The Cult of Fast Fashion

The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Mass Amherst chapter.

what is fast fashion?

According to the United Nations, “fast fashion is inexpensive yet stylish, cheaply produced and soon discarded [clothing], replaced by newer styles.” The fast fashion business model produces thousands of new clothing styles weekly. 

Fast fashion companies’ clothing garments are usually made in developing countries where they can pay their workers, mostly women and children, just pennies a day. 

The Industry We Want, reported that garment workers are receiving just over half of the income they need to keep up with the cost of living.

Quick-paced production of clothes encourages customers to buy the newest micro-trends, or specific individual clothing pieces or patterns, that are popular on social media. The problem with micro-trends is that they ‘go out of style’ weeks after they rose to popularity. Subsequently, these pieces of clothing end up in landfills or second-hand stores. 

Fast fashion conglomerates like SHIEN, H&M, and Zara have been credited for making the fast fashion business model mainstream. On one hand, fast fashion has made new clothing more accessible for low-income demographics as well as plus-size customers. On the other hand, the World Resources Institute found that fast fashion stores exploit and underpay their workers as well as produce 2-8% of annual greenhouse gas emissions.

Predominantly, fast fashion is not beneficial for people or the planet. Boston University reported, “Every year, people in the United States throw out more than 34 billion pounds of used textiles. Divided across the population, that’s more than 100 pounds of textile waste per person each year.” 

Throwaway culture and social media can be a driving force in pushing consumers to send their ‘non-trendy’ textiles to landfills. Consequently, most clothing pieces produced by fast fashion companies are made of synthetic materials like nylon, which is plastic, as a result, they are never able to decompose in the environment. 

This is merely one of the numerous problems associated with the fashion industry. An alternative to shopping fast fashion is shopping second-hand at thrift stores, consignment shops, and even online apps. 

Boston University additionally found that a large portion of clothing donations that are sent to stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army are either shipped to developing countries or are sent directly to landfills. The making and discarding of clothing, especially fast fashion, is a major contributor to the climate crisis.

THe pressure to consume

On every social media platform, fashion influence is widespread. Considerable amounts of consumers look to their favorite social media influencers for fashion advice. 

The Atlantic stated that “Fashion brands have always played on our aspirations and insecurities, and on the seemingly innate desire to express ourselves through our clothing. Now those companies had access to their target shoppers not just when they stood below a billboard in SoHo or saw an ad on prime-time TV, but in more intimate spaces and at all hours of the day.” 

Fashion businesses have nonstop access to shoppers due to social media, which creates an unhealthy relationship where these companies can effortlessly prey on customers via social media to boost their sales. 

The pressure to consume emerges from consumers frequently being bombarded with advertisements. For instance, social media advertisements endorse the idea that there is an innate need for a new and improved product. 

It does not help that a majority of the people who are promoting fast fashion companies are prominent social media influencers. They advertise these cheaply made products as though they are life-changing. This business model makes individuals believe that they need to consume unnecessary goods to be happy and successful people. 

Then the cycle continues, a new product or clothing item that advertises an ability to achieve a certain lifestyle or aesthetic goes viral and consumers instantaneously buy it. 

Inevitability, a few weeks pass, and that item no longer has its distinct and unique appeal as it did before. 

Fashion should be a way in which people express themselves and not be used as a scheme to manipulate customers into buying the next micro-trend. The impact of social media is like no other. Good lighting and a thirty-second video can help a business make thousands of dollars in just a few minutes. 

The compelling nature of overconsumption is hard for shoppers to avoid due to false advertising and the need to conform to impossible standards of beauty. 

After all, the majority of the products that are being marketed have to do with how we look. From makeup to clothing companies, their advertisements try and fix a problem, with their supposedly revolutionary product, that consumers never knew they had in the first place. 

Consumption is a never-ending cycle due to the ‘need’ to have new and better things. To fight excessive consumerism it is imperative to ignore society’s demand to purchase the next best thing.

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