Where does fast fashion come from? 1
The apparent benefits for consumers 1
But who is at risk of all this? 2
Ultimately, how much does fast fashion pollute? . 3
What is Fast Fashion?
The main characteristic of fast fashion is speed . Speed in the industrial production of clothing; speed in its distribution within large retail chains; speed in the consumption of fashion items and the massive production of waste.
But what does the English term “fast fashion” mean? Fashion obviously refers to the sale of clothing ; fast because these garments have two characteristics: they are ” fast ” in terms of cost (the price is always very low!) and they are restocked at the speed of light.
Fast fashion clothing is practically everywhere : shopping malls, large chains, and high streets . It’s produced with the aim of “attracting” consumers based on two characteristics: aesthetics and price . Consumers are enticed to purchase by displaying a product that’s both attractive and affordable . This perfect combination has given rise to veritable monsters in the world of this junk fashion industry.
Where does fast fashion come from?
From the United States, of course. It was first discussed in the New York Times in 1989, in connection with Zara clothing , which opened its first store in New York that year. That New York Times article referred to a new way of understanding the clothing business . A trend in which items were not replaced with the changing seasons, but rather with the physical end of the products to be consumed : and so, rapidly, a new collection appeared on Zara’s shelves every two weeks in record time , leaving customers without even the physical time to actually consume the product.
Around the 1970s, fast fashion saw its boom in clothing production: this is how the first companies were born, initially family-run; they later transformed into full-fledged industries with dizzying production times.
The apparent benefits for consumers
The consumer benefits from being able to purchase clothing frequently (thus renewing their wardrobe even twice in a single season) at a very affordable price . Furthermore, consumers are encouraged to purchase because the garments are beautiful (since 90% of them are copied from famous fashion brands!). What consumers don’t know, because it’s obviously not explicitly stated, is that this fast fashion actually comes at a very high cost in terms of pollution, labor, and work.
The hottest fast fashion brand in recent years is undoubtedly Shein . This seemingly new company has actually been in business for 15 years. It sells exclusively online through an e-commerce platform. What does it sell? A bit of everything. Chinese products , of course, sold at rock-bottom prices. Shein is undoubtedly one of the most popular e-commerce sites in the world ; its numbers are impressive (it was last valued at around $60 million). But what is Shein? How does it actually work? And above all, how do they upload such a huge quantity of products to a platform every single day?
Every day, 500 new products are uploaded to this site’s e-commerce platform. How can a brand achieve such production capacity? Simply by copying other people’s products; Shein copies other fashion brands, artists, and professionals. Everything can be copied, and that’s why the company is literally inundated with plagiarism lawsuits.
Who buys fast fashion?
Young, very young consumers. Users whose purchasing power is obviously low, but also users motivated by what could be considered one of the greatest evils of this century: “the need to accumulate things,” which quickly turns into an addiction to “frenzied buying.” Younger people are undoubtedly the main victims of these companies, which ultimately do nothing more than sell and make the dream come true: owning “beautiful” things that “look” like luxury and being able to buy them at a rock-bottom price.
Yes, because Shein products, obviously copied from those of other brands or other artists, aren’t aesthetically unattractive at all; on the contrary, they’re very attractive (thanks also to the extraordinary photography and video work the company puts in). And so the desire of many to own a beautiful and expensive object intended for a select few becomes available to everyone; the possession of an object that remains beautiful (or so it seems) with the advantage of being affordable. The dream of luxury becoming accessible to all ; the desire to continually possess something new, ready to feed every ego, is suddenly fulfilled.
Younger people, therefore, are the regular consumers of fast fashion and other e-commerce sites offering “apparently beautiful and high-quality” Chinese goods at bargain prices. These are the same young people who are extremely active in environmental protection; the same people who take to the streets to defend nature, with its rivers, lakes, and flower-filled fields; the same people who purchase the most polluting products in the world.
But who pays for all this?
Those who pay the highest price are undoubtedly the workers. Exploited, underpaid, in some cases enslaved. Exhausting shifts, starvation wages, and, of course, zero rights. Mass production at the lowest possible wage. Large junk fashion companies almost always relocate production to countries like Tunisia and Morocco where labor is extremely cheap. The work shifts, as mentioned, are exhausting, and often the workers are mostly women and children. The low production costs naturally enable the low prices of the products on the market.
However, it’s not just labor that suffers in terms of labor exploitation, but also the land. The environmental impact of fast fashion is devastating. First and foremost, there’s no quality control along the production chain : it starts with the use of low-quality fabrics , often harmful because they’re loaded with chemicals , and then moves on to the accumulation of pesticides, dyes, and toxic chemicals used for coloring or bleaching. The entire fast fashion production chain thus becomes a source of environmental pollution . This is, of course, made even worse by the disposable consumption of these products, which—like a vicious cycle in reverse—continually generates more and more pollution.
But, in practice, how much pollution does a t-shirt purchased for two euros cause? Making one requires almost three thousand liters of water , partly because the cotton plants must be continuously irrigated. The toxic residues of all Chinese and naturally synthetic products (which, among other things, contain lead, PFAS, and phthalates in percentages well above those permitted by law) obviously end up in rivers, and therefore in our seas. Eventually, they pollute it.
But that’s not all. According to many scientific publications, these Chinese fabrics are unhealthy, and contact with the skin can be highly toxic. In short, they pollute the environment and cause personal harm.
Finally, one of the major problems with fast fashion is the speed at which the product is consumed and discarded by consumers. As you might imagine, a t-shirt sold for two euros won’t last long and probably won’t even last a season; this means that Chinese products are purchased, quickly consumed, and quickly discarded . Translated into numbers, every year there are 92 tons of textile waste , of which only a small portion (about 15%) is recycled.
The majority of these tons of waste comes from fast fashion because consumers are driven to buy frenetically (often buying more than they need, encouraged by the low price), consume quickly (the quality of our T-shirt is so poor it won’t last more than a few washes in the washing machine), and finally throw away, producing waste in a cycle of pollution that begins the moment the product is designed (stealing ideas and work from brands and designers), continues with polluting production, and ends in the accumulation of waste that can’t even be recycled.
Ultimately, how much pollution does fast fashion cause?
The entire fashion industry produces over one million tons of greenhouse gases each year, accounting for 2% of total global emissions. It is one of the most polluting industries in the world, partly due to the high percentages of water consumed to produce fabrics. According to researchers, over 20% of the planet’s water is polluted by the textile industry; one of the main causes of pollution is the dyes and chemicals used to color fabrics. Finally, the textile industry consumes the highest percentage of electricity and is also the least attentive to energy production from renewable sources.
In short, fashion is second only to oil when it comes to environmental pollution.
There’s an alternative to fast fashion, or rather, disposable fashion. You don’t necessarily have to buy high-end fashion; you can save money by shopping at flea markets, thus reusing fabrics that would otherwise simply pollute our planet. The fight to save the planet also includes choosing not to buy junk (from clothing to household items).
