MAGNETS, Photograph: Nick McKinlay
MAGNETS is the project of Naarm/Melbourne-based musician and disability advocate Siobhan McGinnity. Under the MAGNETS banner, McGinnity brings together her manifold interests, making indie pop music that’s inclusive and rooted in activism.
McGinnity wrote MAGNETS’s recent single, “Speak”, following an awakening to the evils of the contemporary fashion industry. The lyrics encourage listeners to speak up and assert their power.
Here, McGinnity explains the motivations behind her sustainable fashion activism and outlines four actions that will make a difference.
“It’s not just about the environment, it’s about humanity”
Environmentalism, sustainability, disability activism, it all intersects for me. I am a disabled woman living on stolen land who went suddenly deaf before the release of my debut EP.
Meniere’s disease is an unusual beast, with fluctuating hearing loss, vertigo, tinnitus and other symptoms. In the beginning, I struggled to walk, working up a sweat to balance my way down the stairs or to the end of my street. This led to inevitable isolation, a personal lockdown far before the pandemic, and a search for entertainment alone.
Enter Spotlight and their blessed 50% off sales. I went from miserable to obsessed, suddenly having a Singer sewing machine on my desk and a passion so absorbing time slipped away.
In my journey to become a sewist, I pored through YouTube tutorials, blogs and books. After 16 months, I even made my own wedding jumpsuit and bridesmaid dresses, which crazily got featured in a bridal magazine and went viral on TikTok.
However, there was a downside to all this knowledge: the realisation on a deep level of just how damaging our clothing can be. To paraphrase Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas, we’re buying five times more clothing than we did in the 1980s, wearing our clothes on average only seven times, and 60% of our clothes are made from fossil fuel fibres.
On top of that, the clothing industry is so large that every sixth person on our planet is employed by it in some way, yet only 2% of garment workers earn a living wage. It’s not just about the environment, it’s about humanity.
Worried that I was wearing something that had caused harm, I froze, refusing to buy clothes for years unless I had personally made them from deadstock materials (leftover fabric from local designers). As great as this was, it wasn’t sustainable and it’s definitely not a method that’s accessible for all. I now live by a more realistic approach.
Here are just a couple of the easiest, and most effective choices I’ve found you might consider.
How to make a difference
1. Check the tag
On the inside seam of all garments in Australia is a small tag outlining the fibre composition. I love to look for hardwearing natural fibres such as cotton, hemp, wool and linen. While 100% isn’t always possible (but definitely the gold standard), a popular rule is to aim for 80% and above.
2. Filter microplastics
Every time we wash our clothes, microplastics are stripped away and enter our ocean. One of the coolest inventions out there is an affordable filter you can attach to your washing machine to remove up to 90% of these. An example is here, but there are more.
3. Buy local
Most fabric is made overseas, shipped to another country for processing, another for weaving, another for construction and so on. This means by the time it reaches you, it may have been to as many as seven countries. Searching for locally made garments is a big way to reduce this, even better if the company shares the source of their material. A favourite in the clothing business for doing this is McKintyre Merino, using Australian wool from their family’s farm to create modern and colourful clothing.
4. It’s a mindshift
Switching from quick buys to buying with the future in mind is key. It might mean holding off on seasonal trends, but it should mean leaning more into your personal style, your individuality and what makes you glow. That will always look good. Many designers now offer services that help this, from hand-dyed garments to made-to-measure. Some local labels I love are Kalaurie, REMUSE and E-Nolan.
It’s now been years since my hearing changed and my debut EP. Gratefully, I can walk more confidently now, but always with the lessons the isolation taught me. When you see me on stage, I hope you’ll see me in something I’ve made or repping one of my local faves. When you listen to my music, I hope you’ll hear the joy. I’m not overwhelmed by it all, it’s the opposite – I’m energised.
My latest single “Speak” might be all about shouting out for what you believe in, but it’s wrapped in synth sparkles and the warmth of summer. It’s where I’m at now. Not every step towards a better world has to feel heavy. In fact, with fashion, it looks good.
