Fast Fashion: Addicted to fashion costing our environment

Fast fashion has become an umbrella term in the fashion industry, where the manufacturers make tending fashion available to the customers at inexpensive rates, using low-quality materials. Mainly, these fashion ideas are being taken and incorporated from the renowned fashion designers, as their collections are not pocket-friendly for the common customers. 

People also steal the fashion statement from the celebrities to replicate the same in their wardrobe. A British journalist named Lucy Siegle says, “Fast fashion is not free. Someone, somewhere is paying the price.” Many of us may have heard Emma Watson’s famous speech on the stage of World Economic Forum, where she articulated, “As consumers, we have so much of power to change the world by just being careful in what we buy.”

Nowadays, many youngsters feel that repeating the same outfits put them out of the hot market and tags them as irrelevant. But they don’t understand that, it has nothing to do with repeating their outfits. Repeating outfits doesn’t make us look poor or stupid.

History of fast fashion

In the 1960s and 1970s, people used to create various fashion trends with the existing outfits. It became a sense of personal fashion expression for them. Many celebrities dressed themselves up in a certain way to express their lifestyle. The term “fast fashion” came into being in the 1990s, when Zara reached in the US fashion market.

The term was coined by The New York Times to highlight Zara’s brand mission, where the brand claimed to become popular in the fashion industry mainly among the youth by introducing affordable high class fashion. These apparels were designed in such a way that it started grabbing people’s attention since the moment they were launched. This concept also brought a wave of new fashion in the South Asian and Middle Eastern countries. 

Facts about fast fashion

• As per a new survey conducted by Fashion Checker in 2023, the garment workers aren’t being paid for their efforts. Most of the big fashion houses prefer to get their clothes stitched in the developing or under-developed countries like, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, People’s Republic of China and Malaysia.
• In 2019, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee in the UK published that, fashion industry is the 3^rd largest manufacturing industry post the automotive and technology industry. From incorporating non-biodegradable materials to using chemicals in the fashion industry, manufacturers are doing everything.
• Fashion Transparency Index published in 2023 that, merely 12% of the popular fashion brands mention the products and materials used in their collection. This drop came from 15%
• As per a study by UN Environment in 2023, fashion industry is responsible for about 10% of the carbon emission across the globe. It includes the chemicals and the non-biodegradable materials the fashion houses use in the production process.
• The State of Fashion, McKinsey ran a quick survey in 2020, where they found that the fashion industry is using almost 20% of pesticides during the entire collection manufacturing process which they barely mention in the catalogue. The customers cannot find these details at the store while shopping. The storekeepers or the salespeople are not aware of these details.

Chile’s Atacama Desert, is one of those places in the world, where the fast fashion dies. Al-Jazeera estimated that about 59,000 tonnes of fast fashion clothes were not sold in the US, Europe and some parts of the world, which were thrown in this desert. In the reports by UNO, it was reported that almost 7500 litres of water is being used to manufacture only one pair of jeans.

Sunita Narain, director general of Centre for Science and the Environment in India mentioned that, we humans are responsible for hydrocide: murdering all the water bodies of India. I feel, that the alarming time has come, where we need to prioritise the environment more than our daily fashion needs. If the planet will be healthy, we will be able to live. Hence, we can try out new fashion trends, otherwise fashion won’t be of any use and it won’t let us live longer.