The world produces 92 tons of textile waste, every year. And the textile production is responsible for 20% of global clean water pollution. But what part of the textile industry is responsible for most of these numbers? The answer is fast fashion. A sophisticated macro economics fashion model which is extremely successful but extremely harming for our world.
Fast Fashion Business Explained:
Fast Fashion is a business model that quickly produces cheap clothes to replicate the newest trends. The apparel industry is a dynamic business with lots of demand changes. It is almost impossible to forecast the trends and demands for next season. Instead of making 2-4 collection each year fast fashion brands produce up to 40 collections. This is a very attractive strategy for customers because there’s a continuously refreshed selection.
The business model has changed the fashion industry forever by creating an efficient supply chain. It only takes fast fashion brands 10-15 days to create a new collection. These brands often outperform non fast fashion brands because of the low prices, fast supply chain agility and real time trend replication.
This might sound like a good strategy and it’s true fast fashion brands are very successful. But if you look closer to the consequences of this business model you will see that the environment incurs an ecological cost.
The Fast Fashion Industry produces more CO2 than the international aviation and shipping industry combined. 80% of apparel is produced by women between 18-24, but there are also child workers who are working for the fast fashion industry. Fast Fashion is a huge problem for the environment, the number of times a clothing piece is worn decreases every year.
So why do people wear it?
The consequences of fast fashion are dreadful but for the customers there are numerous benefits.
At the time a clothing piece would be damaged, no one cares anymore because theres already a new trend. Which of course the fast fashion brand has first in the store so you can buy it again wear it for some weeks until there is a new trend. And adding to that it’s very cheap you get multiple pieces that are in the trend for the price you can get one clothing piece by a non fast fashion brand thats out of style anyways.
–Low Prices: Fast Fashion clothes are often produced in Bangladesh, Vietnam, China in these countries workers are often underpaid and work many, many hours under bad
conditions. Brands use cheap materials like polyester or nylon to produce the clothes, they often contain plastic, the clothes are woven thin and poorly which makes the clothes cheap but worn out fast.
–Trends: Trends change fast – so does fast fashion, the main goal of fast fashion is to always have the latest trends on the clothes hangers. And the ultimate aim of style conscious customers is to maintain trendy clothes thor wardrobe . If you’re looking for the clothes everyone is wearing online and you can only find them in the stores of fast fashion chains you are very likely to buy them. In the end the you’ve got what you’ve wanted, and the brand is rewarded too for producing the newest trends in a fast time.
–Social Media: Social Media is a primary engine driving fast fashion today. In-App “shop-now” buttons are very common and support fast fashion. The build in “shop now” buttons allow the customers to acquire garments within seconds.
The fast fashion industry we see seems perfect, but it’s important to be aware of the disadvantages of the fast fashion business model.
How can we change it:
I’d like to end this article with suggestions on how to address the issue.
Change your shopping style:
No one has to stop shopping for clothes but you can be more careful with choosing which fashion brands you support. Look at the price tag and think about if it’s possible to create a good clothing piece at this price. See where it was produced and check if it was sewed well.
There are also websites like https://directory.goodonyou.eco/ and https://fashionchecker.org/brand-profile.html?q=7217 where you can check if the brand you’re buying from is good and if the workers get paid well. But please be careful and don’t believe everything these checkers say they tend to answer very negative.
Shopping alternatives:
The easiest thing to do against fast fashion is stop buying and start supporting slow fashion. However it is clear that slow fashion often is more expensive or probably just has fair prices, which has its justified reasons so there are many, many other alternatives. A trendy, cheap and environment friendly solution could be buying vintages respectively second handclothes. The second hand appel market has grown 21 Billion Dollar since 2019, thrifting is a massive global trend that gives you the option to fight fast fashion and buy affordable high quality clothes.
Change it yourself:
If you really want to contend with fast fashion you could organise clothes trading events, sell you own clothes online, start sewing clothes with eco-friendly materials or write articles about the consequences of fast fashion and what to do to stop it.
I hope you have developed a deeper understanding of the fast fashion industry and its disadvantages. I’m certain there will be many more eco-friendly fashion options in the future.