Go take a look in your closet. Right now. Yes, go ahead. Now, how many items do you have from Forever 21? H&M? Charlotte Russe? Primark? If you said “yes” to any of those brands, then you have bought clothing from fast fashion brands.
Fast fashion is a term describing clothing that is mass-produced in response to fashion trends seen on runways and at Fashion Week runway shows around the world. Fast fashion brands make trendy clothing quickly and sell it an affordable price so the average consumer can wear the latest trends. Sounds great, right?
Unfortunately, you would be wrong. The fast fashion industry has been responsible for immense environmental and humane impacts. How do you think fast fashion companies are able to sell clothing at such cheap prices? Can you take a guess where your clothing is made? Do you even know how it is made?
First, fast fashion brands use cheap fabrics such as polyester. Polyester is derived from fossil fuels, thereby contributing to global warming. In addition, polyester can release microfibers called microplastics into the water system when they are washed. This increases plastic pollution in oceans and waterways which can eventually hurt our health.
However, even natural fabrics such as cotton are not sustainable because mass producers use massive amounts of water and pesticides to clean cotton. Thus, they are wasting water, threatening areas with drought, and polluting water with harmful pesticides.
Secondly, there is a human cost to fast fashion. Many of the garments sold by fast fashion brands are made in countries such as Indonesia and Taiwan. People in countries such as these are generally paid minuscule wages. They also work long hours in risky and unsafe working environments where they are exposed to toxic chemicals that can have lasting health effects.
We consume clothing at an alarming rate thanks to the cheap clothing sold by fast fashion brands. Due to fashion trends that we see on Instagram and runways, we feel that we have to constantly buy and replace what we have to keep up with these trends. We are constantly buying more and more clothing, but I can guarantee that there are some shirts in your closet that you have largely forgotten about.
Instead, we should be investing in clothing pieces. Of course, the fast fashion market doesn’t want you to do that. They want you to keep buying and buying. Their marketing is certainly convincing. But we must be conscious consumers and realize that we do not need all of these clothing items. When we do decide that we need an item of clothing in our collection, we should do a few things:
- Donate unused items to an organization that distributes clothing to people who need it
- Buy from a sustainable fashion brand OR a thirft store/site
- Rent an item from an organization (such as Rent the Runway) for pieces you know you will not wear again
If you look at sustainable clothing brands, their clothing is generally more expensive than clothing sold from fast fashion brands. This promotes the opposite of the fast fashion “throw-away” mentality. Clothing should be invested in and be able to be worn for years before a piece needs to be replaced.
Thrift stores, such as Plato’s Closet and Goodwill, are great places to find gently used clothing and accessories for an affordable price and does not contribute to the problems of fast fashion.
Fast Fashion Brands:
- Forever 21
- Zara
- Fashion Nova
- Francesca’s Collections
- Primark
- Wal-Mart
- ASOS
- H&M
- Zaful
Online Thrift Sites/Apps:
- Mercari
- Poshmark
- thredUP
Sustainable/Ethical Brands:
- Reformation
- Everlane
- PACT
- Patagonia
- TOMS
- Alternative Apparel
- Outdoor Voices
- Thought Clothing
To find more sustainable brands, look at the list here from The Good Trade.
Fast fashion continues to exist because we keep buying from it. If we buy less clothing overall and when do choose to buy additional clothing, we support ethical brands or go thrift shopping, we will help the earth and our fellow humans.
Work Cited:
Rauturier, Solene. “What is Fast Fashion?” Good On You, 07 August 2018, https://goodonyou.eco/what-is-fast-fashion/