The darker side of fast fashion 

          Most people like to look good and wear tranding clothing. I’m one of those people  because the way that I look is part of my identity. Fashion is important in our  life because we can express ourselves with the clothes we wear.  

     Fast fashion plays a good game in our life because it is about making trendy clothes quick, cheap, and disposable. With that being said people are able to archive to get the clothing they want because Fast fashion is a replica with less quality of the clothes that the clothing brands have. The way that fast fashion gets the clothing is with several retailers that are able to look at the runways and make garments really quickly. Most of the people buy from fast fashion brands and they don’t even know. During the past years this has been a big problem for the workers’ environment, other good clothing brands and the pollution that is causing the earth planet. 

 Not everything is beautiful as it appears. According to a fashion historian Tim Gunn,  “Fast fashion is also about, when we say fast it’s not gonna last very long.” What it means is that fast fashion clothing is really sheep and it’s clothing that doesn’t have any quality and that’s why it is not gonna last longer than others. Some examples of fast fashion stores and most of them exist online not in person is Shein.com and in the year 2020 it  had a 121% of the fastest growing fast fashion retailer website in the United states. This’s according to statista, Remwe.com as the second one and Zara.com as the third one. What this means is that a lot of people buy from these stores. This also shows that the stores that sell clothing of quality they dont sell a lot of clothes. This Is because people can get the same clothing for a cheap price.  The way of thinking is that most women don’t like to repeat a piece of  clothing. They just focus on the outfit or what is trading on social media. Also this makes the opportunity for people to dress as their favorite influencers. Fast fashion makes replicas with the purpose of selling these clothing. For example Kim Kardashion wears a dress for her birthday in less than 24 hours and fashion nova have the same dress. Kim kardashion has thousands of followers on social media. A lot of people will definitely buy that dress. In 1980 the average of american that bought 12 new clothes every year. But nowadays they buy  68 clothing  every year. This is relevant because the amount of clothing that people buy has changed because of all fast fashion stores that we have nowadays.

               People buy from fast fashion stores and don’t even know the working condition of the factory that these companies make the clothing.  One reason why fast fashion is a problem most of our clothes are made in places where worker’s rights are nonexistent, it shows that the terrible working condition in the factory, most of our clothes are made in places where worker’s rights are nonexistent, it tells us that most of the clothes we wear are made in countries where the rights of citizens are limited. This is important because we have to be aware of what we buy and where the clothes we buy come from. The amount of hours that people work in manufacturing countries is fourteen to sixteen hours per day and they work the seven days of the week. The total amount of hours that they made is around 96 hours per week.  And since that was not enough, the salary is very minimal “ So in summary, these brands are bragging about paying their employees 5 times less than what a person actually needs to live with dignity.” What this demonstrates is that the salary that they pay for those poor people is a pittance compared to what those people work for. This also demonstrated that the salary is so low that they don’t live well. The low price of fast fashion clothing  has this cost. That’s the reason why the prices are so low. Another reason is that  “168 million children in the world are forced to work.” and this happens through the Fashion industry. This is very important because people have to be aware of what is happening in the world and be informed. In particular I didn’t have the slightest idea of what was happening until I started doing this article. 

We are hurting our planet without even knowing. According to Rachel Brow,  each american in the United States throws away 7 million towns of clothing but in the past 20 years this number has doubled to 14 million tons. This is important because most of the people are throwing away all this clothes and only wearing them. “In 2015, textile production created more greenhouse gases than international flights and maritime shipping combined.”   This is very important because the clothes that we put on are doing more damage than the flights that came. The real problem is the fabrics of the clothes are made from.  Only to make the cotton grow to make a jacket takes 10,330 liters of water, and this is equal to 24 years of drinking water for one person.   This is very important because most of these clothes end up in landfills and this is a waste of materials. Imagine all the sacrifice and the worker’s condition that the employee makes to make a piece of clothing to end it up in the landfills.

    A solution for this problem is that we should recycle our clothing or sell it. One way that we can sell our used clothing is to download the Poshmark app and start selling the clothes you no longer wear. This is a very good idea instead of throwing out your clothes. Most of the dresses that I am selling in my store I only wore them once for a special occasion and you can also do the same. It can be any type of clothing adults and children. An efficient way to sell it faster is by posting it on social networks. This page sells clothes that are used and people them much cheaper than the original price. The price you have is with shipping included.  In conclusion we should consent  for people who constantly buy clothes. We had no information base on how and where the clothes are made or the working conditions that the workers undergo. And when we buy these clothes what we do is support the factories that agree to all inhumane working conditions and the damage that is causing to the earth.

Articles

https://www.sustainyourstyle.org/old-working-conditions

https://www.roadrunnerwm.com/blog/textile-waste-environmental-crisis

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF3 bObac

graph 

https://www-statista-com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/statistics/1212263/fast