Fast Fashion: No
- Meera Naveen
- Feb 4, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 24, 2024
Fast fashion is fast, right?
You can easily get the latest fashion trends and styles in bulk for the cheapest prices.
Started in the 1980s & 90s and even more popular due to the pandemic, some examples of booming fast fashion brands include Shein, Zara, Forever21, H&M, GAP, etc.
But is the low price that makes this trend so consumable really the only price involved?
Here are some factors to consider:
Labor. Ever wondered why this clothing is so low-cost even though it's in high-demand and shows off the latest fashion trends? One reason why this is true is because of the unfair labor put into this. That means over 12-hour workdays seven days a week. That means constantly worrying about money because you barely earn $5 daily. That means hoping that an incident like the one in Rana Plaza* doesn't happen because of the neglects of the industry and the weak infrastructure in buildings you work in.
Material. Fast-fashion clothes are typically of low-quality - they can rip, tear or fade away, causing people to do something that is the opposite of eco: throw the clothes away.
So, what are these clothes really made of? Well, examples of cheap, low-quality material used to make them include synthetics like polyester, elastane, nylon and acrylic.
And because of the low durability these materials present, people, again, might even throw them away after a month of using them while wearing some other high-quality pair of jeans for years. If some clothing didn't match the trend and were determined to not be worth selling, they would be thrown away even before the distribution phase of the process.
And according to Crumbie from Ethical Consumer, this industry produces around 92 million tons of textile waste every year, barely any of it being recycled as most just get burned or thrown in the landfill.
3. Other Environmental and Health Impacts. Believe it or not, fast fashion can harm your body as well as the earth around us. For one, as said before, it uses synthetics as the main material, which come from plastic, and many times less than 5% of it is actually recycled plastic. Even more, when these clothes are used, they release so many microfibers, infiltrating our bodies. Since they come from plastic, it's unbelievable how much of these fibers are released into the ocean, polluting it.
By now it's easy to see why we should avoid fast fashion: though it has the latest trends and has a cheap price, that price doesn't include many other factors, including unethical labor practices, global and not local transportation, health dangers, and overwhelming amounts of pollution.
Stay informed for my next post, which is about the sustainable and ethical alternative to fast fashion.
*Note: for more info on the Rana Plaza incident, look here: Fashion Revolution Week: What was the Rana Plaza disaster and why did it happen? | The Independent | The Independent
Works Cited:
Research -
Comments