The Fall of Fast Fashion — Making Sustainable Fashion the New Trend
My father took me shopping at a thrift shop when I was nine years old—I didn’t like it. He chose an over-sized dark pink collared shirt, denim pants and black punk sneakers. I frowned in disappointment as I tried them on.
I wanted new and trendy clothes just like everyone else in my class. I didn’t want them to know that my clothes came from a second-hand store. That would make me look uncool. Branded clothes mattered even for nine-year-olds.
After high school, I realized how second-hand clothing was more unique and stylish than a mannequin-perfect type of clothing. When I found a long-sleeve The Beatles shirt hanged among hundreds of vintage clothes, I knew ‘thrifting’ was gonna be a lifetime thing for me. My father couldn’t be any prouder.
“When you wear vintage, you never have to worry about showing up in the same dress as someone else.”
— Jessica Alba, The Honest Life, 2013
Back then, I saw this shopping alternative as a way of buying one-of-a-kind clothing pieces for a cheaper price. Later, I began to realize that by making this choice, I was also making a conscious effort towards saving the planet.
The Fast Fashion Trap and Its Negative Impact
I first came across the term ‘fast fashion’ through watching a Youtube video by a Berlin-based French designer named Justine Leconte. According to her, brands such as H&M, Zara, Primark, Topshop, Forever 21 and other trendy clothing labels follow the fast fashion business model. These brands utilize trend replication and rapid, mass production using low-quality material in order to produce inexpensive clothing.
The extremely short cycles starting from the design process until retail distribution allow these brands to have around 12–24 collections a year. I know, it’s absurd. Because of this, consumers who want to follow the new “trend” are forced to buy pieces from the latest collection in fear of being “out of season” after two or four weeks. Thus, the term fast fashion.
“Fast fashion isn’t free. Someone, somewhere is paying.”
— Lucy Siegle, UK journalist
In order to follow this business model, everything must be optimized to cut down cost in all aspects, from design to labor cost. These brands manufacture their products in countries where labor is cheap and where safety laws and ethical work standards are not implemented properly. Even though we see the “Made in…” tags, we can never be sure where your new puff sleeve blouse and denim skirt came from.
In 2013, the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka Bangladesh which housed five garment factories collapsed, killing 1,132 workers and injuring 2,500 more. This incident exposed the poor working conditions of these factory workers who were also living off minimum wage. A garment worker in Bangladesh is estimated to earn only 80$ a month.
Aside from the social controversy surrounding the fast fashion industry, it is also relevant to discuss its environmental impact. To reduce the unit cost per product, fast fashion manufacturers pre-produce more than their forecast sales per season. If the demand for an item gets higher, they will be able to distribute it again in a snap and if no one buys them, the product will be dumped in a landfill and considered waste.
The fashion industry alone contributes 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions which is more than the emissions from all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Scary thought, isn’t it?
Let’s talk about water consumption. To produce a single cotton shirt, it takes almost 2,700 liters of water while a single pair of jeans can use about 7,600 liters. In Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea dried up after 50 years due to continuous water usage for cotton farming.
The fashion industry is also responsible for about 20% of all industrial water pollution worldwide. Leftover water from textile dyeing is often dumped into streams and rivers, making it the second-largest water pollutant in the world. In a 2017 report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), it was estimated that 35% of all microplastics in the ocean come from washed off synthetic fibers like polyester which is present in a lot of fast fashion apparel due to its cheap price.
This is the true cost of fast fashion. There is a long way to go in terms of revolutionizing the fast fashion industry in becoming more sustainable. But now, as more people are gearing towards greener lifestyles, sustainability is rapidly becoming the new trend and fashion alternative.
Sustainable Fashion As the New Trend
The year 2019 was hailed as the ‘Year of Awakening’ according to the State of Fashion Report done by Mckinsley&Company. Consumers from all around the world are demanding social transparency and accountability from fast fashion brands. As a result, people are starting to boycott these brands and make the switch to sustainable fashion.
Several fashion brands have adapted to this cause by creating clothing which is made from natural, organic and biodegradable materials like pineapple leaves. An Italian firm named Aquafil developed a substitute for Nylon called ‘Econyl’ which is made from ocean synthetic waste such as fishing nets.
“Becoming more mindful about clothing means looking at every fiber, at every seed and every dye and seeing how to make it better. We don’t want sustainability to be our edge, we want it to be universal.”
— Eileen Fisher, fashion designer
There’s also been a huge market for second-hand clothing. Celebrities, influencers and even ordinary people are making use of online platforms to sell their pre-loved clothes. Not to mention the sudden popularity of physical thrift stores where some designer brands can even be bought on a discount.
Some artists transform old jackets and jeans into their own work of art by giving them a new design and putting them up for sale online as well.
You can even find clothes which have been upcycled/repurposed to become a new piece. Some brands like Patagonia and Levi’s already adapted this method combined with textile recycling and using plastic bottles to create their signature products.
Another method which is becoming popular among fashionistas is clothing rental. The HURR Collective, for example, allows users to rent clothes, shoes, bags, and even accessories. There’s also the option to post and lend your own pieces. This is a perfect alternative for those who are just looking for something to wear for a special night or event.
These methods are all centered on one purpose: lessening the environmental impact of fast fashion. It is also a way of showing value for life—and if we center ourselves into a single vision, we can be resourceful and creative enough to find better alternatives.
The Future of Fashion
It’s 2020. Sustainable fashion is still going mainstream. Even with the constantly changing trends, I hope that sustainability becomes a standard in our way of consuming fashion. And in time, technology can play a bigger role in finding alternatives to harmful materials used in producing what we wear every day while fashion brands can begin to adapt and realize that vision matters over profit.
Our clothes, more than a way of expressing ourselves can also represent what we value. In the age of awareness, sustainability is the new fashion statement.
