Fast Fashion is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as, “inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends”.
Fast Fashion has become the leading form of fashion in today’s market, with industry leaders being retail giants such as Boohoo, SHEIN, Misguided, PLT and Primark. These shops make up a lot of the fashion shopping that is done in the U.K., both in-store and online.
Fast fashion stores pump out new lines of clothing for every season and every new trend, very often nearly copying each other or copying larger brands’ designs and products. Once these trends are over the clothes are very often destroyed or thrown away.
It amounts to huge amounts of waste every year and the clothes themselves are, let’s be honest, terrible quality in the first place.
It is a huge issue facing our planet right now and there are many reasons why we need to stop supporting fast fashion.
Here are just some of those reasons.
Environmental Damage
Fast Fashion is hugely damaging to the environment. It results in increased CO2 emissions from the clothes being produced in such rapid and high volume measures, many clothes end up in landfill or being burnt, high volumes of water are used in the process of making the clothes, excess fabrics and plastics are used and created to make the products, there is damage from the transportation used to send out such a mass volume of clothes, and there is a lot of unnecessary single-use packing used.
In a nutshell, Fast Fashion is horrendous for planet Earth.
Human Rights Concerns
There are growing concerns over the working conditions and potential human rights violations in many of the factories that produce Fast Fashion clothing.
While many of these companies are based in the U.K., Europe, or the States, many of their warehouses are in third-world countries. The companies benefit from different labour laws in those countries and there are lots of allegations of foul play here.
Cycles of Unhappiness
Fast Fashion doesn’t make us happy.
It encourages cycles of want – immediate gratification – disappointment for each item. We think that each new item of clothing we see online is going to make us happy, and it never does. At most, there might be a fleeting moment of happiness before the product rips, fades, or goes immediately out of trend.
It is an industry that benefits the people who own the companies and the shares, and that is all. It is designed to make us spend beyond our means, not to make us happy or to improve our lives in any way.
There is nothing good about Fast Fashion.
If you want to make a difference in the world you can do so by really rethinking your shopping habits. Opt for slow fashion instead and shop for high-quality pieces that are ethically made and will last for years to come. Do some charity shopping, secondhand shopping and thrifting too.
You can still treat yourself to new clothes, but you can do so in a way that doesn’t destroy the planet at the same time.