I wanted to write this blog post, because ethical and secondhand fashion is something I want to write more posts about, so here’s a quick explanation of what fast fashion is:
Fast fashion is the term that describes pretty much all of the popular clothing stores. Just take a look inside your closet, read the labels, you may even be wearing clothes from fast fashion brands right now. For example, Zara, H & M, Forever 21, and Gap are some of the biggest fast fashion brands. But, you may be asking.. “What’s so bad about fast fashion anyways?” Let me explain:
Keeping On “Trend”
Like most of us, fast fashion brands want to keep on trend. So, they keep producing more and more clothing, leaving their older clothing out of trend, leaving us buying more and more clothing with our attempt to stay on “trend.” With fast fashion brands constantly producing more and more clothing all the time, most of it ends up going to waste, because people will buy “ in trend” clothing, wear it a few times, then the clothing brand will release new “trendier” clothing, people will buy them and throw out the old clothes because now they are out of “trend,” and who wants to wear non trendy clothing? And that cycle keeps continuing every single day creating more than 1.2 billion tons of co2, about 4% of the world's waste, and about 92 million tons of waste each year!
Inhumane Work Conditions
Low wages and unsafe workplaces
Not only does the fast fashion industry produce millions of tons of waste each year, but many workers also suffer extremely inhumane work conditions. Have you ever noticed how fast fast fashion brands come out with new clothing? Or how they always have a ton of clothing in stock? If you have, you may be wondering: How do they keep up with the constant demand of new clothing, and how do they have so much clothing?! Here’s how: they use cheap labor, child labor and sweatshops.
Most sweatshops are located in: China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, and Pakistan, they are located there because of the extreme poverty rates, and child labor is legal. Some sweatshops have children all the way down to 5 years old working in them. Not only are children working in these sweatshops, there are also many adults working in them too. Earning about 2$ per day, sometimes even less! Workers in the sweatshops are often forced to work about 14 - 16 hours a day getting no break, and women often suffer sexual harassment while working in sweatshops.
Not only are they forced to work long hours a day, the places they are working in are in very poor conditions. There have been many factory fires, and many factories have even just completely collapsed causing thousands of deaths each year.
How Can You Stop Fast Fashion Companies?
Now that you know the truth behind the fast fashion industry, here’s how you can stop it:
Instead of constantly buying more and more clothing (most of them not being worn more than a few times) buy clothes that you know you can wear multiple times, and will last you a while.
Instead of buying from fast fashion brands, buy from thrift stores, or from more ethical/sustainable fashion brands, here is a list of some brands: http://kristenleotsakou.blogspot.com/p/ethical-brands.html.
SPREAD THE WORD! Tell your family and friends about the truth behind fast fashion, and encourage them to stop buying from them.
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