What is ‘fast fashion’ and how is it affecting our planet?
While ‘fast fashion’ is a relatively new phenomenon in the fashion industry, it has quickly become common knowledge that all your favourite high-street retailers are taking inspiration from the catwalks – and quickly churning out fashion duplicates made from cheaper (and more damaging) materials. This article will explore the origins of fast fashion, how it’s affecting the environment, and what you can do to make a difference and shop more sustainably. If you care about the environment, you might just making different decisions about clothes buying when you realise how fast fashion affects our planet.
What is ‘fast fashion?’
Simply put, fast fashion is garments that sample ideas from celebrity and catwalk culture – made more cheaply for the general public to buy online and in high street stores. Due to the increased speed of fashion cycles turning trends around more quickly than before, fast fashion fills the wants of consumers to get their hands on the latest (and trendiest) outfits while they are still at the height of popularity – before discarding them when they fall out of style.
How did fast fashion come about?
Before the 1800s, fashion was a lot slower. You first had to source your materials and prepare them before you could even start making your clothes. The Industrial Revolution then introduced the sewing machine and clothes instantly became easier, quicker, and cheaper to make.
By the 60s and 70s, clothing was instrumental in personal expression and trends were very much driven by young people, however, there was still very much a contrast between high fashion and the high street. It wasn’t until the late 1990s and 2000s that these two worlds came crashing together as low-cost fashion reached a peak. Fast-fashion retailers and high street giants were able to take designs from the most popular fashion houses – and reproduce them for their stores. The rest, as they say, is history.
How does fast fashion affect our planet?
Did you know? The fashion industry is the second most water-intensive industry in the world – and the actual stats are scary. The industry not only consumes around 79 billion cubic metres of water per year, but the use of synthetic fibres instead of natural fibres in these cheap clothes is harmful to the environment and a massive cause of pollution. These synthetic fibres and made from derivatives of coal, oil, or natural gas, therefore the manufacture of all these materials also has a significant carbon impact.
Additionally, because of the very nature of fast fashion, people tend to buy clothes cheaply and discard them after just a few wears. A lot of these clothes end up in landfill where they’ll take many years to decompose.
As a couple of examples, nylon fabric takes 30 to 40 years to decompose, whereas lycra and polyester might take 500+ years to decompose.
What is being done about fast fashion pollution?
The recent increase in awareness of the dangers of fast fashion has meant local city councils are finally starting to look for ways to combat these damaging effects. Women’s cropped trousers retailer, Damart, looked into which 10 cities in the UK were actively making sustainable fashion choices. The results were:
- Norwich
- Stoke on Trent
- Newcastle
- Newport
- Leicester
- Southampton
- Oxford
- Belfast
- Plymouth
- Coventry
Looking into the ratio of people to charity shops in the local area and the ratio of people to recycling banks in the local area, Damart’s survey found that while sustainability isn’t our main focus when buying new clothes, Brits are slowly becoming more eco-minded when it comes to getting rid of old or unworn garments.
With high street retailers intent on continuing to recreate catwalk looks at lower prices, it sometimes seems difficult to escape fast fashion – and the damaging environmental consequences it causes.
The first step we can make on a personal level to combat the environmental impacts of fast fashion is to adopt a different approach to clothes buying. When you can, opt for natural materials and choose quality products that will last longer.
If you remain intent on following fast fashion trends, there are still small changes you can take to make a difference. Upcycling your current/old clothes, donating anything you don’t wear to charity shops, and selling items on online markets – are all great ways to combat fast fashion, and give your bit back to mother earth.
Now that you know a little bit more about how fast fashion affects our planet, we hope you will think a bit more about your relationship with clothes!