April 22, 2025

Used clothes discarded in the Atacama Desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile. [Martin Bernetti/AFP]

Fast Fashion

Trends tend to destroy this earth but also confidence and savings.

Created for the average woman when there’s no such thing, but still we try to squeeze into the corporate vision of what’s woman.

No extra room for something a little different in these skinny jeans.

You’re not cool if you’re concerned about global warming.

A colorful oasis in a Chilean desert is not green palm trees and turquoise water.

It is a rainbow of synthetic fibers cast away after the first wash.

A clothing mountain rises from the sand, as large as any hiked in the newest trekking pant.

Faux fur, suit coats, “distressed” denim still with tags, bleach in the sun.

There is no going back to the earth when you were made in a lab, but she does go back to the club in her latest purchase.

A raiment ruination.


In honor of my dad, who taught me the word raiment by telling me to go look it up in the dictionary when he used it in a holiday dinner table toast.