Vogue Does Not Support Fast Fashion,

So Why Should You?

Fast fashion is somewhat of a new topic surfacing in the fashion industry. Stemming from

the late 1990’s fast fashion has exploded throughout the globe and continues to flourish at a

concerning consistency. Vogue Magazine presents to you: why you should care about this issue,

and if you are a buying from these money crazed companies, why you shouldn’t be.

Starting at square one, let’s introduce fast fashion in a way that puts aside bias and break

it down to its roots. Fast fashion is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as, “an approach to

the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends

quickly and cheaply available to consumers”. Key words are: quickly and cheaply. Clothes that

stay up to date with the fashion trends to appeal to the

buyer, then appeasing them with the low cost of the

product. More recently these fast fashion brands have been

taking their businesses fully online. Companies like Zaful,

Shein, Zara, and Aliexpress all participate in this fast

fashion method. These are considered the mass-market retailers and will push out product

according to what is popular at the given time.

Any logical thinker would ponder the question of, how can you create clothes this

quickly and cheaply? Ethically the answer is you can’t. Environmentally the answer is you also

can’t. Clothes cannot be manufactured at a rate that they are, for the price that they are at without

 fully immersing the company in sweatshops and child labor. Overproduction and excess waste to

continue the list. It’s so clear from any other moral standpoint that these companies and us as

consumers should not be supporting, but we do.

Why is it that buyers want this?

Morals aside, from a buyer behavior standpoint, fast fashion is giving buyers exactly

what they want, when they want, at a price they can afford. And from the business standpoint,

fast fashion allows to fill an unimaginable amount of demand in such a short time. It seems like

the answer. It fills everyones wants in the short time period that humans desire. Buyers want that

instant gratification feeling the clothing gives them. Dana Tomas, author of Fashionopolis who

has dedicated years of time to analyze fast fashion around the world even says, “20% of buyers

want same-day delivery”.

Environmentally?

Environmentally fast fashion is a nightmare. Dana Thomas says, “The Environmental

Protection Agency reported that Americans sent 10.5 tons of textiles, majority of which were

clothes, to the landfill in 2015”. Now fast fashion can take the responsibility for the mass of this

number because the clothing is produced at such a cheap rate that it falls apart. When it falls

apart it is not worth keeping either. The clothing waste adds up after all of these consumers buy

just to throw away. She also points, “we will buy 63 percent more fashion—from 62 million tons

to 102 million tons”. These numbers though already alarming only continue to rise.

Landfills pile up with all this low quality clothing and when we say low quality, we mean

the lowest of low. Poisonous, actually. The dyes that is used to color the clothing seeps into the

 ground below us and as you can imagine, does not act as good fertilizer to help the world

flourish (Thomas). The toxic dyes and coloring may seep into the landfills, but not the clothing

itself. Thomas points out that 60% of the clothing in the fast fashion industry is derived from

fossil fuels meaning it does not decay or break down. And if by chance these pieces do compose,

it takes longer than a lifetime to do so.

Andrew Brooks, author of Clothing Poverty agrees that we are no where near helping the

earth with this garbage we call clothing. Brooks too traveled to Africa to define clothing poverty

and research the social and economic changes. He says, “$1.7 billion of clothing goes to the

landfills each year”. He continues on about how low quality clothing ruins the recyclability of

the clothing and effort to keep clothes full circle (Brooks). This clothing is toxic and with the

alarming growth rate that this clothing is being produced, not the positive change we need.

Real life people?

If you have not jumped to this conclusion on your own already, this type of clothing is

not sustainably or ethically made. And this rate of production is something that only mass

amounts of factories would be able to push out. Doing the math, this means sweatshops. This

mean fast fashion clothing is not created without putting others at risk.

Thomas traveled to California to take a look and talk to these workers in the factories of

companies including: Forever 21, Wet Seal, Papaya, and Chalrette Russe. After these

conversations she gathered that most complain of dirty working conditions, poor ventilation of

the harmful fumes, and seeing rats in their work space (Thomas). These complaints are valid in

the fact that Thomas saw it first hand and continued to see the same trends from factory to

factory. Fumes and conditions so awful that these garnet workers became physically sick

 (Thomas). This is not just a problem in the American factories either. Thomas noted that

“Between 2006 and 2012, more than 500 Bangladeshi garment workers died in factory fires.”

Safety features are not put into place and things obviously are not up to code. How can such a

good company allow this to happen you may ask yourself. Well, clearly these companies are not

all they portray themselves to be. They don’t care about their workers, they care about the money

and how fast the product is getting on the shelves.

Minimum wage is a thing, so yes these workers are getting paid. But to be paid you must

be a documented worker. Alarmingly, Thomas observed that in the LA factories half of the 45000

workers were undocumented. Illegal, yes, but it is happening. This means that these specific

workers have to come to work everyday in condition they are not even sure they can survive just

to get paid whatever the company decides to pay them. And Vogue has jumped to the conclusion

to say that we do not thing it’s going to be a very generous amount.

These companies work around is fake ID’s (Thomas). A workaround that continues to

work and that regulators overlook. Quite simply, no one cares about the workers at all. Dana

Thomas even talked to CEO’s first hand. One company higher up said, “Listen we know our

shits made in swear shops, but we put it at the back of our minds. Nobody cares.” The company

owners are well aware of what’s going on and they choose to turn a blind eye. They choose to

have their companies run the way they are.

We Get It…

Vertica Bhardwaj, Associate Professor of Instruction Division of Textiles and Apparel at Texas

State University, and Dr. Ann Fairhurst, Department Head of Retail at the University of

Tennessee at Knoxville discussed fast fashion as a whole and why buyers buy from fast fashion

 companies. Vogue understands typical buyer behavior and understands the viewpoint that clothes

are expensive and it may seem like the only option to buy cheaply. Bhardwaj and Fairhurst say,

“flexibility and rapid responsiveness to the market are the areas that are most important in

today's market.” It works better for what consumers want. Gives fashion a way to keep up with

the ever-changing trends to satisfy the consumers. Bhardwaj and Fairhurst continue on to say,

“Generation Y would prefer a higher number of low-quality, cheap and fashionable clothes as

compared to baby boomers, who would prefer to purchase fewer number of higher quality

clothes.” It is hard to something from happening when it is the young generations that want it to

happen.

Higher number of clothing does not mean it has to be expensive all of the time. Second

hand clothing is an amazing alternative where prices are just as low as the fast fashion industry.

Sometimes these fast fashion brand even make it to places like goodwill, so you can still be

trendy and not support fast fashion companies directly.

There’s Hope

Nebahat Tokatli dives deep into the problem of fast fashion to find even the smallest

ways to help. He is New School for Social Research and researches Economic Geography. He

expands on the idea of things being reclaimed (Tokatli). Obviously, the goal is to be

environmentally sustainable and humane for all fashion brands. He says that there are more and

more brands using “‘reclaimed’ cashmere, refusing to use polyvinyl chloride or untraceable

rayon”. These small changes will help keep things out of the landfill and help keep fashion full

circle like it’s supposed to be.

 There is hope for a better future and better fashion. Vogue readers can be part of the

change. It starts by resisting the urge to contribute to these devil like brands. Think of the people

in the sweatshops, think of the money hungry CEO’s, think of the Earth we call home. Vogue

pushes you to go out to a local thrift store and find pieces with potential. Upcycle and restyle if

you need to. Fashion is in your own hands and we have the creative control. Even if you are

guilty of owning clothing from many of these companies, preserve what you can. If you need to

buy from these companies as a last resort, do not overindulge. Buy what you know you will

wear, try on the clothes in store if you can. This way clothes will not be thrown that do not fit

you.

 Works Cited

Bhardwaj, Vertica, and Ann Fairhurst. “Fast Fashion: Response to Changes in the Fashion

Industry.” The International review of retail, distribution and consumer research 20.1

(2010): 165–173. Web.

Brooks, Andrew. Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-Hand

Clothes. Zed Books, 2015

Cachon, Gerard P, and Robert Swinney. “The Value of Fast Fashion: Quick Response,

Enhanced Design, and Strategic Consumer Behavior.” Management science 57.4

(2011): 778–795. Web.

“Fast Fashion Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fast%20fashion.

Thomas, Dana. Fashionopolis- The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes. Edited by

Virginia Smith Younce, MacMillan Ltd, 2019.

Tokatli, Nebahat. “Global Sourcing: Insights from the Global Clothing Industry—the Case of

Zara, a Fast Fashion Retailer.” Journal of economic geography 8.1 (2008): 21–38. Web.