Fast fashion - A wicked problem (2024)

FAQs

How is fast fashion a wicked problem? ›

Fast fashion disposes more waste, uses up more natural resources and provides poor working conditions for its workers. Therefore, social awareness, immediate attention and effort are vital in order to effectively tackle this problem.

Support minimalism: Slow Fashion items may be more expensive but you don't need as much when you know they'll last! Wash less. Sometimes it is enough to air-out clothes or partially remove stains before putting them in the washing machine. If washing, choose on cold and skip dry cleaning.

Plastic fibres are polluting the oceans, the wastewater, toxic dyes, and the exploitation of underpaid workers. Fast fashion is big business, and while the environmental costs are rising, experts say there is another way: a circular economy for textiles.

Abstract. Fast fashion is deemed a wicked problem in that it is multifaceted, interconnected and self-perpetuating. Fast fashion is a reasonably new retail strategy whereby the fashion cycle has become 'fast', however clothing quality and price have decreased.

The disadvantages of fast fashion include –

not paying fair living wages to workers, poor working conditions, child labor, environmental destruction from hazardous chemicals, plastic-derived materials, and increasing amounts of water pollution and textile waste.

Excessive textile production and consumption are not sustainable. Three out of every five fashion item ends up in a landfill, according to the Clean Clothes campaign. Today, clothes are seen as disposable and are often donated, where even then, they ultimately end up in a landfill or incinerated.

Major players in the fast-fashion market include Zara, H&M Group, UNIQLO, GAP, Forever 21, Topshop, Esprit, Primark, Fashion Nova, and New Look. Many companies are both retailers and manufacturers, though they often outsource the actual production of clothing.

Doubling the use of our clothes would, for example, cut the garment trade's climate pollution by nearly half. Shutting down worldwide clothing production for a year would be equal to grounding all international flights and stopping all maritime shipping for the same time period.

The Dark Side of Fast Fashion

It dries up water sources and pollutes rivers and streams, while 85% of all textiles go to dumps each year. Even washing clothes releases 500,000 tons of microfibres into the ocean each year, the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles.

The Darker Side of Fast-Fashion

Fast-fashion production is outsourced in countries like India, Vietnam, China, and Bangladesh with cheap labor. This raises other concerns in relation to the exploitation of workers who work in unsafe and inhumane conditions with zero safety net and low wages.

When did fast fashion become an issue? ›

Welcome to the world of fast fashion. Fast fashion is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the 1990s, retailers began to introduce trendy, cheaply-priced, poorly-made clothes on a weekly basis, intending to match the breakneck pace at which fashion trends move.

Affordability is a major factor that drives consumers to choose fast fashion over sustainable options. While some brands offer more affordable sustainably-made items, fast fashion brands can produce garments at a much lower cost than sustainable fashion brands, allowing them to sell their products at a lower price.

A challenge can be considered a wicked problem if includes the following criteria: The problem has an unknown set of potential consequences. The amount of information available to “solve” the problem is unmeasurable. The problem is difficult to define and frame.

The fashion industry plays a major part in degrading soil in different ways: overgrazing of pastures through cashmere goats and sheep raised for their wool; degradation of the soil due to massive use of chemicals to grow cotton; deforestation caused by wood-based fibers like rayon.

These unsold garments are often burned, as it's cheaper and easier for the company than finding a way to reuse or recycle them. Apart from wasting resources, the fast fashion industry pollutes waterways with toxic dyes, and increases the number of microfibres in the ocean through the use of fossil fuel-based fabrics.

1) They do not have a definitive formulation. 2) They do not have a “stopping rule.” In other words, these problems lack an inherent logic that signals when they are solved. 3) Their solutions are not true or false, only good or bad. 4) There is no way to test the solution to a wicked problem.