Oh no! Its Fast Fashion!
Happy Halloween readers! I truly love Halloween and dressing up, but I thought what better way to celebrate than to tell you all a scary story. What's scarier than a costume gone wrong, you may be wondering. Well, the answer to that is fast fashion. Fast fashion is a term used in the sustainability world meaning a design and manufacturing approach focused on rapidly producing high volumes of clothing. These clothes tend to replicate trends and clothing seen in fashion shows, using typically cheap types of fabric to produce inexpensive clothes for the public. The arrival of Fast fashion can be dated all the way back to the industrial revolution and slave labor. As you may recall from history class of the harsh working conditions in factories, just to produce products for the public rapidly. Unfortunately, because of fast fashion, those inhumane working conditions still exist. Between 2006 and 2012, Dana Thomas reports in her book Fashionolopis, Americans spent about $340 billion on fashion. Where did most of the clothes come from? From Bangladesh, where within the same years about “more than 500 garment workers died in factory fires”. More so, about 60 percent of clothing nowadays is produced of synthetic fabric fibers that are derived from fossil fuels. Meaning that when/if you throw away your clothes, they will never decay. So not only does fast fashion play a role in our ecological devastation, but the production of such textiles is most of the time inhumane. Brands like Forever 21, Zara, and especially online stores like Amazon and Shein, make millions of dollars off of fast fashion just from the sheer amount of products being sold. But those millions of dollars are made off of garment workers, who quite literally risk their lives and are underpaid.
But this scary story has a good ending because there are big fashion brands, like Stella McCartney, rooted in practicing sustainability and creating clothes out of reclaimed material. Coach accepts old or broken handbags and will fix them for free so that rather than landing in a landfill they can continue to serve their purpose. And there are ways you too can practice sustainability and become a conscious shopper so that these issues will not continue. The idea is that, for the most part, fashion will become a cycle where products are recycled, reused, and reborn. For example, thrifting is a great way to buy clothes and not feed into fast fashion. Thrift stores receive passed-down clothes and products so that nothing new is being made. Also, the lovely thing about thrift stores is that the chances of you running into someone wearing the same outfit as you are very slim. Instead of throwing away clothes you don't want anymore, you can donate to thrift stores or textile bins that recycle your clothes to make something new! Buy less mass-produced, cheap clothes and start looking for more sustainable brands or local shops. Those are just a few ways to shop smartly and I’ve included some links down below with more information on fast fashion and ways you can reduce your fashion's environmental and economic impact.
Stay spooky,
Ambar
What is fast fashion..?
https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/what-is-fast-fashion
Ways to be a conscious shopper
https://www.sustainyourstyle.org/en/reducing-our-impact
https://www.sustainablejungle.com/sustainable-fashion/how-to-avoid-fast-fashion/
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