Fast fashion is on display everywhere the consumer looks.
Urban Outfitters, H& M, Victoria’s Secret, Zara, The Gap, Forever 21 – these all but ubiquitous brands, among many similar others, comprise the fast fashion industry. Inexpensive and constantly changing, it is clothing produced with cheap labor, low-cost materials and little regard for working conditions or environmental concerns. The resulting delivery to retail shelves of low-cost, up-to-date fashion is the allure, in particular, for high school and college students with tight budgets. Consumers buy and don the clothes until they wear or trend out, dispose of them, and do it all again when the next trend arrives. This cycle is repeated by millions around the world. The consequence of this over-consumption of the last few decades has led to enormous growth in textile waste, water pollution, runs on natural resources, and human rights violations of garment industry workers. That is not sustainable or ethical.
In her 2019 book, Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes,
Dana Thomas, a Paris based veteran fashion and culture journalist who has penned articles for the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Financial Times of London and Wall Street Journal, calls fast fashion “a disease, [from which] the planet and its people are paying the price.” Zara alone, Thomas reports, churns out more than 800 million pieces of clothing every year for its 6,000 stores with most of its workers earning sub-poverty wages and living in squalor. Thomas continues by noting that “rivers in China, India, and Bangladesh are being inundated by wastewater effluent from garment factories and are replete with cancer-causing chemicals, plastic microfibers and dead zones.” The fast fashion industry is based on efficiencies, be damned the consequences, so long as low quality, low-cost clothes ship and sell.
By keeping prices low and forever changing stock to create and keep up with trends, it is no surprise that fast fashion is aimed at high school and college students. Buying ethically and sustainably manufactured clothing can be expensive and time-consuming for people who are generally short on both. On top of that, Dana Thomas points out in Fashionopolis, there is the “Cinderella syndrome — where you wear it once, you post on Instagram, and then you get rid of it. There exists a culture of thinking if you’ve been seen in the same outfit more than a couple of times, it is time to be rid of it.”
It is not all gloom and doom though. Solutions are available and becoming more so, whether that be in developing microfiber recycling technology, trends toward local manufacturing, a new generational pressure to improve garment industry working conditions and wages, and alternatives to retail itself like resale and rental. Manufacturers will change if their demographic changes its habits and becomes choosy. Thanks to word of mouth and social media, fast fashion consumers are beginning to not only understand, but appreciate its true costs. TikTok and Instagram have been powerful and reliable outlets to expose fast fashion brands and point customers toward more sustainable makers and online secondhand shops like Poshmark and Depop.
Right here at CHS, the student body, in the main, is cognizant of the problem and willing to address it. Senior Ava Northrup, Junior Annie Jenkins and Freshman Savanna Rowles were all aware of the problematic environmental and labor issues associated with fast fashion. Northrup said that “if possible, [she] would probably stop buying” fast fashion, but that “cost is an issue.” Likewise, Rowles remarked that she “tries to avoid unsustainable clothing because of the environmental issues” but understands it “may be a necessity for those without resources.” Jenkins noted that she has begun “to limit [her] fast fashion purchases and go to the thrift store more often.”
In addition to thrift shops, and online secondhand stores, here is a link to dozens of retailers who are bucking the fast fashion trend and working to produce sustainable clothing:
Please consider, when making brand choices, these and like companies or thrift stores rather than unsustainable fast fashion. Also consider simply keeping clothes for a longer period of time and donating them after use. Our environment and the women, men and children working in the garment industry will all benefit directly. We can all do our part to break this cycle of waste, one piece of clothing at a time.
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