Fast Fashion, The Producer and You

By Rebecca Rutter

In a world where the media is central to our entertainment, social understanding and the majority of our consumption, understandingly we are influenced by the trends that come and go through the popularity of this industry. This is primarily the behaviour that fast fashion depends upon. Fast fashion is a term used to describe the quick process of the production of new clothes, their display in shops to be bought, and it's quick replacement by new, more recent trends. These items of clothing are usually sold for cheap, and are of poor quality, with the primary aim of such fast fashion stores to be promoting quantity over quality. This may seem good for the consumerist urges, as they are able to fulfil their want for new, on trend clothing, but it is definitely not good for the producers, the planet, and holistically the consumers welfare. Most of these fast fashion stores have now become large high street store chains, with immense amount of popularity so this isn’t going to be an easy issue to fix, but it’s important that we try.

The issue with fashion being ‘fast’ so to speak is that the constant production of clothing to be sold at a low price to the consumer often, if not always, involves the exploitation of workers in ‘sweatshops’ working in as low cost situations as possible, so that the companies can make maximum profit when selling these items at low prices. For this reason, companies often export their production to countries where the laws surrounding work rights and minimum wages are minimal, so that they can use people in this area desperate for some kind of work, and exploit them by making them work in awful conditions. Not only do these people, mainly women, barely earn enough to survive on, but they are also forced to work in life threatening situations, with the buildings and machinery being unstable, often overworked and cramped into unsuitable spaces. Not only can workers die frequently from exhaustion or malnutrition, but the actual factories they work in can be understood as literal death traps. For example, in April of 2013, over 1,100 people were killed and over 2000 more injured when a sweatshop factory in Bangladesh collapsed. This sweatshop supplied many popular British high street stores, but they faced little backlash for this event, in which they were responsible for the deaths of thousands of their workers.

For consumers in the UK this does not seem like an imminent problem, here where we have laws protecting even the most vulnerable workers and only see the pristine front of store sales. It's hard to imagine, and to feel connected to the workers in these countries that are suffering as a result of our consumption. However, every time an individual purchases an item from these stores they are providing profit to the company which is directly reinvested into the same system. Though one might think that their individual protest towards such things is ineffective, it clearly builds up. You can't have a group of people without the individual contribution. As we all love to live by the motto, treat yourself, it seems daunting and even upsetting to have to give up this easy, accessible relatively cheap way to buy our clothes, but it’s not as difficult as one might think.

In fact, shopping ethically doesn’t only better the lives of the people who are producing the clothes, but it will benefit you, the consumer too. There are two routes that one can go down. One is incredibly cheap, and probably the one that most students would choose. This is through going to charity shops and purchasing your clothes from there. Now of course they aren’t always going to have the exact thing you want in the store, but that’s part of the fun. You can hunt for interesting items that aren't each copies of what everyone else has and of course, they’re amazingly cheap. The money goes to a good cause and this recycling of clothes prevents the waste of items. There is also no additional demand to produce clothes unethically. Not all charity shops are created equal, and the area that they are located in undoubtedly is going to reflect the clothes that they stock in there, so go to the area that has the demographic of people with similar style to you, cities and large towns are undoubtedly beneficial for this. This method of ethical shopping allows you to maintain the amount of clothes you buy, if you like having lots of choice, for little expense. Additionally, if you don’t have any decent charity shops in your area, Depop is the website to go to. Here is where people sell their old clothes, for relatively cheap all over the country and you can have it delivered to your door. It’s ethical, recycling online shopping.

There is also another, more luxurious route which one can go down. This involves shopping from ethical brands that are not guilty of the previous grievances I have spoken of. Clearly they are going to be more expensive, as their workers are actually paid a decent wage, but this means that often, more time and care has been put into the development of the clothing and it is usually much better quality, thus meaning that it lasts longer. The companies also often classics that never go out of style, so you can get enough usage out of the clothing for the cost, without feeling out of place with your outfits. This also discourages the amount of things you buy, which can be said to be beneficial to your mental health as attachment to a lot of physical objects often contributes towards stress. A list of such companies can be found here: https://blog.printsome.com/sustainable-fashion-brands-uk/

I hope that this encourages you to change the way you shop!