‘Dressed in Oil’: the book that debunks the myth of sustainable fashion

Open your wardrobe and pick out five items at random. Read the labels. How many contain polyester? Probably three out of five, perhaps four. That sports T-shirt, the office shirt, the soft fleece you love: they are made, in whole or in part, of plastic — refined petroleum. Yet we buy them believing we are making modern, practical choices, sometimes even sustainable ones. This concrete — and uncomfortable — provocation is the starting point for “Clothed in Petroleum. When did we start wearing plastic and calling it sustainable fashion?”, the new book by Douglas Mari (Mind Edizioni).

Mari is not a professional writer, nor an activist academic, let alone an environmental fundamentalist. He is a practitioner with over thirty years’ experience in brand management and international marketing: he has worked with global brands such as Universal Studios, Nintendo and Karl Lagerfeld, developed licensing strategies for multinationals in the entertainment and fashion industries, and in recent years he has served as COO at Dlore’ and as CEO of two clothing companies in Los Angeles, including a start-up specialising in biodegradable materials. He currently teaches Global Sports Marketing and Global Brand Management at the Lorenzo de’ Medici Institute in Florence.
 
The book is divided into eight chapters that lead the reader from the history of polyester’s rise to concrete alternatives. It begins with the reign of polyester — how a petroleum-derived synthetic fibre became the undisputed star of our wardrobes — then delves into the toxicity of synthetic fabrics, the issue of microplastics released with every wash (700,000 microfibres per 6 kg load, according to the most recent estimates), the devastating impact of production on the environment and on workers, and the major communications push that has turned recycled polyester into a symbol of environmental responsibility.

The chapter on greenwashing examines certifications, the misleading language of eco-labels, the myth of “sustainable collections”, and the trap of blended fibres — those “80 per cent cotton, 20 per cent polyester” garments that marketing presents as natural but which, in reality, cannot be recycled or composted and are destined for landfill from day one. In the final two chapters, Mari offers a practical overview of alternatives and equips consumers with tools to read a label, recognise a misleading message and make genuinely more informed choices. The author discussed this with FashionNetwork.com.
 
Fashion Network: Where did the idea for this book come from?

Douglas Mari: It stems from my professional path inside the industry, not outside. I know how licensing works, how a marketing operation is built, where sustainability narratives originate and how often they remain just that. At a certain point I found myself working on a start-up focused on biodegradable materials and began to see the sector through different eyes. Not from the outside, like a critic, but from within: understanding where promises of sustainability are born, how marketing narratives are constructed, and how often the two worlds — communication and production — fail to speak to each other. This book is the fruit of that awareness. It is not a moralistic j’accuse. It is a map.

FN: The subtitle talks about “sustainable fashion”. Is it really just marketing?

DM: Not always, but too often it is. The problem is not good intentions, which in many cases exist. The problem is the absence of uniform standards, a proliferation of certifications that attest to nothing of substance, and deliberately ambiguous language. “Eco-conscious”, “responsible”, “green collection” — these terms have no legal definitions. Anyone can use them. When we analyse the data — the real carbon footprint, material life cycles, actual recycling rates — we find that the gap between promise and reality is often huge. Polyester recycled from PET bottles is the most emblematic example: it certainly reduces emissions compared with virgin polyester, but it still sheds microplastics, is not recyclable in a truly circular way at the end of its life, and has become more of a communications tool than a structural solution.
 
FN: Microplastics are one of the central themes of the book. How serious is the problem?

DM: Much more serious than most consumers imagine. The textile sector is estimated by the IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an international non-governmental organisation based in Gland, Switzerland, ed.) to be the world’s leading source of primary microplastics in the oceans — ahead of cosmetics, tyres and paints. With every wash of a synthetic garment, hundreds of thousands of microfibres are shed, passing through washing-machine filters, entering wastewater and then the seas, rivers and soils. They have been found in fish, sea salt, drinking water, even in human blood and the placenta. This is not environmentalist science fiction. These are scientific findings published in the most authoritative journals. The fact that so little is said about it is a problem in itself.
 
FN: The book also talks about concrete alternatives. What are the most promising ones?

DM: The answers come from both tradition and innovation. Classic natural fibres — organic cotton, linen, hemp, wool, silk — remain the most robust solutions when grown and processed responsibly. But there are also extraordinary innovations: fabrics made from agricultural waste, from mushroom mycelium, from seaweed, from banana or pineapple fibres. Some are already on the market, others are scaling up. The real obstacle is not technology, it is the system of incentives: as long as fast fashion can produce at rock-bottom prices while offloading environmental costs onto society, sustainable alternatives will struggle to compete on price. What is needed is a combination of public policy, mandatory transparency and informed consumers. And on this last point, the book aims to make a concrete contribution.
 
FN: Who is the book aimed at?

DM: Everyone. I deliberately chose accessible, non-technical language. The book speaks to those who work in the sector — offering prompts to reflect on their professional choices — but also to the curious consumer who wants to understand what really lies behind that label. And it speaks to young people, who will be the professionals and consumers of tomorrow. Fashion is culture, it is identity, it is beauty. It should not cease to be so. But it can be all of that in a more conscious and responsible way. This book does not ask you to stop dressing. It asks you to do so with greater awareness.