Why we should quit fast fashion.

January 29, 2020

To be honest, I wrote this blog and deleted it. Fast fashion is SO controversial and there are a lot of extreme scary statistics out there. The intention of this post isn’t to scare you into never shopping at a major retailer it is just about spreading awareness and creating mindfulness about the products we consume!

We are all just trying our best... no one is perfect...

So what is fast fashion anyway? Google defines it as “inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends.” It is fast, cheap and can be in YOUR hands quickly. Some may argue that it provides jobs and opportunity but at what cost? In order for a garment to be sewn cheaply, it means that workers aren’t paid a fair wage and poor working conditions/ sanitation may be present. It’s cheap in every way! It’s cheap in material, the way it’s sewn & durability. Most clothing is also not biodegradable which then ends up in landfills. According to Remake “the U.S. alone sends about 21 billion pounds of textile waste to landfills every year. And sadly, only 10-15% of donated clothing actually ends up in the secondhand market. Crazy right? There are a lot of other factors that play into how and why a garment got so cheap! Such as consumer demands, international labor costs and factories competing for clients. The list goes on… Fast fashion is not made to last, it is sadly a quick buck solution.

So what can we do? Support local & reuse! The slow fashion movement has been gaining momentum and it seems people are familiar with the benefits of shopping sustainably. Slow fashion is the creative process of buying garments for quality and longevity. It is how our clothes used to be made! Designers would launch collections seasonally and buyers would have access to new products a few times a year… not every week... It’s creating fairness with the planet, the producers and the consumers.

My top 3 tips:

1. Buy less, do I really need this? 
2. Reuse/ shop second hand/ support local makers
3. Buy for longevity, yes it may be more expensive but it will last a lifetime. 

You can find more information about the fashion revolution at https://www.fashionrevolution.org/

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