5

Kathleen Cuizon

11-STEM

THE COST OF A CHOICE

What’s your style? Is it comfortable, sporty, flashy, extravagant, casual or street style?
Whatever your clothing choice may be, your personality shines through it. People use clothes as
an integral part of showing who they are, it is used as a statement of personal expression.
However, have you ever thought of the process that your clothing goes through? We live in a
world with a multitude of choices and every choice we create produces unintended
consequences. Imitations with lower prices, lower qualities, but a fast production rate are what
fast fashion is all about. In contradiction to this, slow fashion takes the slow rate of production
for better quality. This paper aims to tackle the similarities and the differences between
sustainability, longevity or practicality, and labor ethics of fast fashion and slow fashion.

In an era where global action is bellowed, sustainability is vital to the production of

goods. 9% of solid waste in the United States is reported to be made up of rubber, leather, and
textiles by the United States Environmental Protection Agency which implies that Americans
throw away 81 pounds of clothing yearly. With that being said, the fast fashion industry is anti-
thesis to sustainability because of their current carbon footprint going over 8% of the total
greenhouse gas emissions- more than the aeronautical and shipping industries combined. The
said industry secured the second spot of the world’s largest polluter, right after the oil industries.
Also, only 1% of the materials used for production globally is recycled into other products.
Moreover, H&M, a fast-fashion brand, burns 24,000 pounds of unsold garments yearly. In
contrast to this, slow fashion deems clothes as non-disposable and is mostly made from organic
materials. Produced and sourced locally, the slow fashion industry implements a just practice for
their environmental and animal impacts. Organic cotton serves as their main material for the
apparel which skips the usage of pesticides or fertilizers that can add to pollution. Zero carbon
emissions are impossible; however, minimization of these emissions is not and that is one of the
goals of slow fashion. In terms of sustainability, fast fashion and slow fashions extremely differ
highly for the avoidance of the depletion of our environment.

People have a hard time coping with trends especially since it rapidly changes. With our
fast-paced world, fast fashion gives the masses the chance to keep up. With its affordability, fast
fashion’s main consumers are the ones who do not have a large income like the youth. The
industry has been influential since they mass-produce clothing that embodies the same aesthetic
as high fashion. People tend to buy a Php 300 shirt rather than a Php 1000 one even if the
quality is far off because they are given an opportunity to buy more clothes for less, allowing
mixes and matches which equates to vast outfit selection. Howbeit, fast fashion clothing is not
very reliable in terms of longevity since price and quality are directly proportional in fashion-
less expensive products typically has low quality. Concerning the slow fashion industry, it is
more expensive, it is triple or even quadruple the price of a fast fashion product because of the
materials used which is organic cotton. Since federal guidelines are followed to ensure that the
material is certified organic, it is more expensive to produce this type of fabric with high quality.
The said industry market their product with “cost per wear” that takes into account how many
you can get per item and the more “wears”, the better the investment is. In this case, slow fashion
promotes that rather than purchasing five Php 200 shirts, it is better to invest in one Php 1000
shirt that can last for very long.

Every single human being has innate human rights, however, it is sometimes violated
especially in workplaces. On one hand, in the fast fashion industry, workers are paid below
living or minimum wages with no contracts whatsoever. Homeworkers are also sub-contracted
on doing garment work by factories which pays even lower than factory workers like in India
where they earn approximately $0.15 per hour. Not only that, underprivileged kids are also being
exploited to work 9 hours a day. Moreover, safety requirements and standard are disregarded by
this industry as unsafe constructions are done to the buildings for speedy process. Last 2013, an
8-story building collapsed on Rana Plaza and around 1,134 workers died with over 2,000 injured,
the brand Gap and The Children’s Place were supposedly the ones manufactured in the factory.
Sexual harassment, intimidation, and workplace violence also occur especially for women.
Various articles are even calling out the fast fashion industry on having “modern slavery”. On
the other hand, the slow fashion industry, although focuses more on environmental impacts,
provides more ethical situations for workers. In addition to this, the wages distributed to workers
are just and fair. This industry emphasizes the celebration of the skills of the people who crafts or
creates the garments. An Australian and New York-based brand called Arnsdorf created their
products in-house, starting from designing even until the production process. Another brand
called Ecoture stated, “Our products marked as handmade have been created by skilled artisans,
rather than via automated machine-based processes, often using techniques passed down through
generations.”

“Once we know and are aware, we are responsible for our action and inaction.” – Jean Paul
Sarte Although slow fashion and fast fashion are both in the same industry of garment
production, the two highly differs concerning sustainability, longevity or practicality, and labor
ethics, amidst minor similarities. For sustainability, slow fashion provides much less carbon
emissions than the fast fashion industry. The two industries show polar yet promising ideas
regarding longevity and practicality. While fast fashion promotes cheap, accessible, trendy but
low caliber of garments, slow fashion retails stronger and higher standard of garments but with a
much more expensive price tag. For labor ethics, fast fashion violates human rights as they
provide wages below minimum and unsafe workplaces while slow fashion takes more care of
their workers, celebrating their creations. It seems like fashion is more than just the price tag you
see, what’s the real cost of your clothing?

HELPFUL REFERENCES

https://goodonyou.eco/ethical-clothing-expensive/

https://fashioninsiders.co/features/opinion/fast-fashion-vs-slow-fashion/

https://arnsdorf.com.au/pages/purpose

https://theconversation.com/fast-fashion-lies-will-they-really-change-their-ways-in-a-climate-
crisis-121033

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/11/22/how-slow-fashion-is-fast-tracking-
sustainability/#e061adb52e42

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/29/fast-fashion-giving-way-sustainable-
wardrobe

https://baggyboysco.com/blogs/baggy-blog/fast-fashion-pros-and-cons

https://ecoture.com.au/collections/handmade

https://www.sustainablejungle.com/sustainable-living/ethical-sustainable-fashion/

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/dec/19/conscious-ethical-and-cruelty-free-a-guide-
to-the-language-of-sustainable-fashion

https://www.newdresscode.com/stylecode/slow-fashion#dont-be-shamed-into-buying-ethical

http://study-ny.com/slow-fashion

https://www.sloww.co/slow-fashion-101/

https://mamoq.com/blogs/the-journal/modern-slavery-in-the-fashion-industry-are-we-blind-to-
the-truth

https://theconversation.com/fashion-production-is-modern-slavery-5-things-you-can-do-to-help-
now-115889

http://sites.stedwards.edu/mwier/2019/09/23/ethics-in-labor-hidden-humans-rights-costs-in-the-
fast-fashion-supply-chain/#.XlSbKWgzbIV

https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2018/04/26/fast-fashion-unethical-and-unsustainable/

https://21ninety.com/the-dark-side-of-fast-fashion-how-i-explore-the-ethics-of-the-fashion-
inudstry