Fast Fashion
Fast fashion is the design, manufacturing, and marketing of cheap clothing, focused on catering to fashion trends as opposed to longevity. Some of the effects include textile waste, unethical labour conditions, microfibre pollution and manufacturing emissions; showing it effects our planet environmentally and socially.
The New York times states more than 60% of fabric fibres are now synthetic, which are derived from fossil fuels. Therefore, when it ends up in landfills they will not decay, as well as synthetic microfibres that end up in the deepest parts of the ocean and highest glacier peaks. Future archaeologists may look at landfills taken over by nature and discover evidence of Zara. According to a report released by The Guardian, “Child labour is a particular issue for fast fashion because much of the supply chain requires low-skilled labour and some tasks are better suited to children.” A popular example of a fast fashion wholesaling business is SHEIN. It is commonly known that buying from SHEIN is always a gamble, but the cheap prices make up for it. What people don’t know is that they have many fast fashion factories in Bangladesh with employers down to the age of 14. According to Euro News they forced to work 60–80 hours a week, without any paid overtime or health benefits, and may be subjected to harassment, intimidation, and unsafe work environments. Likewise, sweatshops have been linked to major corporations around the world and will often make use of illegal child labour, and rely on the extreme exploitation of their employees.
Some of the largest fast fashion companies (along with SHEIN) are ZARA, Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, H&M, Fashionnova, Boohoo, ASOS, Zaful and Romwe. We can help by increasing the demand of thrift stores and second-hand platforms like Depop and Poshmark, to stop fast fashion companies producing at a faster rate than the planet can handle.
