The term “Fast Fashion” was first used in the early 1990s by The New York Times when Zara first opened a store in New York City. Zara is famous in the clothing industry for introducing the idea of “fast fashion.” When they opened their first shop in Spain in 1975, other major clothing retailers were taking up to nine months to produce new styles; Zara cut this down to a mere 15 days (Bansal, Gransuall).
Other companies, like H&M and Forever 21, followed Zara’s lead and began manufacturing products at a faster rate and selling them at lower prices. The main key to their success was their rapid switch in styles. They produced more “trendy” looks in less time generating the feeling in their customers of missing out or lacking, even after recently purchasing new items. As fast fashion brands introduce progressively shorter trend seasons it results in “premature product replacement and fashion obsolescence” (Kozlowski, Bardecki, and Searcy 18).
With the constant stream of new clothing into already full wardrobes, there is an abundance of wasted clothing. More clothing is made to be disposed of after only a few uses. Some internet influencers will not wear the same piece of clothing more than once after posting it on their social media platforms. The high rates at which new styles are introduced promote the disposability and obsolescence of recently bought items. In all stages of the fast fashion production process, there are a variety of harmful consequences for the environment and everyone involved, from water pollution and waste, high energy consumption, and terrible working conditions, to high disposal rates, excess clothing, and the depletion of nonrenewable sources.
Clothing is everywhere, and people around the world come in contact with the fashion industry daily, at different stages of its cycle. Many people do not know or understand the consequences of supporting fast fashion or do not care enough to stop. This is an issue that affects everyone. Public attention and participation in organizations focused on discontinuing the fast fashion industry are essential.
Social pressures, trends, and consumer culture are major factors in the support of the fashion industry. Companies involved in fast fashion constantly replace trends causing a higher consumption total and more waste. Consumers are encouraged to continue to buy more to stay in the latest fashions. The pressure from media, peers, and other consumers to conform to the newest trends is a leading cause of mass consumption and disposal. The new, disposable clothing has become mainstream despite its heavy environmental and social impact.
By adding 2,000 styles to their online shop daily, pricing their clothing as low as $1, and connecting with online influencers and celebrities, Shein has become the largest online clothing retailer in 2022, prompting the new term “ultra-fast fashion.” (Kim; Williams). YouTubers like Prymrr and Laura Lee spend thousands of dollars on clothing hauls, bringing in hundreds of thousands of views to their channel and simultaneously giving the company opportunities to reach a wider audience.
The clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world, oil and gas being the top. The clothing and textile industry uses high volumes of water during the production process. Washing only one ton of clothing can take up to 200 tons of water (Rukhaya, Yadav, Rose, Grover and Bisht). The Common Objective states that at this rate, the textile industry uses 93 billion cubic meters of water every year to wash, dye, and bleach clothing, and that by 2030 these numbers will have doubled.
Not only is the industry using and wasting more than 4% of the Earth's freshwater, but it also contaminates many local waterways with untreated wastewater. The amount of water needed for cotton is nearly as consequential as the chemicals used in making synthetic fibers from oil. Both have negative effects on the environment. The 700,000 microfibers extracted from the process of washing polyester and nylon only once, contaminate the water and eventually make their way to the food chain (Rukhaya et al.).
The amount of waste that is produced by the fashion industry is enormous. The U.S. alone makes 11.3 million tons of waste each year (Dottle, Gu). Fast fashion companies contribute to this immensely. To maintain the brand's “exclusivity,” fast fashion companies like Zara have resorted to incinerating the clothing that does not sell during its season. This cycle of making the product and using, wasting, and polluting, just to burn it or throw it into a landfill is not sustainable. An article by The World Bank reports that the fashion industry is responsible for “10 % of annual global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined” (The World Bank)
In addition, truckloads of textile waste are being dumped in landfills constantly. A quote from Rona Berg shows how an effort to reduce waste could work. She writes:
For every 2 million tons of textiles that are kept out of landfills, we can reduce carbon emissions equal to taking one million cars off the road. The average American throws away about 81 pounds of clothing every year, which adds up to 26 billion pounds of textiles and clothes in landfills each year. (Berg)
With these major problems come many possible solutions. Some have more potential than others and some have only been thought about. The real thing that each one needs is community action.
The Ellen Macarthur Foundation has thought of a solution to this ecological and environmental dilemma. They believe in the “Circular Economy,” as opposed to the Linear Economy, which they say “takes, makes, and wastes.” Their plan for sustainability in the fashion industry relies on “three principles of design: Eliminate waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use, and regenerate the natural system.” This plan has the potential to slow the effects of fast fashion and lead to a sustainable way of keeping the clothing industry alive while removing the adverse effects.
Another organized solution to fast fashion is one presented by Rebeca Burgess. In 2010 she founded Fibershed, a non-profit organization centered around the idea of local, natural, and sustainable clothing and textiles. A fibershed is a specific geological location in which textiles can be grown, crafted, dyed, and sold. It is an “end-to-end” process where the materials grown in one location will be used and eventually composted back to the earth without leaving its “fibershed.”
On her website, Fibershed.org, Burgess writes, “We envision a world looking to rapidly mitigate the effects of climate change where consumers, manufacturers, designers, and ecologists collectively rethink and reimagine the lifecycle of garments.” Her approach to amending the fast fashion impact is to grow, make, and use natural products that can be sourced from the local “fibershed.”
Other ideas people have had in slowing fast fashion are social movements like the No-Buy Movement. This movement appears on YouTube and other social media platforms and is a step in the right direction. Because its main goal is only to slow out-of-control spending and cure bad habits, No-Buy is not ideal or an absolute option. Stopping the high amounts of fast fashion is necessary when trying to innovate the corrupt industry, but it is only one part of a bigger objective. To be able to solve the fast fashion problem, more than one tactic will be needed.
What each of these solutions lack is the involvement of the united public. With companies turning a blind eye to the destruction they cause and focusing on increasing production and sales, the industry will continue on. The organizations mentioned above are key to building a more sustainable and environmentally aware fashion industry, but if the majority of people continue to not know or care about the consequences, they will continue to support fast fashion. Bringing to the attention of the public the damages caused by fast fashion while also promoting sustainability, slow fashion and regenerative resource usage is the most defined approach to the industry's problem. When society cares enough to change how they shop, companies will have to revise their marketing strategy and products to fit the new wants of their customers.
Works Cited
Bansal, Tima and Gereth Gransuall. “Why Fast Fashion Has to Slow Down.” MITSloan. SloanReview, November 18, 2021. Web. 7 Oct. 2022
Berg. “Slow It Down.” Organic Spa Magazine. Organic Spa Magazine, 21 Nov. 2019. Web. 6 Oct. 2022
Burgess. Fibershed. Fibershed, 7 October 2022. Web. 8 Oct. 2022
Dottle, Gu. “The Global Glut of Clothing Is an Environmental Crisis.” Bloomberg. Bloomberg, 23 Feb. 2022. Web. 6 Oct. 2022
The Ellen Macarthur Foundation. Ellen Macarthur Foundation. 19 Aug. 2021. Web. 7 Oct. 2022
“How Much Do Our Wardrobes Cost to the Environment?” The World Bank. World Bank, 23 Sep. 2019. Web. 8 Oct 2022
Kim, Kupelian. “Chinese e-commerce giant Shein has become a $15 billion company: Here's how it gets consumers to keep spending.” INSIDER. INSIDER. 26 Jul. 2021. Web. 7 Oct. 2022
Kozlowski, Bardecki and Searcy. “Environmental Impacts in the Fashion Industry: A Life-cycle and Stakeholder Framework.” JCC 45 Spring 2012. EBSCOhost. Web. 7 Oct. 2022
Rukhaya, Yadav, Rose, Grover and Bisht. “Sustainable approach to counter the environmental impact of fast fashion.” The Pharma Innovation 2021; SP-10(8): 517-523. Web. 6 Oct. 2022
Dilys Williams. “Shein: the unacceptable face of throwaway fast fashion.” The Guardian: News Website of the Year. The Guardian, 10 Apr. 2022. Web. 7 Oct. 2022
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