. In Latin America and Africa in particular, there are large and thriving secondhand markets that have created new systems of distribution and exchange, new types of entrepreneurs and even new fashion trends,” she says.

The situation will be explored fully in a one-day symposium, “The Second Life of Fashion: The Global Re-circulation of Our Cast-off Clothing” on Friday, April 23.

“I got very interested in the subject after reading Karen Tranberg Hansen’s book, ‘Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia.’ In the capital city of Zambia alone, there were some 2,500 sellers of used clothing in 1999. I started going to the buy-by-the-pound ‘Dig and Save’ outlet run by St. Vincent de Paul, and I began thinking hard about the sheer amount of waste we generate,” she says.

Hansen, a professor of anthropology at Northwestern University, will speak at the symposium. Also part of the discussion will be Ralph Middlecamp, executive director of Saint Vincent de Paul in Madison; Debbie Caraballo of Goodwill Industries; and Bob Woycke, president of Continental Textile Company in Milwaukee, which processes more than 250,000 pounds of used clothing each week.

“I hope the conference will raise awareness and raise questions, giving students and members of the community a new perspective on waste and our interconnected world,” Gordon says.

“The Second Life of Fashion” afternoon panel is free and open to the public. The discussion will begin at 1 p.m. in the Pyle Center auditorium, 702 Langdon St. At approximately 2:30 p.m., the documentary film, “T-Shirt Travels” will be screened, followed by the panelists’ reactions.

For more information, contact Beverly Gordon, (608) 262-2015, bgordon@wisc.edu; or Crystal DeGrote, (608) 260-0923, cldegrote@yahoo.com.