Fast Fashion: A Holiday Shopper’s Dilemma

Fast fashion—quickly produced, trendy, low-priced apparel—may be a tempting holiday gift choice. But despite lower prices, some experts say the costs may be too high when it comes to the environment and the overseas workers manufacturing the goods. 

“People get excited about the $2 T-shirt” and don’t think about the impact on factory workers making the clothing, said Susan Scafidi, director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham.

Adding to past concerns about knockoff products in fast fashion, new concerns have emerged: poor working conditions, or even forced labor, as well as sustainability and environmental impact, Scafidi said.

Human Rights Abuse

Catastrophic garment factory fires and forced labor charges against China’s cotton industry have brought attention to human rights abuses, and even resulted in Congress passing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2021, which banned imports from businesses in Xinjiang, China, that use forced labor. Paltry wages for field and factory workers, the majority of whom are women, are another well-known concern.

“Labor is one of, if not the most, expensive inputs in fashion,” Scafidi said, but ”when it comes to making fast fashion, it has to be cheap, cheaper, cheapest.”

Tik Tok Temptation

Younger consumers, mainly Gen Z and Millennials, are at the forefront of the demand for fast fashion, heavily influenced by social media and desire for the latest styles, said Fordham economist Giacomo Santangelo. 

“Platforms like TikTok are pivotal in shaping fashion choices,” he said. “This constant exposure to new styles and the desire for instant gratification lead to frequent buying, fueling the fast fashion market.”

Fast fashion brands’ low prices make their products broadly accessible, he said, noting that their affordability is especially appealing because of the state of the global economy and the desire to save money during the holiday giving season. Demand is also fed by the convenience and proliferation of fast fashion e-commerce sites, he said. 

Environmental Impact: ‘A Global Crisis’

That demand for fast fashion is also impacting the planet, due to overseas factories’ carbon emissions and water pollution, as well as all the products that end up in towering landfills, according to environmental watchdog organizations.

Clothes are being cast aside more quickly and in greater quantities than ever. Donated items from countries including the U.K., the U.S., and China are sold to vendors in places such as Ghana, which has one of the world’s largest secondhand clothing markets. But because these markets can’t handle the volume, many items are never worn again and end up in landfills or rivers. 

Meanwhile, garment factories continue to pollute rivers with toxic dyes and use tremendous amounts of fossil fuel for production and shipping across the world, according to the watchdog groups. And much of fast fashion relies on synthetic fibers made from plastic derived from crude oil and natural gas.

“There is a vast amount of waste and climate impact,” Scafidi said. “It has become a global crisis in that way.”

The Flip Side

But solutions to the problem are not as simple as they may seem. For one thing, fast fashion employs and supports the global poor and fuels developing economies, said Matthew Caulfield, Ph.D., assistant professor of ethics in the Gabelli School of Business.

“Most Americans—even Americans one would typically consider to be lower income—are nonetheless, by purchasing power standards, considered to be part of the global rich,” he said, adding that a single adult earning $24,000 per year makes more than 7 times the global median.

“This is not to say that [fast and cheap production]is an unmitigated good—there are environmental concerns—or that the companies themselves have unassailable practices,” said Caulfield. “It’s only to suggest that one intuition that often seems entirely clear (that buying local is ethically superior) is not entirely clear. There are trade-offs we must navigate.”