Fast Fashion: The Downfall of the Industry and Environment?
Shein, Pretty Little Thing, Fashion Nova, H&M, Zara… Anyone who likes to keep up with fashion trends has most likely heard of and probably shopped at these brands. What do they all have in common? They are all fast fashion. Their main objective as a trademark is to replicate clothing seen on runways and from high-end retailers and sell them at a highly affordable price. Sounds good in retrospect, right? I mean, not everyone can afford to buy trendy clothing at such a high price from high-end retailers, especially since trends change so fast. However, as demand rises, fast fashion is capable of leaving a massive carbon footprint along with many other adverse effects on the environment.
We as consumers must make judgements on the importance of what we buy from these brands, no matter how small our purchase is. We, as individuals, can trigger quite limited change. But can we as a collective make a significant shift in actions and shared ideologies towards fast fashion?
Say thanks to social media?
Social media platforms are highly responsible for the distribution of trends, more notability; TikTok. Its influence can reach wide demographics due to a thing called; the algorithm. Social media undeniably amplifies the popularity of fast fashion brands. Myself being a regular social media user, I can confidently say that if it was not for TikTok, I would not have made that Shein order back in December. It’s not like I particularly needed those leopard print flared trousers? They now sit comfortably collecting dust at the bottom of my drawer, having worn them only once. I would never be tempted to buy that awfully unflattering pair of trousers for their grand price of £9.49. Honestly, considering the material and cost of production, I should not have paid more than £5. I wonder how many other *somewhat* clueless trend followers such as myself have fallen victim to Shein and its low-quality pieces.
I can not help but wonder why I see £1000 clothing hauls from Shein, Missguided, Pretty Little Thing, with so many likes and positive comments all over my social media feeds. Why do we encourage overconsumption? I mean, £1000 worth of fast fashion can buy you an entire closet. If you don’t mind that your entire closet will consist of a plethora of badly sewn, ill-fitting items of clothing that seem to be made of the same material as a garbage bag. Why not take that same amount of money and spend it on timeless and high-quality pieces that will last for years in your closet? The problem seems to ultimately lie with trend culture and social media.
To minimise the profit of fast fashion brands that target such large demographics of people, we need to minimise the marketing and exposure of those companies on platforms that harbour large demographics of people, such as Tiktok. Sounds simple right? Easier said than done considering the number of trends that have emerged and disappeared only this year.
It can honestly be said that fast fashion is actively ruining the industry as a whole, with fashion publications such as the infamous Vogue already deteriorating. Fashion has lost the spark and originality that it once had. With fast fashion brands being so mainstream, they fuel consumer demand at vast speeds.
The issue of sustainability and environmental factors.
Objectively, the single most crucial thing that is affected by fast fashion is; the environment. The idea of millions of garments being produced and disposed of every day is a nightmare for the habitat. The detrimental effects that fast fashion has is unparalleled. Colossal C02 emissions, enormous water usage, and pollution are all devastating consequences of the fashion industry alone.
As I had mentioned before, trends fall in and out of style incredibly fast. I can name a good handful of clothing pieces that would have been considered trendy last year that I see no one wearing out in public or even online anymore. Where did all those clothes go? It would be incorrect to assume that everyone donates them to charity. A large sum of them goes straight to the perpetually growing landfill piles, where they struggle to decompose because of the cheap and synthetic fibres that the clothes are made out of.
The bottom line is, ‘fast fashion’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ are not synonymous terms. They cannot harmoniously coexist in our contemporary world, where sustainability is a concept that still struggles to be implemented in society.
It is not ethical.
Fast fashion is not only harmful to the environment. It is harmful to the welfare of people. We, as consumers, need to look past the thrill of finding a brand new trendy item for such a low price. There are many anti-humanitarian values to fast fashion brands ethos. In third-world countries, women and children work in sweatshops and warehouses in horrible working conditions to produce and sew clothing. This is a tedious and laborious job that pays extremely little. Hardly enough to scrape over the poverty line for the majority of workers.
Next steps.
Cutting out fast fashion entirely from our lives would be incredibly hard, especially for those who have a tight budget to stick to. With fashion, you get what you pay for. Sustainable and ethical fashion isn’t exactly widely affordable. People with a small disposable income just simply cannot manage to spend an abundance of money on higher-end clothing.
In reality, there’s really only one affordable alternative to fast fashion. Second-hand clothing. No, I am not talking about your mother’s hideous sweaters from the late ’80s. Thrift stores and charity shops harbour lots of great clothing finds for a very reasonable and low price. Those who like to keep up with trends know that fashion trends circulate in a 20-year cycle. Right now, there is a great resurgence of trends from the 2000s. Y2K, as many fashion lovers now call it. Thrift stores have an abundance of authentic clothing from the 2000s that fast fashion brands attempt to replicate. The difference is that second-hand clothing is genuine and an excellent find for those who like to collect clothing archives.
-Zara Karlieva
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