Finally, a red carpet fashion trend that's both totally affordable and eco-friendly

< warm> receive to our hebdomadal newssheet where we high spot environmental trends and solutions that are moving us to a more sustainable world. 

Kiera here, with a confession: I dream of digging through my well-dressed neighbour's closet and stealing that one pink blazer off my coworker's back. A recent celeb style moment showed me clothes-swapping could be an eco-friendly way to refresh my closet.

This week:

When Amanda Seyfried borrowed Julia Roberts's red carpet look at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, the story went viral, with the internet praising the pair for their innovation and sustainability.

"People love being part of a trend," she said. Of course, Seyfried's and Roberts's wardrobe repeat isn't the first time a celebrity has worn the same outfit twice. The Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, has re-worn looks to official engagements — a move that has had an impact on the public's attitude towards repeat looks, said McQuaid. 

McQuaid herself has loved sharing clothing since she first began to borrow from her older sister's closet. At 10, she'd proudly strut around in her then-17-year-old sister's leopard-print dresses.

"Borrowing is a representation of a community's strength. The more we share with each other, the closer we're connected," she said.

Twenty years later, McQuaid runs large-scale clothing swaps across Canada. Droves of people show up with clothing that they no longer wear — everything from too-small denim to the old prom dress that they never got around to selling — ready to find their next favourite piece among mountains of pre-loved garments.

Threading Change's Aug. 24 clothing swap in Vancouver saw over a hundred attendees and sent more than 100 kilograms of textiles to new homes. While it's an impressive feat, it's only a drop in the bucket of what's being thrown away. A 2023 study from researchers at Seneca College Toronto and the University of Waterloo estimated that 500,000 tonnes of textiles are trashed in Canada each year. 

Economic motivations

People are motivated to swap for a variety of reasons, ranging from saving money to avoiding waste. A 2024 Fair Fashion Festival survey found 98 per cent of attendees said sustainability was among their reasons for attending. 

Kasia Mazur has been attending and hosting casual clothing swaps among friends since 2012.

"Clothes are so expensive. One item is like, one hundred dollars, you know? It's not fun."

She said she has saved thousands of dollars by swapping clothing for both herself and her children.

"They're always growing," she said of her kids, who are two and six years old. "Every three months I have to change the closet."

The same goes for adults — Kristall Onee, who hosts large-scale, curated clothing swaps with 50 to 100 participants in British Columbia, said that clothing swaps allow people to let go of clothing that no longer fits without feeling shame or pressure to fit into so-called "goal clothing."

"It feels so liberating when we finally let go and accept where we are at the moment," she said.

Fostering community

Onee said that people come to her swaps for the sense of community, to feel like part of a movement. She's seen people at swaps share the stories of pieces that once belonged to dead grandparents, and leave with the peace of mind that they are now in loving homes.

Seth Day, the founder of a queer clothing swap initiative in Montreal, brought his wedding suit to a swap. He was able to share the garment's story with its new owner — that the embroidered date on the inside was his wedding date, that the names were those of him and his wife.

Rather than being a transactional space, Day described swaps as an opportunity to connect. In the early days of his swaps, the group would get together afterwards for a picnic, sharing food and playing cards.

"It wasn't just about one thing," he said. "It was about a host of things. It kind of boiled down to, I think, community, sustainability and accessibility." 

Onee recalled a time that a woman tried on a skirt and announced that she loved it, but had no idea how to style it. Other girls ran through the swap looking for pieces, suggesting colours that would pair well, and experimenting with ways that shirts could be tucked into the skirt. 

"We're making each other outfits and teaching each other how to style things, how to get more life out of them," Onee said.

— Kiera Osborne

Andre Mayer's story last week on the dearth of affordable new electric vehicles in Canada mentioned the 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese EVs, some of which cost less than $10,000 US. David Adams, president of Global Automakers of Canada, said allowing Chinese EVs into Canada "would sort of be the end of our automotive industry as we transition to EVs." Some readers thought this was a short-sighted perspective.

Brenda Ryan wrote: "Isn't our auto industry dead already thanks to Trump? Let's invite the Chinese to build a plant in Canada. We need foreign investment, don't we?"

Michael Hough: "Firstly: China is ahead of us, BECAUSE we are not competitive. Secondly: keeping them out will make us more uncompetitive."

Adam Scott, director of Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, seconds this idea, saying the North American auto industry is "increasingly becoming uncompetitive globally. They have developed EVs, but they are way behind on the technology and the economics of scale."

Scott said federal and provincial investments in EV and battery production plants have helped these car companies make the transition, "but now we've got the worst of both worlds." 

"The federal government has paused and will likely weaken EV mandates, and they haven't recapitalized the [consumer] subsidy program. And they've also put up this huge tariff wall on a source of cheap cars," said Scott.

"All that's going to do long term is doom these manufacturers to failing. We can't protect them forever from global competition."

Write us at whatonearth@cbc.ca (and send photos there too!)

Blake Gerard was an Illinois corn, soy and wheat farmer. But when his fields kept flooding, he came up with a solution – he turned his fields into rice paddies. 

Scientists have tapped into a "secret" stash of fresh water under the ocean floor that might some day supply people living where supplies of fresh water are dwindling. 

A short documentary from Bloomberg investigates some Iowa farmers who say nitrogen in fertilizer is poisoning them. A surprising solution may be in alfalfa. 

Saltmarsh sparrow chicks are drowning from extreme high tides in Rhode Island. This crew of citizen scientists and researchers are crafting life rafts to save their nests.

Phyllis Smith heads out on the clear waters of Agumik Lake to survey her dense wild rice patch, checking the size and quality of the grain by knocking the plant against her boat.

While hard rice tumbles out of some kernels, others are empty — eaten and destroyed by rice worms, a pest that is wreaking havoc for harvesters in northern Saskatchewan and hurting their livelihood.

"Every year it seems to get worse," said Phyllis Smith, who has been picking rice for more than 30 years. "You're almost at a loss now what to expect."

As rice worms spread north from the U.S. And west from Manitoba into Saskatchewan waterways, hurting the harvest for the traditional crop, there are growing calls from harvesters to find a solution.

Many warn there is little time to find a way to mitigate the damage before the future of wild rice — a food used by Indigenous people for thousands of years — is under threat.

'It's pretty devastating'

Phyllis and her husband Tommy Smith have harvested around the community of Pinehouse, Sask., about 380 kilometres north of Saskatoon, for decades, learning how to grow and pick the plant from their own families.

They first started to see occasional worms in the rice during the past few years, but the pests were prolific in last year's harvest. The couple gathered just 20 bags, down from an average of about 400 bags before the insects arrived.

"It's pretty devastating," said Tommy Smith, who estimates he lost more than $40,000 last harvest.

Wild rice is a major economic driver in many Cree and Métis communities in northern Saskatchewan. A good harvest can bring in as much as $100,000 for a family, who often hire help.

A large processing plant and local buyers who transport the bags of rice also generate jobs.

But the reduced crop is depleting income, leaving some employees with little work and causing some harvesters to consider selling their equipment.

Search for a solution

A team of researchers from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Polytechnic and the National Research Council of Canada have been collaborating with harvesters.

Tim Sharbel, a plant sciences professor at the University of Saskatchewan, is part of the group that has been visiting northern communities to engage with harvesters and work toward a solution.

He said researchers don't know why exactly the worms are moving north, but they believe the transport of rice bags between different lakes and forest fires could be factors. He said fireweed and milkweed are among the first plants to spring up after fires, and the moths can feed on their nectar. 

"It provides kind of an opportunity to the rice worm moths," Sharbel said. 

The team is also developing a type of trap, which was tested on some lakes near The Pas, Man. It uses pheromones — natural chemicals from insects — to attract the rice worm moths away from the rice before they lay eggs.

The first phase of testing proved successful in collecting a large quantity of the insects, and researchers are hoping to conduct further trials this spring.

"I think it's very promising," Sharbel said. "We have a lot of support from the harvesters that we're working with. Clearly, people's livelihoods are being affected by this."

'We'll keep on'

At the weigh station in Pinehouse — a large blue scale set up next to a truck — local harvesters arrive with bags to sell.

The rice, which will go to Beauval and then on to La Ronge for processing, is crawling with squirming rice worms.

Lionel Smith, who works as a local buyer, is also a longtime harvester in the community.

But this season, so much of his crop was killed by the insects he decided not to collect rice at all.

"We can tell that it's heavily, heavily invested by worms," he said.

In addition to his work as a commercial fisherman, wild rice earns Lionel anywhere from $70,000 to $100,000 in income per year.

He's hopeful the collaboration with scientists will lead to an effective solution for the insects.

"We'll keep on. It's not something we'll give up on. That will never happen," he said.

— Alexandre Silberman

Thanks for reading. If you have questions, criticisms or story tips, please send them to whatonearth@cbc.ca.

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Editors: Emily Chung and Hannah Hoag | Logo design: Sködt McNalty

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