Fast fashion is a relatively new phenomenon in the industry that causes extensive damage to the planet, exploits workers, and harms animals. Here’s why it’s best to steer clear when you can.
A tragic reality check for fashion
Clothes shopping used to be an occasional event—something that happened a few times a year when the seasons changed or when we outgrew what we had. But about 20 years ago, something changed. Clothes became cheaper, trend cycles sped up, and shopping became a hobby. Enter fast fashion and the global chains that now dominate our high streets andonline shopping. But what is fast fashion? Why is fast fashion so bad? And how exactly does it impact people, the planet, and animals?
It was all too good to be true in the oughties. All these stores selling cool, trendy clothing you could buy with your loose change, wear a handful of times, and then throw away. Suddenly everyone could afford to dress like their favourite celebrity or wear the latest trends fresh from the catwalk.
Then in 2013, the world had a reality check when theRana Plaza clothing manufacturing complex in Bangladesh collapsed, killing over 1,000 workers. That’s when consumers really started questioning fast fashion and wondering atthe true cost of those $5 t-shirts. If you’re reading this article, you might already be aware of fast fashion’s dark side, but it’s worth exploring how the industry got to this point—and how we can help to change it.
What is fast fashion?
Fast fashion can be defined as cheap, trendy clothing that samples ideas from the catwalk or celebrity culture and turns them into garments in high street stores at breakneck speed to meet consumer demand. The idea is to get the newest styles on the market as fast as possible, so shoppers can snap them up while they are still at the height of their popularity and then, sadly, discard them after a few wears. It plays into the idea that outfit repeating is a fashion faux pas and that if you want to stay relevant, you have to sport the latest looks as they happen. It forms a key part of the toxic system of overproduction and consumption that has made fashion one of the world’s largest polluters. Before we can go about changing it, let’s take a look at the history.
How did fast fashion happen?
To understand how fast fashion came to be, we need to rewind a bit. Before the 1800s, fashion was slow. You had to source your own materials like wool or leather, prepare them, weave them, and then make the clothes.
The Industrial Revolution introduced new technology—like the sewing machine. Clothes became easier, quicker, and cheaper to make. Dressmaking shops emerged to cater to the middle classes.
Many of these dressmaking shops used teams of garment workers or home workers. Around this time, sweatshops emerged, along with some familiar safety issues. The first significant garment factory disaster was when a fire broke out in New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911.It claimed the lives of 146 garment workers, many of whom were young female immigrants.
By the 1960s and 70s, young people were creating new trends, and clothing became a form of personal expression, but there was still a distinction between high fashion and high street.
In the late 1990s and 2000s, low-cost fashion reached a peak. Online shopping took off, and fast-fashion retailers like H&M, Zara, and Topshop took over the high street. These brands took the looks and design elements from the top fashion houses and reproduced them quickly and cheaply. With everyone now able to shop for on-trend clothes whenever they wanted, it’s easy to understand how the phenomenon caught on.
How to spot a fast fashion brand
Some key factors are common to fast fashion brands:
- Thousands of styles, which touch on all the latest trends.
- Extremely short turnaround time between when a trend or garment is seen on the catwalk or in celebrity media and when it hits the shelves.
- Offshore manufacturing where labour is the cheapest, with the use of workers on low wages without adequate rights or safety and complex supply chains with poor visibility beyond the first tier.
- A limited quantity of a particular garment—this is an idea pioneered by Zara. With new stock arriving in store every few days, shoppers know if they don’t buy something they like, they’ll probably miss their chance.
- Cheap, low quality materials likepolyester, causing clothes to degrade after just a few wears and get thrown away—not to mention the microfibre shedding issue.
Why is fast fashion bad?
Polluting our planet
Fast fashion’s impact on the planet is immense. The pressure to reduce costs and speed up production time means environmental corners are more likely to be cut. Fast fashion’s negative impact includes its use of cheap, toxic textile dyes—making the fashion industry the one of the largest polluters of clean water globally, right up there with agriculture. That’s why Greenpeace has been pressuring brands to remove dangerous chemicals from their supply chains through its detoxing fashioncampaigns through the years.
Cheap textiles also increase fast fashion’s impact.Polyesteris one of the most popular fabrics. It is derived from fossil fuels, contributes to global warming, and can shedmicrofibres that add to the increasing levels of plastic in our oceans when washed. But even “natural” fabrics can be a problem at the scale fast fashion demands. Conventional cottonrequires enormous quantities of water and pesticides in developing countries. This results in drought risks and creates extreme stress on water basins and competition for resources between companies and local communities.
The constant speed and demand mean increased stress on other environmental areas such as land clearing, biodiversity, and soil quality. The processing of leather also impacts the environment,with 300kg of chemicals added to every 900kg of animal hides tanned.
The speed at which garments are produced also means that more and more clothes are disposed of by consumers, creating massive textile waste. According to some statistics, in Australia alone, more than 500 million kilos of unwanted clothing ends up in landfill every year.
Exploiting workers
As well as the environmental cost of fast fashion, there’s a human cost.
Fast fashion impacts garment workerswho work in dangerous environments, for low wages, and without fundamental human rights. Further down the supply chain, the farmers may work with toxic chemicals and brutal practices that can have devastating impacts on their physical and mental health, a plight highlighted by the documentary “The True Cost“.
Harming animals
Animals are also impacted by fast fashion. In the wild, the toxic dyes and microfibres released in waterways are ingested by land and marine life alike through the food chain to devastating effect. And when animal products such as leather, fur, and even wool are used in fashion directly, animal welfare is put at risk. As an example, numerous scandals reveal that real fur, including cat and dog fur, is often being passed off as faux fur to unknowing shoppers. The truth is that there is so much real fur being produced under terrible conditions in fur farms that it’s become cheaper to produce and buy than faux fur.
Coercing consumers
Finally, fast fashion can impact consumers themselves, encouraging a “throw-away” culture because of both the built-in obsolescence of the products and the speed at which trends emerge. Fast fashion makes us believe we need to shop more and more to stay on top of trends, creating a constant sense of need and ultimate dissatisfaction. The trend has also been criticised on intellectual property grounds, with some designers alleging that retailers have illegally mass-produced their designs.
Who are the big players?
Many retailers we know today as the fast fashion big players, likeZaraorH&M, started as smaller shops in Europe around the 1950s. Technically, H&M is theoldest of the fast fashion giants, having opened as Hennes in Sweden in 1947, expanding to London in 1976, and before long, reaching the States in 2000.
Zara follows, which opened itsfirst store in Northern Spain in 1975. When Zara landed in New York at the beginning of the 1990s, people first heard the term ‘fast fashion’. It was coined by the New York Times to describe Zara’s mission to take only 15 days for a garment to go from the design stage to being sold in stores.
Other big names in fast fashion today include UNIQLO, GAP,Primark, and TopShop. While these brands were once seen as radically cheap disruptors, there are noweven cheaper and faster alternatives like SHEIN, Missguided, Forever 21, Zaful, Boohoo, and Fashion Nova. These brands are known as ultra fast fashion, a recent phenomenon which is as bad as it sounds.
Is fast fashion going green?
As an increasing number of consumers call out the true cost of the fashion industry, and especially fast fashion, we’ve seen a growing number of retailers introduce so-called sustainable and ethical fashion initiatives such as in-store recycling schemes. These schemes allow customers to drop off unwanted items in “bins” in the brands’ stores. But it’s been highlighted that only 0.1% of all clothing collected by charities and take-back programs is recycled into new textile fibre.
The underlying issue with fast fashion is the speed at which it is produced, putting massive pressure on people and the environment. Recycling and small eco or vegan clothing ranges—when they are not only forgreenwashing—are not enough to counter the throw-away culture, the waste, the strain on natural resources, and the myriad of other issues created by fast fashion. The whole system needs to be changed.
Is fast fashion in decline?
We are starting to see some changes in the fashion industry. The anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse is nowFashion Revolution Week, where people all over the world ask questions like, “Who made my clothes?” and “What’s in my clothes?” Fashion Revolution declares that “we don’t want our clothes to exploit people or destroy our planet”.
Millennials and Gen Zers—the drivers of the future economy—may not have caught the fast fashion bug. Some have argued that this generation has “grown too clever for mindless consumerism, forcing producers to become more ethical, more inclusive, and more liberal”. However, ultra fast fashion brands like SHEIN are selling more than ever, and these young shoppers are their target market.
There is also a growing interest in moving towards a more circular textile production model, reusing materials wherever and whenever possible. In 2018, both Vogue Australiaand Elle UK dedicated entire magazine issues to sustainable fashion, a trend being taken up each year by more and more big names.
What can we do?
At Good On You, we love this quote by British designer Vivienne Westwood, “buy less, choose well, make it last.”
Buying Less is the first step—try to fall back in love with the clothes you already own by styling them differently or even “flipping” them. Why not turn those old jeans into some trendy unhemmed shorts, orgive that baggy old jumper new life by turning it into a crop?Creating a capsule wardrobeis also worth considering on your ethical fashion journey.
Choose Well is the second step, and choosing a high-quality garment made of eco-friendly fabric is essential here. There are pros and cons to all fibre types, as seen in our ultimate guide to clothing materials, but there is a helpful chart at the end to refer to when purchasing. Choosing well could also mean committing to shopping your closet first, only shopping second hand, or supporting more sustainable brands like those below.
Finally, we should Make It Last and look after our clothes by following the care instructions,wearing them until they are worn out, mending them wherever possible, thenresponsibly recycling themat the very end of their life.
Learn about fast fashion’s sustainable alternative, slow fashion
Here are some of our favourite brands giving fast fashion the flick and embodying a slow, circular, more sustainable way of wearing:
Whimsy + Row
Rated: Good
Whimsy + Row is an eco-conscious lifestyle brand born out of a love for quality goods and sustainable practices. Since 2014, its mission has been to provide ease and elegance for the modern, sustainable woman. Whimsy + Row utilises deadstock fabric, and by limiting each garment to short runs, the brand also reduces packaging waste and takes care of precious water resources. Find most products in XS-XL.
Organic Basics
Rated: Great
Organic Basics offers high-quality sustainable fashion basics for men and women in organic materials. The Denmark-based brand puts sustainable thinking at the centre of everything—it only chooses fabrics that care for our environment, and only ever partners with factories that care about their impact.
Organic Basics' clothes are available in sizes XS-XL.
Afends
Rated: Good
Offers
Afends – Womenswear Archive Sale
Make a statement with organic hemp clothing that is as good on you as it is on the planet.Up to 50% off, including dresses, baby tees, pants, shorts, skits and more.(Ends: 31 JAN)
Afends – Menswear Archive Sale
Where streetwear meets sustainability. Shop a complete wardrobe made from 100% lower-impact fabrics, from pants to tees and sweats, featuring a slew of prints.Up to 50% off menswear archive sale, including graphic tees, hoodies, jackets and pants.(Ends: 31 JAN)
Afends – Eyewear
Handcrafted in Italy from premium bio-acetate and fit with UV resistant lenses, these sunglasses are leading the way in more sustainable eyewear.Exclusive 20% off eyewear with code GEYEWEAR20.(Ends: 31 JAN)
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Afends – Denim
Denim, the foundation of Afends. Whether you like ‘em loose, straight or super baggy, they’ve got your next all-day, everyday jeans.Exclusive 20% off denim with code DENIM20.(Ends: 31 JAN)
Checkout code: DENIM20
Born in Byron Bay, Afends is a responsible brand leading the way in hemp fashion. Drawing inspiration from the environment, streetwear, and surf culture, Afends’ mission is to create more sustainable clothing through innovation, action, and positive change. As true hemp advocates, they purchased 100 acres of farmland called Sleepy Hollow to grow their own hemp crops and ignite the hemp revolution. Explore their range made from 100% eco-conscious threads.
Outland Denim
Rated: Great
Outland Denim makes premium denim jeans and clothes, and offers ethical employment opportunities for women rescued from human trafficking in Cambodia. This Australian brand was founded as an avenue for the training and employment of women who have experienced sex trafficking. Find most of the brand's range in US sizes 22-34.
Yes Friends
Rated: Great
Yes Friends is a UK-based fashion brand that creates sustainable, ethical, and affordable clothing for everyone. Yes Friends' first product, classic cut t-shirts, cost less than £4 to make and the brand only charges £7.99. Using large scale production and direct to consumer margins means Yes Friends can charge you an affordable price for its sustainable and ethical clothing. Find the range inclusively sized in 2XS-4XL.
Harvest & Mill
Rated: Great
Harvest & Mill pieces are grown, milled, and sewn exclusively in the US, supporting American organic cotton farmers and local sewing communities. The brand makes basics for everyone, always ensuring they are not dyed or bleached, greatly reducing the use of water, energy, and dye materials. Even better, by cultivating different varieties of cotton, the brand is able to bolster biodiversity, which is essential for ensuring healthy ecosystems and keeping our planet resilient in the face of climate change. Shop the range in sizes S-XL.
Editor's note
Images via Unsplash, Fashion Revolution, and the brands mentioned. Good On You publishes the world’s most comprehensive ratings of fashion brands’ impact on people, the planet, and animals. Use our directory to search thousands of rated brands. We may earn a commission on sales made using our offer codes or affiliate links.
