A middle school art teacher at the William W. Allen Middle School in Moorestown, New Jersey, Julia Mooney has decided to take a different approach when focusing her energy on more important things than clothing. By wearing the same dress for the first one hundred days of school, Julia Mooney is reflecting on the needed steps that are essential in creating awareness for the environmental costs that come with modern day fashion.
Because of modern day "fast fashion", 21 million tons of textiles are thrown away every year in North America. Fast fashion refers to the constant changing of fashion styles in stores across North America. Many different styles are sold in stores depending on what is trending, and they are easy to access and are affordable for many purchasers. The downside to this is that since the fashion styles change so rapidly (fast fashion), Americans end up disposing of or not wearing a majority of the clothes they buy. Fossil fuels and a large amount of water which is used to make these pieces of unwanted clothing are then wasted, and this ultimately hurts the environment.
By creating this challenge, Mooney is teaching her students the importance of eco-friendly behavior and the impact it has on saving the environment and bettering our world. Mooney also extends the challenge to her home life to show how dedicated she really is to conserving our ecosystems. Not only does she wear one dress to work everyday, but she also keeps the same dress on at home. Mooney also does not believe in washing her clothing in a washing machine because it is not eco-friendly, so she resorts to hand washing instead.
Mooney believes it is better to help the environment than to be in style everyday just for the purpose of looking good. Through this challenge, she has opened up about her feeling toward fast fashion and its environmental costs and has also inspired many others to join her on her "one outfit for one hundred days" journey. I think it is important for people to act like Julia Mooney and bring awareness to these problems our society does not usually pay attention to. I also believe she is courageous in doing this, especially for sticking to her challenge no matter how hard it may have been for her to complete.
https://6abc.com/education/teacher-wears-same-dress-daily-for-lesson-in-sustainability/4235649/
Wow- this is so interesting. You should email her after the 100 days and find out how it worked out for her! Definitely less stressful in the mornings!
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