Fast fashion has successfully spread around the world, providing options for less financially able people. Fast fashion refers to clothing designs that move quickly from catwalks to marts to capitalize on trends, with a marketing strategy that focuses on rapidly producing high volumes of clothing to meet the consumption rate.
Fast fashion is usually based on trends, fashion runways, or clothes worn by celebrities. According to www.panaprium.com, in the United States, 88 per cent of consumers prefer shopping for fast fashion, followed by 46 per cent consumers in Europe, 25 per cent in India and 21 per cent in China.
People prefer fast fashion for multiple reasons, but more specifically that it has affordable options for people depending on their income. By the same token, people’s ability to purchase many clothing pieces with a small amount of money may naturally stimulate them to buy more than they need – defeating the rationale for saving! For businesses, manufacturing clothes in a short period means that shops will be able to release new clothes for all seasons and events during the year, maximizing the consumption-production cycle to its highest speed.
On the other hand, fast fashion could negatively impact humans and nature. To start with, some “trendy clothes” are made of low-quality materials such as lead which is considered a heavy metal. Lead has, in fact, been discovered in many clothing pigments and synthetic fabrics, which could be highly toxic and virulent. Consequently, it could lead to permanent brain damage, kidney and liver damage, and reproductive issues (www.sonderlier.com).
Additionally, PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances) are frequently used in the production of fabrics and textiles because of their unparalleled water, oil, grease, and dirt-repellent properties; however, these substances have been linked to several health problems, including Asthma and cancer: testicular, kidney, liver, and pancreatic (www.sgs.com).
Furthermore, microplastic is often used in our daily clothes, and plastic takes a long period to decompose, including plastic in clothes that take more than 200 years to disintegrate. We have 52 different clothes seasons that produce around 80 billion new pieces yearly (www.australianstyleinstitute.com.au ), bearing in mind that only 5-6 per cent of all clothing made worldwide is worn (shoprestatement.com).
Fast fashion does not only negatively affect our society but our planet as well. Factories consume non-renewable energy used in factories that produce gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, which plays a central role in global warming. In addition, it is considered the most significant water consumer industry. For illustration, we need 2700 liters of water to make one cotton T-shirt; that amount is enough for one person to drink for 900 days (www.triplepundit.com). Furthermore, we use 7,600 liters of water to make a pair of jeans (www.thehindubusinessline), an enormous amount of water our community should save.
The fast fashion industry's adverse side effects could trigger workers’ exploitation, especially those under 18.
Global fashion brands took benefit of low-cost economy countries (such as India, China, Bangladesh, and Vietnam) to get as many workers as possible with lower salaries, which could cause many negative effects such as physical, mental, and emotional abuse. This sort of abuse could appear in various forms. For instance, some organizations do not provide a safe and comfortable working environment with breaks during working hours. As a result, it has been estimated that fast fashion workplace risks kill and disable approximately 125,000 employees yearly—4,764 from traumatic injuries and an estimated 120,000 from occupational conditions (www.aflcio.org).
Fast fashion has been spreading like wildfire in communities for many reasons, one of which is that we have become more open to sharing our diaries and daily blogs on social media, which includes what we eat, where we go, and what we wear, wanting to appear in a new outfit every time and avoid wearing the same clothes twice. Here hide the beauty and beast: while we benefit from being able to afford buying new trendy clothes as often and fast as possible, we could inadvertently contribute to increasing the pollution in our environment as we rapidly dispose of our used clothes, replacing them with new ones. With the pros and cons, the call is yours: to go “fast” in fashion or slow it down!
Danya Khalfan Alharrasi, The author is a Grade 10 student at Um Hani Basic Education (7-12), Samail.
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