Fast Fashion

Rowan Farrell
GEOG 300
Object of Concern Paper
 
Introduction:
         Fashion has been a part of our culture and how one expresses themselves for decades. Fashion goes into first impressions, blends with our individual personalities, and helps boost confidence. Despite how postitive fashion can be, however, there has been an increase in the societal norm of staying relevant through one’s clothing choices and judgement if trends aren’t followed. These ideas are fueled by mainstream culture, which likes to stay on top of trends, and fast fashion, which helps the average consumer feel like their favorite influencer without breaking the bank or having to wait ages for a look to be released. Fast fashion, which is an industry that samples ideas from the latest catwalk and celebrity trends and turns them into mass produced and affordable clothes as quick as possible, has changed the fashion industry forever (Fashionista). However, this seemingly great method of buying textiles at low costs and supplying to the masses is not a sustainable system, as clothes made by fast fashion brands are only made to last as long as the trend does. According to Good on You, the whole idea behind fast fashion is to get the newest styles on the market as fast as possible, so shoppers can snap them up while they are still at the height of their popularity, and then, sadly, discard them after a few wears. Aside from its wasteful intent, fashion production makes up 10% of humanity’s carbon emssions, more than “all international flights and maritime shipping combined”, and if fast fashion continues on its current trajectory, the UN predicts that these emissions could rise 60% by 2030 (Business Insider & The United Nations).
 
 
A Brief History of Fast Fashion
         Fashion first really emerged during the Industrial Revolution with the introduction of the sewing machine. Before that, clothes took much longer to make because they were hand woven with materials like sheep’s wool and leather, so not much thought was given to how the clothes looked or how other people would think about them, with the exception of the upper class. With the sewing machine came textile factories and bulk clothing produced in different sizes, resulting in a massive price drop for fashion pieces and a wider range of people being able to purchase them (Fashionista). Fast fashion, however, didn’t really emerge until the 1960s in Europe with the success of brands such as Zara, H&M, and TopShop. These brands, who are still top of their industry, came as a result of increased demand for affordable clothing that followed the trends, being able to do so through cost cutting measures such as using cheap fabrics, outsourcing labor to developing countries overseas, and underpaying employees (Good on You). The popularity of these brands and their cheap, high-fashion looking clothes spread worldwide and were soon opening stores in America, which was then followed by Americans starting their own brands such as Express, Forever 21, and American Eagle. Though the norm of these times was to purchase items from either department stores or from the hands of dressmakers, these were pricey options and took a long time to produce, so there was an increasing acceptability to wear low-cost fashion that allowed these newcomer brands to gain traction so quick, with the New York Times even stating in 2000 that it was now “chic to pay less” (Fashionista).
         Today, we see clothing much differently. Gone are the days of flipping through catalogs and saving up to buy a chic fur coat from a top name brand, as we can now purchase a dupe of a clothing item on our phones mere hours after it has been debuted on the runway. Design and production usually takes a few months to hit the market after debuting at a show, but fast fashion takes that aspect away, and due to its popularity, other designers are starting to increase their work speed as well. The mainstream expectation today is to have a closet overflowing with garments that show a preference of quantity over quality. In fact, due to the popularity of the fast fashion model that creates clothes not made to last, the average American now generates 82 pounds of textile waste each year (The True Cost). One day, maybe even soon, fast fashion will be the dominating method of purchasing clothes despite its unsustainable nature. 
 
An Economical Perspective
         From an economical perspective, fast fashion is a great moneymaker and a perfect industry model. There’s more consumer spending and less money being spent on fabrics and labor, therefore leading to more profits for the company. The consumers also get to win in this situation, as more people are able to wear what they just saw their favorite celebrity or influencer flaunt on Instagram with exact links to where their budget-friendly outfits or dupes are from.  According to Earth.org, this system works because, unlike the seasonal lines that other fashion brands put out, fast fashion brands have about 52 “micro-seasons” per year, churning out new items all the time and enough products to apply to any demographic. The streamlined system involves “rapid design, production, distributing and marketing” (Earth.org), meaning that retailers are able to get less amounts of a greater variety of products and consumers are able to add more fashion pieces to their closets at low prices. While the model works for retailers, designers, and consumers, the fast fashion industry is also valued for its contribution to the economy. For example, the overall fashion industry in the UK rose to a record 32 billion pounds last year (Evening Standard) with the spike in fast fashion purchases. 
         For more perspective on the efficiency difference between fast fashion and conventional design, the lead time (the amount of time it takes for a product to go from design to purchase) for high quality brands can take up to 50 weeks. Meanwhile, brands like Zara and Forever 21 are able to design, produce, and deliver new pieces in as little as two weeks (Earth.org). This difference and pressure in demand is causing fashion brands from all over the world to rethink their models, as consumers are showing to be much more willing to buy a low quality dupe at a cheaper price and quicker rate than waiting weeks for a high priced garment from a well-known brand, even though those pieces would last a lot longer due to the quality difference. The typical lead time of 50 weeks can also be detrimental to those companies, as trends change fast and can lead to markdowns as soon as their products hit the market due to the shift from one big trend to another within that time. Even CEOs of big brands, like Jenny Holloway for Fashion Enter, agree that fast fashion is better, as for them, it means “reducing the quantities retailers are buying and selling all of those clothes at full price” rather than having to mark them down if items are taking longer to sell out, typical of a seasonal line (The Manufacturer). For them, fast fashion models are the ones to be following and mimicking despite those brands using lower quality materials and cheap labor in order to achieve what they do. 
 
Fast Fashion and Environmental Ethics
         Unfortunately, the low monetary price of these garments comes at a high price to the planet. Not only is the clothing made by fast fashion brands made to be disposed, but the pollution and emissions that are created through production are dangerously high and expected to climb even higher as fast fashion continues to be in high demand. According to the documentary The True Cost, the world consumes about 80 billion new pieces of clothing each year, 400% more than in 1995, even though they keep the clothes for half as long. So, where do these clothes go when the consumer disposes of it? The dump! While it may be assumed that many people hold onto their clothes in hopes that the trends they belong to make a comeback, 85% of textiles made each year end up in landfills, which is the equivalent to one garbage truck full of clothes being burnt or dumped each second (Business Insider). Much of this disposal is due to the low quality of the clothes, as they’re made with synthetic fibers such as polyester, nylon, and acrylic that are very energy intensive to produce and use large amounts of petroleum. These synthetic fibers have a number of problems associated with them, both in production and after disposal. For example, polyester production releases up to triple the amount of carbon emissions than cotton does, and all the synthetic fibers listed take hundreds of years to biodegrade, with many of their pieces ending up in the ocean (Earth.org). In fact, the IUCN reported in 2017 that micro plastics produced from the laundering of synthetic textiles made up 35% of all the microplastics in the ocean (Business Insider). 
         Another key piece to making these clothes is water. According to Business Insider, the fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water worldwide, as it takes about 700 gallons to produce one shirt, and 2,000 gallons for a pair of jeans. However, fast fashion is second place not only for consuming the substance, but polluting it as well. Textile dyeing, which gives clothes their color through an aqueous process, has earned the fashion industry the title of the world’s second largest polluter of water as leftovers from the dyeing process is dumped into rivers and streams (Business Insider). As a whole, this intensive process makes up 36% of the industry’s global pollution (Earth.org). 
         Labor is another vital part of why fast fashion is able to produce clothing as fast as it does. In fact, “one in six people work in some part of the global fashion industry, making it the most labor dependent industry” (The True Cost). However, not all of this labor is ethical. A 2018 report from the US Department of Labor found evidence of forced and child labor in the fashion industry in many countries including Argentina, Brazil, China, and the Philippines (Earth.org). 
         To effectively combat a system that uses a handful of harmful tactics, of course, is to change them. On the consumer side, Environment and Society notes that efforts at conservation from brands “are driven not by altruism or green sensibilities, but rather by a simple response to market forces”. One way that consumers are starting to reduce their direct purchases from fast fashion brands but still getting their fix of the trends is through buying from secondhand sellers from apps such as Poshmark or Depop. People are also increasingly looking for clothes made with sustainable fabrics such as wild silk, organic cotton, hemp, and lyocell (Earth.org). From the production side, The World Resources Institue suggests that companies need to “design, test, and invest in business models that reuse clothes and maximize their useful life”. One way to do this would be to impose the market-based solutions listed in table 3.1 of Environment and Society such as green taxes, which are said to have “greatly increased recyclying and more careful attention by consumers to packaging and waste”. 
 
Conclusion
On one hand, the fast fashion industry has been a game changer for brands, allowing them to pump out a plethora of textiles in less time for less cost, while reaping great benefits from consumer spending. On the other hand, the fast fashion industry is continually and increasingly wreaking havoc on the environment through their unsustainable methods. While consumers can choose to switch to clothes that are more eco-friendly or second-hand, the fate of fast fashion really lies in the hands of these name brands who are going to have a customer base no matter what. They need to be called out and held accountable for their damaging model and make it so reusable and sustainable is the forever trend. Fashion and how one looks will always be part of our society, but making sustainable choices when it comes to what we wear will really seal the fate of how fashion impacts our planet.
 
 
Works Cited
“Fashion Industry, UN Pursue Climate Action for Sustainable Development.” Unfccc.int, Jan.        2018, unfccc.int/news/fashion-industry-un-pursue-climate-action-for-sustainable-    development. 
Idacavage, Sara. “Fashion History Lesson: The Origins of Fast Fashion.” Fashionista, Fashionista, 8 June 2016, fashionista.com/2016/06/what-is-fast-fashion. 
Maiti, Rashmila. “Fast Fashion: Its Detrimental Effect on the Environment: Earth.Org - Past: Present: Future.” Earth.Org - Past | Present | Future, 13 Aug. 2020, earth.org/fast-fashions-detrimental-effect-on-the-environment/. 
“Markets and Commodities .” Environment and Society: a Critical Introduction, by Paul Robbins et al., John Wiley Et Sons, Inc, 2014, pp. 31–48. 
McFall-Johnsen, Morgan. “The Fashion Industry Emits More Carbon than International Flights and Maritime Shipping Combined. Here Are the Biggest Ways It Impacts the Planet.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 21 Oct. 2019, www.businessinsider.com/fast-fashion-environmental-impact-pollution-emissions-waste-water-2019-10. 
Morgan, Andrew, director. The True Cost. True Cost Movie, Life Is My Movie Entertainment, 2015, truecostmovie.com. 
Rautureir, Solene. “What Is Fast Fashion?” Good On You, 18 Nov. 2020, goodonyou.eco/what-is-fast-fashion/. 
Sleigh, Sophia. “The UK Fashion Industry Is Now Worth £32 Billion to the UK Economy.” London Evening Standard | Evening Standard, Evening Standard, 13 Sept. 2018, www.standard.co.uk/insider/fashion/uk-fashion-industry-ps32-billion-uk-economy-british-fashion-council-caroline-rush-a3934781.html. 
White, Maddy. “Fast Fashion Is Getting Faster and That's a Good Thing.” The Manufacturer, 10 May 2019, www.themanufacturer.com/articles/fast-fashion-getting-faster-thats-good-thing/. 

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