Affordable. Trendy. Accessible. Fast fashion may provide economic prosperity and a vehicle to help people achieve glamorous self-expression on a budget, but its disastrous negative impacts may outweigh the positives.
Fast fashion is the cheap production of a wide range of trendy clothes that have been mass produced in the style of high fashion. An integral characteristic of fast fashion is the speed at which the variety and styles change. The necessity for hasty turnover means that inexpensive fast fashion comes at large environmental, social, and economic costs.
Socially, fast fashion has changed the way people shop. Big fast fashions brands are not feeding the demand for new, throwaway clothes of low quality, but creating it. The evolution of fashion, from bespoke clothing to ready-to-wear factory made clothes, outlines the effects that technology has had on widening consumerism around fast fashion. Without advertising and social media, fast fashion would struggle to constantly keep people shopping. Fast fashion has perpetuated a culture of disposable clothing, which has led to three out of five garments having adverse effects on the environment by being placed in an incinerator or landfill (according to the BBC). Furthermore, fast fashion is responsible for fleecing workers of their rights, fair pay, and proper working conditions. 80-90% of the fast fashion industry is made up of women, who are often exploited and made to work under inhumane conditions in sweatshops (a factory or workshop where manual workers are employed at very low costs). Workers are often subjected to low wages (e.g. in Bangladesh fast fashion workers are paid $33 per month, which is half of the living wage) whilst working around 14 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Fast fashion may have reduced the clothing inequality gap, but something must be done about the negative social impacts it is causing.
Moreover, fast fashion is exploitative of society in many ways, including its constant snatching of concepts, ideas, and styles from smaller, independent designers, causing the fashion economy to become skewed. A small number of big companies are earning the majority amount, causing high street shops and small businesses to struggle.
One of the worst effected victims of fast fashion is the environment itself. It has had a hand in all kinds of environmental damage from resource depletion to food insecurity. The production of one cotton shirt alone can take up to 2700 litres of water to produce, which is enough water for one person to drink for 2.5 years. Fast fashion’s effects on air and water pollution as well as its role in exacerbating climate change often breach environmental justice as lower income countries (LICs) are usually the worst effected due to their large role in producing fast fashion that is largely consumed by higher or middle income countries (HICs). It is shocking just how a single fast fashion garment could cost human rights, the destruction of habitats and damage to the economy.
Social media, online shopping and advertising have been utilised by fast fashion brands to create a demand for a constant supply of new clothes. It has caused a huge amount of fashion influencers to feel the need to constantly post pictures of themselves in different outfits, encouraging a throwaway fashion culture. When millions of styles are available to you at a touch of a finger it can be tempting to throw your wardrobe into a cycle of constant renewal.
However, technology is not all bad. If used carefully and with the right intention, a culture of sustainable fast fashion can be perpetuated over social media. Furthermore, people have used technology to facilitate the re-use of clothes. For example, apps like Depop have been successful in encouraging people to buy and sell their old clothes for cheaper prices. AI has also made its way onto the forefront of fashion. It is helping to reduce wastage by using clever algorithms and patterns to match supply to demand.
As the world opens its eyes to the detrimental effects of fast fashion, technology could become a useful tool in solving the problem of fast fashion. For now, try to shop more sustainably, consider how much damage that jumper, t-shirt or dress you want to buy has. Exploitative. Polluting. Detrimental. Fast fashion urgently needs a make-over.