Fast Fashion has gone to far

Fast fashion is terrible for the environment and has grown so much as a business model it can be stopped. 

Fast fashions main priority is to constantly mass produce inexpensive clothing with cheap labour and cheap materials which leads to a low-quality product. 

Creating clothes in this way leads to environmental damage and major infringement on worker rights. 

There isn't much anyone can do about it anymore the industrial machine that fast fashion has become is too large to be slowed down by any boycotts or policy change as it is global. 

Elaine Ritch Reader in Fashion Sustainability and Marketing said: “
I don't think that fast fashion can ever be sustainable because the very premise of it is not built on sustainability. It's all about doing things cheaply, selling items cheaply and encouraging people to buy more than they need and not keeping it for particularly long.” 

Shein ships to over 160 countries and your everyday fast fashion shops that litter high streets are on every continent. 

No matter where in the world you are can have a 10-pound pair of jeans sent to you by one of these relatively quickly if you ignore the immense damage it causes to the environment. 

The industry gained the name fast fashion due to its ability to quickly and inexpensively create clothes that follow current designer trends to keep up with consumer demand. 

It's easy to spot fast fashion brands as they normally all follow the same business model. 

These brands will constantly drop new clothing following consumer trends in an out with the old in with the new mindset. 

They'll offer their clothes extremely cheap, even suspiciously cheap in some cases where it's obvious to see that it would be impossible to produce the item of clothing for as cheap as a Tesco meal deal. 

In the current age of internet subcultures and fleeting micro trends fast fashion is extremely profitable. Items of clothing go in and out the cultural zeitgeist faster than ever and fast fashion stores are the only place that you can buy clothes cheap enough to keep up with fashion trends without shovelling your bank account to designer brands. 

The fast fashion business model works especially due to how cheap you can get the clothes. they offer clothes that follow fleeting trends and these clothes often go to waste if they aren't donated. 

Whilst fast fashion is destroying the environment they also make it extremely difficult to survive as a small brand as all the products that small brands can create these companies can produce cheaper and quicker plus they already have large brand names that people feel safe shopping with due to return policies. 

Local businesses often rely on sustainable materials or even better locally sourced materials which means their cost to manufacture is much higher and they have much tighter profit margins. 

Local businesses also almost never have the manpower to follow trends as quickly as they rise and fall online whereas major fast fashion companies have teams of people working to find out what the best shape of jeans they need to push next year. 

Factors like these can stop small brands from getting off the ground and stop local boutiques from being able to get a foothold in their community as people are more likely to commute to go shopping in a big city rather than stop on a small high street for clothes. 

The best you can do is shop consciously and potentially donate or upcycle your clothes to extend their lifecycle. 

Ritch Said: “I think if we are in the mindset that if we buy something we own it, but what about different ways of getting access to something for 1 to 5 to maybe even ten wears. 

“If renting became more popular and more accessible and had the right type of clothing that people wanted to wear might be a way in which to access something more sustainable.” 

There are many ways you could shop more consciously for example The Adam Smith business school at Glasgow Uni partnered with the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice to make the Worthwhile Wardrobe programme. 

Interview with Ramony Kerray Manager of the City Centre Prince and princess of wales hospice shops

The Worthwhile Wardrobe programme gets donated high-quality clothing that you can buy for 20-30% of the original price and if you return it, you get 15% off your next worthwhile wardrobe purchase. 

However circular business models like this can't keep up with the output of fast fashion as they rely primarily on donations along with costumers returning with the clothes they purchased to remain fully stocked. 

Fast fashion has the capability to buy big social media campaigns with your favourite influencers and celebrities to wear their clothes that have been handpicked by large teams as the trendiest clothes in large media campaigns. 

Ritch Said: “it comes to you from social media or via emails whereas for worthwhile wardrobe you must go into that space but there is no reason why we can't adapt those behaviours.  

Going into a space means having a social encounter which can enhance the experience.” 

This is damning as Worthwhile Wardrobe and other circular business models renew the lifecycle of clothes that would have gone to waste whereas fast fashion is slowly polluting the earth with immense use of water and waste. 

The textile industry produces 5-10% of greenhouse gas emissions due to the long process of producing, packaging, shipping these textiles from countries where the cost of work is cheap like in Southeast Asia and Africa to countries in Europe or America. 

In 2018 pre Covid which caused a major jump in online shopping therefor a rise in shipping the textile industry produced 2.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses globally. 

Fossil fuels are primarily consumed on boats and planes during shipping as the size of seasonal collections produced by these brands are huge and many of the companies are all over the world. 

Although it seems strange the world wildlife fund says that: “it takes 2,700 litres of water to produce one cotton t-shirt.” 

Fast fashion uses water in a variety of different ways during the lifecycle of its products. It's used in agriculture when growing cotton. Then after the cottons been grown the fabric must be dyed bleached and washed before it can be turned into clothes and shipped. 

Fast fashion consumes these finite materials like they are free and do it purely for-profit margins on large spreadsheets. 

Ritch Said: “That whole cycle is built for profitability for the retailer or the brand owner and there's nothing built into the system that makes it sustainable at all.” 

The best thing to do is to do your research before you buy support local businesses and give back to the community rather than a faceless company. 

But most importantly look to your own spending habits and change them to look less at trends that will come and go. Look more for durable clothing that won't need replaced and when you think it's time to throw out clothes take them to a tailor and see if it can be salvaged, saved or donated to a local charity.