Utrecht, Netherlands – “After about 30 minutes, I knew it was the one,” confides Lara Peters, looking at her sleek, second-hand wedding dress. She had just said “I do” to her partner amidst the hustle and bustle of Utrecht station in the Netherlands.
Two days earlier, the bride found her dress in a pop-up shop at the station. The shop is run by the Dutch organisation “Free Fashion”, which has decided to tackle the wedding industry as part of its promotion of circular fashion.
“Getting the message across that you can opt for sustainable choices for your wedding is very important to me,” explains Peters, 42, to AFP.
To draw attention to an issue they care about, the sustainable development communicator and her husband, Mathijs Dordregter, 44, opted for a wedding in the busiest station in the Netherlands. The event was partly organised by Free Fashion.
“We know that in terms of emissions, making a wedding dress is roughly equivalent to a 250-kilometre car journey,” explains Nina Reimert, project manager at Free Fashion, to AFP. “Since they are made of all sorts of materials, they are also really difficult to recycle.”
“So, at the moment, it is a real nightmare. With 17,000 weddings a year in the Netherlands, you can do the maths,” continues Reimert, 42.
To raise public awareness of this environmentally harmful overconsumption, Free Fashion launched an online appeal. The aim is to convince future brides to give a new lease of life to pre-loved dresses.
Celebrate love for the planet
For Lot van Os, who co-founded Free Fashion, the wedding dress is a powerful symbol as it is usually only worn once.
“When we celebrate love, we should also celebrate love for the planet,” he told AFP.
With around 800 volunteers, Free Fashion is approached by local councils wishing to achieve their circular economy and waste reduction targets.
The foundation, which also presents itself as a fashion brand, works within companies by organising clothing swaps among employees.
“We also talk about this circular transition that we have to go through, because it is not a question of ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ things will change,” continues the 33-year-old Dutchman.
Vegetarian meal and public transport
“There are already enough clothes in the world for the next six generations,” reads a sign next to a rail in the station’s pop-up shop, which holds several dozen white dresses.
Well aware of this alarming reality, the bride and groom did not just stick to the dress. In addition to Dordregter, who bought a second-hand suit, all the couple’s guests arrived at the station dressed in their finest charity shop finds.
“Of course, we are going to opt for a vegetarian meal at the restaurant and we will get there by bus or perhaps by bike. Everything I bought for the wedding has already been used in previous weddings,” says Peters with a smile.
Regarding the fate of her dress after the big day: “It is not going to end up in my wardrobe!” affirms the bride, determined to perpetuate this new tradition.
This article was translated to English using an AI tool.
FashionUnited uses AI language tools to speed up translating (news) articles and proofread the translations to improve the end result. This saves our human journalists time they can spend doing research and writing original articles. Articles translated with the help of AI are checked and edited by a human desk editor prior to going online. If you have questions or comments about this process email us at info@fashionunited.com