Everything You Need to Know About Fast Fashion

Before you can understand what you should know about Fast Fashion, you first need to know what this type of fashion happens to be.

This type of fashion refers to clothing that is mass-produced and made quickly, cheaply, and in trending styles to get it to marketers as fast as possible. Sometimes it’s for runway styles that need to get up on the stage; other times it’s for the seasonal looks we see in magazines, but this type of fashion is often the type that you probably don’t want to buy and have in your closet.

Think of Consumable Goods

When you’re looking for a comparison with fast fashion and other industries, just think of consumable goods. Some aspects of your life have to be replaced and upgraded regularly to continue to give you the feeling and experience you desire. You replace the water filter in your refrigerator, the oil in your car, and the air filter in your home; the same is true for this type of fashion. These clothes aren’t made to last more than a few wash cycles, but that’s ok. If you buy clothes made this way, you know it’s only good for the season you purchased them for.

Fashion from the Industrial Revolution

The world used to be a bigger place; at least, that’s how it feels. Travel that used to take weeks now only takes a few hours or a single day. Not only has the world gotten more accessible, but machinery also that is made to automate much of the textile industry (sewing machine, power loom) allowed companies to make clothing and other products much faster than ever before. Once production of clothing was moved to areas where cheap labor was present, items could be made and sold cheaply, which spurred the idea of changing a wardrobe more often than ever before.

What are the Consequences of Fast Fashion?

Low Pay for Workers

A large textile industry in the United States would likely be backed by a strong union that demands a living wage for all workers. Because most of the garments that are part of this fashion trend are made in Asia and Latin America, that isn’t the case. Most of the workers are not paid a living wage and end up living their lives in poverty. This is one reason you see an uproar when it’s discovered that a popular name uses “sweatshops” to produce their products.

Pollution is Rampant

Producing synthetic materials, special patterns, and color varieties take machines and chemicals that pollute the air. With many companies in other parts of the world, regulations for air pollution aren’t as strong as they would be in the United States. Textile production is the third-largest manufacturing industry in the world, and that leads to tons of pollutants are being sent into the atmosphere. This industry is often associated with using non-biodegradable fabrics, chemical processing, and disposing of waste into water streams, lakes, and oceans, which can seriously harm the planet and our ability to live on it.

Serious Losses in this Industry

Fast Fashion creates one of the largest losses in the world. More than $500 billion of value is lost every year with clothes that go unsold or unused and a serious lack of recycling and recyclable materials in these items. If you wonder where your discarded clothing goes when you don’t need it any longer, most are simply disposed of into landfills. Some fashion companies can be seen tossing items in the dumpster or burning unsold items when a new trend has arrived. Both situations are bad for the environment.

More Water is Used Than You Might Expect

To produce a single cotton t-shirt, 2,700 liters of water have to be used. That’s a lot of water just to make one shirt; think about how many of the same shirts can be found around the world. To make other items, more water is used. The textile industry not only uses more water than most, but it also produces more than 20 percent of the global wastewater, and that water is mostly polluted with toxic chemicals and dyes. To put the 2,700 liters of water into perspective, that’s how much water a normal person will drink in three years; and that’s just to make a t-shirt.

A Huge Wage Gap is Present

The loss of $500 billion might not sound as damning when you consider the fashion industry accounts for $3 trillion per year. That’s two percent of the global GDP, which is pretty significant. Unfortunately, $1 trillion of this money is in the fast fashion sector. The factory workers in this sector often make less than three dollars per day, which is absurd. More absurd than that, it only takes CEOs of these fashion companies about four days to make more money than the workers will see in their entire lifetime.

A Strong Global Workforce

If you were told that 40 million people work in the fast fashion industry all over the world, you might think that this industry is a good one. Unfortunately, nearly 4 million of those workers are in the 5,000 factories in Bangladesh, which is where cheap labor is rampant. Another part of this that’s messed up is the fact that more than 80 percent of the people making these minuscule wages are women, which is a form of female exploitation, not of any form of empowerment.

What Can You Do?

While garments made in an industry that is churning out the latest styles at cheap prices sounds great, if you’re trying to be socially conscious and only support companies that respect humanity, you should avoid these garments. Check the tags, find out where the clothing you buy is made, and try and buy items that are made to last, not disposable. You can’t change the entire world, and this fashion industry will likely continue to flourish, but you can make the right decision for your wardrobe and enjoy clothing that lasts a long time, offers you the look and function you enjoy.