Shopping for clothes used to be something that only happened when it was a necessity. Over the last 20 years, our fashion industry went through an immens change. Clothes are being bought more frequently, over-production is happening, big companies focus on mass-production on a low cost, everything has become easily accessible on the internet… The biggest amount are fast fashion brands instead brands that focus on craftsmanship; things that are being made for a purpose. And this mentality in both the society and in the fashion industry is destroying our planet.
What is Fast Fashion?
For at least a decade now, we know a lot of fast fashion companies ship their fabrics to low income countries to push the price of fabrication down. The last few years we have discovered what is really happening behind those closed curtains and it is NOT a great show to watch.
What is an exact definition of fast fashion and why does our company not support it?
The word ‘Fast Fashion’ tells the meaning with words itself. Fashion made to fit the fast needs of customers with new designs in store every 6 weeks. The clothes must be produced fast, to be in store fast, to eventually be sold fast. Every item made as fast as possible with no well considered thoughts of the humans behind the process nor the finish of the products (threads hanging loose, clothes of bad quality,…).
The idea behind this concept is to meet the needs of the customer. The need to be able to wear ‘new’ pieces frequently because wearing the same clothes over and over again is thought to be ‘so last season’. Most people also feel the need to keep up with the ongoing trends to stay relevant in society. Most people will recognise themselves in this without realising that this is actually a very toxic thought. A thought that the society has taught us to encourage this mass production in order for that the big business can make more and more money.
This way of thinking has influenced our society so much, that fast fashion has become one of the world’s largest polluters. Since the year 2000 our clothing consumption has doubled. Knowing what happened the last 2 years with the several lockdowns, this might even have tripled.
What qualifies as Fast Fashion?
A fast fashion company can be recognised with several components:
- Production is as cost-effective as possible
- High circulation rate of rapidly continouing collections
- Production in low-income countries
- High environmental impact
- Low quality = short lifespan of clothes
How to recognize if a brand is fast fashion?
If you think about these components, do you recognize any of these from the fashion brands where you already are buying?
- Polluting and cheap fabrics
- Low garment quality
- High quantity of new styles
- Only focus on trendy clothing (not durable and timeless clothing)
- Extremely low prices
- Low efforts in environmental protection
Where is fast fashion made?
Most fast fashion garments are made by people who are severely underpaid in China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and several Asian countries, among others. It is a product-based concept of making as many garments as quickly as possible under the lowest possible price. This way the companies can get the most profit out of it.
Exploiting their workers
Fast fashion is known for the environment in which their workers have to work. They are exploited in very dangerous work environments for low pay and without basic humane rights. Other known factors that also happen in these environments are sexual abuse and physical assault. Not only men and women work in these environments but unfortunately also many children. Because of more awareness, more and more people are paying attention to these issues, both to stop the exploitation and to buy less fast fashion clothing by buying at local handmade shops.
What makes a fashion brand unethical?
As mentioned above, many fast fashion garments are made in wretchedly unethical environments. But when is a garment made unethically?
What does unethical mean?
Unethical is defined as behavior that goes against societal norms: lying, cheating and stealing.
Within fashion this can be translated into, among other things, the well-known problem of “greenwashing”.
Greenwashing involves trying all sorts of tricks to divert attention from larger problems in the company. They start drafting so-called sustainability strategies, appointing influencers as ambassadors for these strategies, making false or incomplete claims that are not supported by evidence or even magnifying small sustainable activities (e.g. recycled packaging) to mask other things…. Thus to divert attention from the many environmental and ethical issues in which these clothes are produced. These fast fashion companies pretend to be greener or more sustainable than they really are.
Want to more about how this is destroying our planet? Or the difference between fast fashion, slow fashion, second hand fashion and recycled fashion?
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