A Quick Talk About Fast Fashion
My pandemic aesthetic has officially reached the Rocky stage.
I’m not here to dispense fashion advice, so let me dispense some fashion advice:
Be done with fast fashion.
It’s destroying the planet. It’s just, not good for your soul.
You may be thinking “What makes you qualified to talk about fashion?” The answer is nothing. No thing. (I’m not sure how one would describe my aesthetic. Maybe wannabe minimalist French girl meets middle-school art teacher with a terrible secret?)
My look is unclear, but I am very clearly a part-time tree hugger, and I am about to level-up my environmentalism, now that I’m done with my 4-year long persuasive essay “Why Donald Trump Has Brought Ruin to Our Country.” I need a new kink.
I’m pretty fired up about our planet. I like it. I want it to hang around for awhile. Disclaimer: You’re gonna hear me rant about the climate a lot this year. Saddle up or get off the ride I guess.
Fast fashion. What is it anyway?
Maybe the most succinct definition is clothing manufactured at warp speed and sold for cheap.
We’ve all seen it, we’ve all bought it, we’ve all worn it for a year and then donated it.
I know it was you, Zara, you broke my heart.
My friend Brynn once joked “Forever 21? More like forever 32!” Because she and I both picked up cheap basics there, well past age-appropriateness. (She’s since been a great example to me on pivoting to well made and thoughtful pieces, introducing me to small shops like Ace & Jig, a poster child for sustainable clothing and just real cute dresses).
But here’s the thing. We gotta stop. We can’t wait. We need to buy better. We need to try.
Fast fashion brands have thousands of styles, and are always manufacturing. They’re more often than not using cheap, low-quality, synthetic materials. Actually they are using the cheapest, most environmentally problematic materials, so they have higher profit margins. They are making disposable clothes.
The WSJ reports that in recent years the average person buys 68 garments each year, and wears each piece only seven times before disposing of it. Seven times?! There are bras I’ve had for a decade! (Not proud of this). This is highly problematic. And it’s having a serious impact on our landfills.
In 2019, the NYT reported that:
“More than 60 percent of fabric fibers are now synthetics, derived from fossil fuels, so if and when our clothing ends up in a landfill (about 85 percent of textile waste in the United States goes to landfills or is incinerated), it will not decay.
Nor will the synthetic microfibers that end up in the sea, freshwater and elsewhere, including the deepest parts of the oceans and the highest glacier peaks.”
Fast fashion is quickly destroying our home.
Listen, there is a lot to love about fast fashion: trendy styles made almost instantly available, and oh man, the price. A shirt for $8! Pants for $20? I get it. I get the allure.
But there’s a price to low-price.
My two major problems:
Copying/stealing.
Fast fashion’s bread and butter is creating knockoffs of other designers’ work.. H&M in particular has a 15 day design-to-manufacture pipeline! 15 days! They’re basically pooping it out! Designers, like any artists, find themselves constantly being ripped off, and then the product is an inferior version anyway. I take a lot of issue with intellectual/creative property. Borrowing and riffing = okay. Stealing = nope. Nope, nope.
2. The earth needs better.
“According to the United Nations Environment Program, 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to the clothing industry—more than aviation and shipping combined, per the Los Angeles Times. It's also responsible for a large portion of water pollution worldwide, and uses copious chemicals.
Of the clothes produced, approximately 20% are never purchased, and quickly find their way to landfills.”
Sooooo many clothes. Sooo many clothes. Such high turnover. We do not need a large portion of these items. We just don’t. They are produced cheaply and wear quickly and are replaced with more cheap items every two weeks. We are swimming in synthetic fabrics which are bad for the environment and also just honestly don’t look good on us the way natural fabrics do.
You might be thinking, “but I don’t have the money to spend on sustainable clothing! It’s so expensive!”
You’re right, and you’re wrong.
Sustainable fashion costs more. You’re paying for the creative work, a process that takes more than 15 days. You’re paying for skilled seamstresses and garment workers and you’re paying for quality control. You’re paying for ethical wages, good design, and good fabric and materials. So it does cost more.
(A problem for discussing another day is size inclusivity among sustainable retailers, as I realize as a person who always fits into standard sizes I am in a position of privilege that my plus size friends don’t enjoy).
On the other hand, high quality doesn’t cost more.
For starters, there are thrift stores, both brick-and-mortar and online. And they’re not your typical, weird-smelling thrifted clothes of days gone by. There is Rent the Runway. Have you spent anytime there? I want to find a wedding to crash just so I can Rent the Runway. There is eBay! I love eBay! I am a late adopter but I am a big fan.
Or maybe you want to sew your own. It definitely costs more to make your own anything these days, but at least you get a custom-fit, one-of-a-kind creation out of it. And there are some insanely gorgeous fabrics available at your fingertips! And in 2021, they’re accessible to you from all over the world.
Then there’s obviously the matter of value. You get what you pay for.
In 2004, when I was 21 and poor and studying abroad in London, I spent what I thought was an exorbitant amount of money on these gorgeous saddle-color riding boots. Very English. Very cute. I paid about $275 for them. They were gorgeous. I had to have them. They still are gorgeous and I still have them. They were very well made by a high street shop who presumably paid their workers well and provided a safe working environment, and these boots have ended up being an incredible value based on the amount of times I’ve worn them in the last 16 years. They have aged so well. I will give them to my daughter, assuming she is also into the middle-school-art-teacher-with-a-secret vibe.
Also, did you know you can resole your footwear? I’ve done it a handful of times and it costs about $12-15 dollars and breathes new life into good quality shoes. I’ve also had zippers and pulls replaced on clothing and shoes. Your favorite pieces can live forever! Immortal!
And then there’s the labor. Ethical labor is more expensive. You’re paying more not just for better design and materials, but you’re paying a good wage for garment workers. There are too many instances of poorly-treated garment workers from the Triangle Shirt Factory days to the more recent Bangladesh garment fires. You can help paying these folks a living wage.
And lastly, be it incumbent to appeal to anyone’s vanity, sustainable clothes just look better.
You must know I am a straight up sucker for a man in a well-cut suit and a wool suit looks better than a poly-blend one every single time. A cashmere sweater looks better (and outperforms) a rayon one. It’s true. It’s a true truth.
Cheap clothes often look it.
If you want to do the earth a solid, buy less and buy better. Cotton, linen muslin, cashmere, and wool have stayed in style forever for good reason. Good fabrics + good tailor = good style. You’ll look like *chef’s kiss*.
Quality brands I have loved in the past few years include Everlane, Boden, Lou & Grey, Madewell (all time favorite-ever denim that lasts forever), and I also lust after Reformation and Jenni Kayne.
Obviously I am not perfect at ditching fast fashion. And I still don't know what to do about clothing for my children who grow so fast and are so, so hard on their clothing and shoes. We do hand-me-downs within our family and from friends, but they still get fast fashion basics multiple times a year. I’d love thoughts on that.
Instead of feeling guilty, my hope would be to introduce some facts that might make you invest in pieces that will be better for everyone involved. (Or if you must continue to buy fast fashion from time to time, wear your clothes more than 7 times before trashing them.)
I have my own consumer guilt (a lot of it related to Amazon Prime and how much I am consuming in packaging when things are so conveniently shipped to me with the click of a button.) The amount of cardboard in my recycling bin makes me shudder. I need to do better.
Ditching Fast Fashion is one way I’m trying. It’s something I can do.
I actually haven’t read any Marie Kondo but I’m trying to get by with less and focus way more on quality over quantity. This has always been my approach with food and house design and art, and for the last 5 years, it’s also been my approach to fashion. (Which is sometimes tricky as my body has morphed between pregnancy and non-pregnancy and I don’t want to spend money on temporary wardrobes. Once again, room to improve).
But this is an intention I’ve set. Fast fashion, we are on a break!
I really feel like if we slow down a bit in our consumption of cheap clothing, the earth will breathe a little easier.
Thanks for reading! And remember:
