“Fast fashion, fair-trade brands and the behavior of Mexican consumers”

Paulina Salas Rosales

Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas

Advanced English I

April 17th, 2019

“I don’t want anyone wearing anything which is produced by our blood.”

-Shima Akhter, garment worker

On the 21st century, globalization has reached almost every corner on earth and it

has surely changed the way societies think, behave, interact, produce and consume. Mexico

has not been the exception. As a direct victim of americanization, Mexicans also take part

in the phenomenon of fast fashion, a practice that has caused several damages to the

environment and that has been responsible of many violations to the human rights. In the

US, the called “Fair-Trade Brands” had emerged as a response and a solution to this

problem. Even though some brands of this type had also emerged in Mexico, they are really

small in number. The objective of this essay is to explain the reasons why Mexico has the

ideal conditions for the development of fair-trade brands and the benefits that would be

generated in the country due to the establishment of those type of brands. For the purposes

of this essay, the concepts of globalization, fast fashion, fair-trade brands and

americanization will first be presented and discussed. Then, the essay will expose, in

general terms, cultural and industrial contexts in Mexico; finally, the essay will conclude

offering an explanation on why Mexico has a suitable environment for fair-trade brands to

come up.

Globalization has been chasing societies around the world lately. This word

[globalization] seems very useful when we want to explain attitudes and behaviors people

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have every day. But what is globalization and why is the concept becoming so famous? As

modernization, globalization refers to: “the expansion of the social structures of modernity

(capitalist relations, industrial system, etc.) all over the world, as well as the procedure of

destruction of special ways of production and the loss of local identity”1. Given that

definition, it is appropriate to conclude that globalization, in general terms, is an exchange

which may carry positive benefits for one of the actors involved and negative effects for the

other.

Globalization is an old practice, since many years ago, societies around the world

have exchanged ideas, practices and products. But because of the fast development of

technologies since World War II, globalization has become really popular, making cultural

and industrial exchanges between countries easier and faster. Therefore, is globalization the

same thing as sharing? The word “sharing” has a positive connotation among societies, the

concept involves a first actor who gives some of his or her belongings to a second actor so

that the latter obtains benefits. Sharing sounds like a nice practice, nevertheless,

globalization does not work like that. Exchanging ideologies and products has damaged the

planet and us, proof of that is the phenomenon of fast fashion.

Fast fashion is a very new phenomenon that the clothing industry has created in the

21st century; in wide terms it refers to “low-cost clothing collections that mimic current

luxury fashion trends”2. Fast fashion aims to offer in-trend designs of clothing (mainly

those appearing in the New York Fashion Week every year) to mid-class people for

1
Antonis, Mavropoulos. Globalization and waste management, D-Waste (2015). Pp. 8

2
Annamma Joy, John F. Sherry, Jr, Alladi Venkatesh, Jeff Wang and Ricky Chan. Fast
Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands, Fashion Theory, Volume 16,
Issue 3, pp. 275.

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extremely cheap prices. Nevertheless, those “cheap” prices have a high cost for those who

manufacture those clothes (mainly people living in developing countries) and also for the

environment. The documentary “The True Cost”3 produced by Michael Ross and directed

by Andrew Morgan in 2015 widely explains the practice of fast fashion, its causes, effects

and the actions that have been taking place to overcome the problem.

Fast fashion is a practice that big companies and trademarks, as rational actors, use

to magnify their earnings as much as they can. In this sense, fast fashion is a consequence

of capitalist relations. The success of fast fashion is obviously due to a large offer but it’s

also because of a huge demand, this is not a surprise since cultural values on capitalist

societies dictate that the more you have, the more you are worth in the society. In a

nutshell, fast fashion exists because of the value of consumption.

The clothing industry brings large sums of money to the economy in the USA,

which seems like something good because governments are always trying to make their

economies larger. Nonetheless, richness generated by this market is unequally distributed,

and the ways of generating it are unsustainable for the environment and unfair for those

who work for this industry.

Fast fashion garments are cheap because they are produced with low quality

materials that damage the environment with several chemicals that are used in the process

of making fabrics. An example of that is the genetically modified cotton, the most used raw

material for the fabrication of clothes, which is contaminated with huge amounts of

pesticides during its output. Another contaminating material is leather, which uses

3
The True Cost. Directed by Andrew Morgan. United States: Untold Creative, 2015. 92
min.

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enormous amounts of feed, land, water and fossil fuels during its production as well as

toxins during the tanning process of this raw material. Fast fashion clothes are unfriendly

with the environment because of the chemicals used during its production, the amount of

water and resources used to produce raw materials and the amount of fabric that becomes

litter when clothes are thrown away.4

Besides being bad for the environment, fast fashion is also responsible for numerous

violations of the human rights. As it has been said, the production of fabrics involves big

amounts of dangerous chemicals that contaminate water and soil, but it is important to keep

in mind that people who work on the production of those raw materials are exposed to those

chemicals every day, putting their health at risk. On the other hand, manufacturing workers

risk their lives at work due to the unsafe conditions of the factories that employ them. Since

those factories are located in developing countries, trademarks do not care about the

conditions manufacturing workers work under. Usually, those workers are not offered any

kind of insurance when they are hired and their salaries are not enough for them to live with

dignity, therefore they have nothing and no one who cares about them. To sum up: fast

fashion is a phenomenon that deeply affects the environment and those who work for big

brands in developing countries.

As a response to this terrible problem that the world is facing, the called “fair-trade

brands” had emerge. Fair trade brands are those brands that are fully committed to making

trade as fair as possible. In the clothing market, those brands intend to use recycled

materials for the fabrication of clothes, as well as sustainable materials like organic cotton.

Also, fair trade brands cooperate with artisans, designers, and manufacturers of the clothing

4
Ibid

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market so each one of them receives a fair payment for their work. According to Fair Trade

Winds: “Fair Trade Brands represent a dedication to making the world more equal, more

sustainable and more just.”5 Hence, fair-trade brands are a perfect solution to the fast

fashion problem, given that they do not produce big amounts of garbage, they use

environment-friendly raw materials and they guarantee a fair payment and relationship with

those involved in the production of garments.

Even though fair-trade brands are the perfect solution to the problem, they have not

become popular yet because of many reasons. The problem with those type of brands is that

not many investors are interested because it is much cheaper for them to keep on producing

the way they have been doing it until now. They are not attracted to paying higher salaries,

neither to facing complications of getting sustainable raw materials. The few fair-trade

brands that exist nowadays have been developed by those investors who care for social and

environmental causes or by those activists who have enough capital to invest on those

brands.

Being neighbors with the USA, globalization brought to Mexico the phenomenon of

Americanization, defined as “the process by which people or countries become more and

more similar to Americans and the United States.”6 This means that Mexico is always one

step behind the US and that Mexican people have now the will to behave like their

neighbors from the north. The increasing number of shops of American brands in Mexico is

an example of this. Mexicans now want to dress like people do in the USA, in other words,

Mexicans are also perpetrators of fast fashion.

5
Fair Trade Brands. Fair Trade Winds, 2019. https://www.fairtradewinds.net/fair-trade-
brands/

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 There is no doubt about the fact that Mexican culture is very rich, since many years

ago, it has been appreciated and recognized internationally. Part of that culture involves

beautiful designs, made by indigenous artisans, that can be seen on crafts, paintings,

drawings and clothes. Those patterns and designs are fulfilled with colors and creative

elements that characterize Mexican folklore and also that stand out the richness of the many

cultures of this country. Shortly, Mexico is a country filled with designers and artisans.

Another important element of this country is its industry, Mexico is a country with

many resources and many people that work for manufacturing industries. This country has

enough space, workers, resources and capital for different industries to emerge. And also,

the generation of new jobs is important for all Mexicans, since it is good for the economy

and for young people and families that live in this territory.

Mexico has the ideal environment for fair-trade brands of clothing to emerge, its

culture provides numerous patterns that can serve as an inspiration for the design of

innovative pieces of clothing. Its human and resource capital is sufficient for this industry

to produce in a fair and sustainable manner. However, fair-trade brands need more support

and popularity, Mexican society needs to change first in order to empower those brands.

Cultural values related to consumption and capitalism, brought to Mexico by

americanization, must change immediately if the goal is to stop fast fashion.

The first step to achieve the previous aim, would be to inform people about it. It is

indispensable for Mexican consumers to become more conscious about the things they buy:

where they come from, what they are made of, who made them, their impact on the

environment, etcetera. If people were aware of the impacts of buying fast fashion, most

probably, they would like to stop buying fast fashion clothing; nevertheless, if they are not

offered alternatives, they would still be buying from those brands who use this practice.

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That is the reason why fast fashion and fair-trade brands are concepts that depend on each

other. The answer to that issue is to convince Mexican investors and entrepreneurs first, so

they can start betting on fair-trade brands, which would be attractive for them known that

they could make profits of this market. The emergence of those fair-trade brands and

clothes shops could be the perfect alternative for Mexican people to buy eco-friendly

clothes at fair prices.

In conclusion, the establishment and creation of Mexican fair-trade clothing brands

would have numerous positive effects on this country: the creation of new jobs would be

one, as well as the good environmental consequences and the decrease of social injustices.

All of them could also benefit Mexican economy and quality of life. For this to happen,

Mexican people who are aware of the problem of fast fashion and that know about fair-

trade brands must make those definitions popular and must share their knowledge with

everyone else. Sharing information is the very first step on solving this problem that

involves us all. Societies need to change the way they consume, they need to be more

conscious and more caring about the planet and also, they must care much more about all

people who live in here. Us Mexicans are able to become less selfish and more responsible

for our actions, if we act as a family, we can change our practices, our manners and the

environment in which we live.

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Resources:

 Mavropoulos, A. Globalization and waste management, D-Waste (2015). Pp. 25

 Annamma Joy, John F. Sherry, Jr, Alladi Venkatesh, Jeff Wang and Ricky Chan.

Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands. Fashion

Theory, Volume 16, Issue 3, pp. 273–296.

 The True Cost. Directed by Andrew Morgan. United States: Untold Creative, 2015.

92 min.

 Fair Trade Brands. Fair Trade Winds, 2019. https://www.fairtradewinds.net/fair-

trade-brands/