Ever felt the need to buy new clothes because of the latest fads, the need for novelty, or just because companies like Zara and H&M could provide you with the latest collections at inconceivable prices? Then you are probably a part of this phenomenon called ‘Fast fashion’, which is prevalent in the USA and the European countries. Times have changed, in the 1900s, spending on clothing was an investment (costing about 20% of the income) but now it depends on impulse and the fact whether your new social media post requires you to purchase that piece of apparel (the spending now is around 4% of income) (1), which you are probably never wearing again. The US Bureau of Labour Statistics shows that spending on apparel as a percentage of total expenditure has more than halved from 5% in 1987(2), with the frequency of purchase increasing by close to 60%. An eminent personality in the fashion industry is Amancio Ortega who owns Inditex – the parent company that owns ‘Zara’. This company began operations in 1963 as a dressmaker and 12 years later it had established its first retail store in Spain. They basically produce throwaway clothes, made of low-quality and cheap items which may seem to be a winning deal at first sight. Such companies usually move overseas to countries with almost non-existent labour or environmental regulations. The factories of these companies release their wastewaters into rivers and emit tons of greenhouse gases only to create clothes that end up in landfills, dumped into the oceans, or burnt into the air. This has given birth to the entire ‘Cinderella syndrome’ - where you buy a cloth once, post it on Instagram, and never use it again.

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A majority of the society is entering into the middle- class bracket, and the demands for products are increasing exponentially. These companies with sales-oriented pricing, produce new clothes every week for billions of customers. We attach less value to our clothes, this causes the rate of waste-generation to exceed the rate of consumption/production, which again is supplemented by the linearity of the production cycle of such brands. The business model is based on speed, replacing the trendier clothes regularly only to provide a varied set of options to the consumers. Such companies only look at the marginal benefits derived from their operations and often overlook the larger costs to the ecological system and the workforce it employs. They reach out to poor countries, promise to lift them out of poverty only to trap them into working in sweatshops for hours put together in appalling conditions, only to pay them a meagre wage. Forever 21 recently filed for bankruptcy protection (3), and plans to close the majority of its shops in Asia and Europe. This further signifies the unsustainable business model that these companies follow. One thing that the consumers must understand is that the fast fashion industries only survive because they create an artificial demand driven by the consumers’ preference and the lower value attached to apparel.

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Another major issue is that textile workers are amongst the lowest-paid workers, and they work in the most hazardous conditions which saw light after the ‘Rana Plaza’ disaster. This is the disaster of a factory in Bangladesh, 2013, (4) when 1129 employees were killed. The apparel industry is the second-largest polluter in the world, on top of that, unfortunately, companies are trying to ‘Greenwash’ themselves now. Levi’s came up with a product line that supposedly uses less water in the processing (saving around 172 million litres in its 2012 spring collection) and companies like ‘Zady’ and ‘Eileen Fisher’ are becoming environmentally conscious in their latest production cycles. (1)  The onus to fix fashion lies only on these mega-companies, and the requirements include both internal and external pressure along with legal restrictions to bring them on the right track. One particular alternative for this could be ‘slow fashion’ (5) which essentially means locally grown and manufactured products that are often considered to have a longer shelf life. The good news, in a sense, is that global fast fashion has declined by around 12% in 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

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The first step would be that the consumers must first understand their role in this large ecosystem and be more conscious and aware of the brands they wish to purchase their products. We must place a greater value on our clothes rather than a fleeting one, make informed decisions while buying, and refrain from impulse buying. A responsible consumer will try to find the repurposing potential in all the clothes and will either upcycle, patching a tear, or downcycle, using the cloth as a rag, before recycling it or throwing it in the garbage. The new textiles economy requires better technology solutions and pioneering business models to harness the power of design and sustainable alternatives. ‘Innovative disruption’ is an indispensable need in the apparel industry to bring about a radical change in the operations of these businesses. Many famous personalities like the Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Sussex, and actor Joaquin Phoenix are normalizing the culture of ‘re-wear' for different important events and this is sending a strong message to people all over the world. The future is in our hands and we must strive to ‘slow down’ the harmful effects of ‘Fast Fashion’ to ensure a better tomorrow!