Fast Fashion
This next post is written by Angela Rao.
Every few weeks, it seems, a plastic wrapped package or a hefty cardboard box is delivered to our front door. Its contents I can already predict -- clothes. Yet I am still excited to see what clothes have arrived, to sometimes try them on, and to see the new cuts and designs. My mother, my sisters and I are all enthralled by this routine purchase my mother makes. My mother opens the package and removes each folded lump in plastic with delight. She speaks highly of this new dress, then these khaki trousers, and admires this blouse. For an hour, she ushers my sisters or me into her room to try on some clothing she has just bought. The excitement lasts a day before the clothing becomes another faded garment in our closets. I did not realize this sport of buying new clothes was a concerning habit until recently. I did not see the crumpled heaps of plastic packaging and tags stuffed into our garbage can. Or the clothes I hardly wore shoved to the deep corners of my closet. But after this realization, each time the package arrived, I started feeling guilty about what I was accepting.
In our society, we often over consume products, specifically fashion, because most things have become incredibly convenient, because of the growing dominance of online shopping, and affordable, especially when affected by sales. My mother fully exploited midnight sales, sometimes staying up until 2 in the morning to catch the wildly cut down prices. But those who have excess money to spend often indulge in too many items, valuing quantity as a manifestation of comfort and wealth. This issue is related to fast fashion, the highly profitable mass production of copied or trendy styles. Fast fashion has two major ramifications: first, garments are often cheap because they are made by exploited labourers who are dramatically underpaid; second, consuming large amounts of clothing inevitably produces large amounts of textile waste, which is especially damaging as many fast fashion items are made of unsustainable fabrics.
First, fast fashion is often unethically produced. Companies desire profit and to do so, must “balance” the costs of production with their profit. Because companies lure customers with cheap prices, they must consequently lower the costs of production. To do so, they often set up factories in developing countries where the minimum wage is incredibly low and the government is neglectful. They employ citizens desperate for work and force them into inhumane conditions for unreasonable hours. This was unfortunately revealed in the 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse, which killed 1,134 garment workers. The building had been declared unsafe by engineer Abdur Razak Khan, yet three more stories were illegally constructed on top of the building and garment workers were sent to work inside. In response, Major North American retailers such as Walmart and Target created a plan to improve labourers working conditions, but this plan was revealed to lack legally binding commitments to pay for the improvements. This was after some had refused to sign a more stringent accord. By buying these cheap garments, we consumers support these unethical practices and lazy attempts at recompense.
Second, fast fashion is often an unsustainable cycle. Another way to lower the costs of production is to buy cheaper fabrics. These fabrics would include synthetic fabrics such as nylon and polyester. Unfortunately, a large amount of fossil fuels (8% of the world's carbon emissions) are burned to produce these synthetic fabrics. The dye used to color these fabrics is the second largest contributor to water pollution. The garments are likely to be hastily made -- companies establish the mantra quantity over quality in their labourers, often exercising punishments such as pay cuts on those who do not produce the unrealistic target number they have set. Another problem is when consumers splurge, we also produce lots of waste. When we buy cheap quality clothing, it breaks too easily, and we need to replace it by buying additional cheap quality items. This is an unhealthy cycle that creates large amounts of waste. And too often, our clothing ends up soiling in landfills or polluting the oceans. By buying these cheap garments, we consumers ramp up the demand for clothing and increase the dependency on unsustainable practices.
I am not a saint in this issue: I certainly have blindly bought from fast fashion stores such as H&M or Abercrombie & Fitch. But I don’t think we should stress about not being a hypocrite: when we realize we have done wrong, I think it’s important to adjust our practices. We should not enjoy luxury at the expense of others or our environment. Our environment is slowly deteriorating, though many of us are often shielded by our privilege from these effects. We need to be conscious of how we affect others and the environment. We have the power to create dramatic impact, but we should follow our morals instead of our money.
