Fast Fashion Explained: The Facts, the Impact, the Future
A 2018 textile waste report the average person throws away about 82 pounds of clothing every year, and around 70 of those pounds end up in landfills. When you think about it, that is an entire closet being tossed out by one person in a single year without even looking back. Since its start in the 1970s, the fast fashion industry has been growing and definitely making itself noticed, but not always in a good way. Although more people are aware of this concept in modern society, they overlook and simply do not care but the damage that the five dollar t-shirt they will wear only once and throw away might have on future generations.
The creation of the brand Zara was what bringed in the necessity for a term such as fast fashion. Fast fashion is essentially when companies copy the designs of the latest runway walks, produce them in the cheapest manner, and sell them in the same way, selling them quickly "maximise" the latest styles. Companies can create these items in such low prices because in the 1970s they found workers in Western countries that would work even thought they were being paid the absolute bare minimum. The New York Times is the one credited for creating this term to describe Zara's game plan in the 1990s. The biggest fast fashion brands are Shein, H&M, Forever 21, Uniqlo, and, of course, Zara.
Photo by Burak Başgöze via PexelsThe whole process of creating an item form the design process to the selling stage is called lead time and usually plays a major role in determining if a business is considered fast fashion or not. From the companies listed the one with the highest lead time is H&M with 8 weeks while Shein, the lowest, has an absurd 10 days lead time. This is the exact thing that separates larger luxury brands from those like Forever 21, because the lead time determines how many seasons a brand will produce in a year. The more historic top tier brands, such as Channel, Versace, Louis Vuitton, etc, have a Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer collection. On the other hand, fast fashion brands have around 50 "microseasons", creating an abundance of clothing.
Recent studies also show that the fast fashion industry shows no sign of slowing down. A Coherent MI study found that business is actually growing as they had a 41.15 billion dollar worth in 2023 which is expected to grow all the way up to 59.85 billion dollars in 2030. The enormous affect that this industry is having on our economy has been felt. A major changes that society has experienced, excluding economics, because of this is that we no longer wear our clothes as often but we buy more and more and more. The graph below shows this more visually.
When talking about the future of fast fashion the topic of environmental problems is unavoidable. The current numbers are devastating. the fact that our personal greed to own more worthless objects produces this much waste and causes this much harm to our one and only Earth is just absolutely disgusting. Currently the fast fashion makes up about 10% of global carbon emissions, more than the pollution from every international flight and all maritime shipping put together. The fashion industry drains water sources and pollutes rivers and streams, while about 85% of textiles end up in landfills each year. Each year of laundry releases roughly 500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean, which equals the impact of 50 billion plastic bottles.
One of the other major problems that has been identified is the human cost behind fast fashion. A 2018 US Department of Labor report found evidence of forced and child labor in countries such as Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and more. Rapid production pushes sales and profits to take priority over basic human welfare.
Fast fashion is a growing problem but there are a couple simple solutions that are slowing down the harm being down. A new concept called slow fashion is raising and trying to gain customers. People are buying second hand clothing at thrift shops. Brands have also take initiatives. Adidas started a personalized gear line so that the possibility of throwing these clothes away is lowered. By the same token, Ralph Lauren has become 100% sustainable. In other ways, the French government, with the assistance of president Emmanuel Macron, formed a pledge with 150 brands to push the fashion industry toward a more sustainable future. We should all work to reuse clothing and live more sustainable lives for the future of our Earth.
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