Fast Fashion- Trend or Trash?

We all have heard a lot about fast food, talked about its consequences, written long paras on it in our exams, but fast fashion? We being the generation that is extremely trend-driven, fashion plays on our insecurities of wanting to look good and ‘keeping up with the Joneses.' Mostly we are thinking about how “not to repeat” our clothes (how could we post it on Insta then?)

 A study suggested that more than a quarter of people mostly Gen Z (it’s us again) would be embarrassed to wear an outfit to a special occasion more than once. Gen Zers do not define themselves through the brands they buy, they are occupied instead with cultivating their personal brands on social. (Proud to be the most photographed generation in history)

   

Fast fashion is defined as-

 “An approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers."

If I say it in the layman language it is nothing but 'Planned obsolescence’. This means designing garments to become unfashionable, wear out, lose shape, or fall to pieces easily to force consumers to keep buying new clothes. (Oh that’s why H&M has a new collection thrice a week)

Have you ever bought something only to quickly decide you don’t like it? Or maybe it starts to fall apart soon after you buy it? Do you feel like many of your clothes are no longer in style? Or have you ever found a crazy good deal on an item of clothing (I’m talking crazy good here like less than the price of a coffee)?  Yes, somewhere sometime we have done this. Unfortunately, these are all symptoms of the fast fashion industry.

Fast fashion is ‘fast’ in several senses: the production of merchandise is fast; it reached the market fast and is sold quickly; garments are worn fast, usually only a few times before being discarded. In this world of being “fast” and always remaining ahead, a fast-fashion which is an extremely unsustainable practice has made us its victim without us even realizing it. (sounds believable, we usually are busy with other ‘important’ things)

Reality Check-

Your favorite black dress you adorn and get most compliments about; have you ever thought about how it’s made and what happens when you will discard it just after wearing a few times?

Since the garments have to be manufactured quickly and delivered fast to the retail stores, the wash tests and the wearer trials are usually not possible, which has implications for garment quality and durability. Furthermore, many of the products are made with materials that cannot be recycled.

You’ll be shocked to know the impact that black dress has on the environment. A dress uses 2700 liters of water for production. Just imagine its like 4 years of drinking water of a person. The fashion industry produces greenhouse gases which are more than the gases released by the worldwide aviation industry (so the jeans I bought for my flight will cause more pollution than the entire flight journey? Interesting...) Fast fashion brands hire a workforce comprising largely of migrant, temporary workers, who are significantly underpaid and overworked.  So, if we summarise, fast fashion causes air pollution (✓), water wastage exploitation (✓), and discrimination of workers (✓). Now think about that cute shirt from Zara.

Purchasing items of clothing is now easier than ever, facilitating mass overconsumption. Fast fashion brands make heavy use of social media platforms, particularly Instagram, where users are able to purchase the clothes they see upon the bodies of models and ‘influencers’ (oh wow, influencer marketing?), in just a few swipes of the finger or thumb. (You saw Kriti Sanon wearing that dress, didn’t you?)

You buy it quickly, wear it as long as the trend lasts, and soon forget about it as it remains shoved at the back of your closet. When you discard that dress for a new trend, it sits in garbage dumps for decades, and possibly even centuries. Polyester takes 200 years to decompose. Nylon is not much better either, requiring a minimum of 30-40 years. While these materials are decomposing, they’re also releasing microplastics into the soil which can pollute the nearby area. (Sounds boring, but the reality can't be modified)

Fast fashion has made us so blind that we aren't able to see what it is doing to human life. Isn't it much more than our fight for nepotism or I should say the social media is too busy unfollowing Karan Johar and Alia Bhatt right now? Fast fashion is yes definitely like fast food. After the sugar rush, it just leaves a bad taste in our mouth. Empty calories that make us feel full of factories, full of mistreated workers, a closet full of disposable wears, landfills full of yesterday's garments, thus, making fast fashion second only to oil as the world's largest polluter. (Yes, fashion is trending)

No shopping is no solution-

It is obvious we can't stop shopping, it is all we think of after the malls reopen.

So, what should we do now? Or should I say what little we as a responsible generation (lol) can do on our part?

We can’t ask you to stop buying new clothes (we love fashion too), but we can at least wear that top a few more times? Maybe buy a little less frequently? Also, stop judging if she’s posting a picture in the same dress?

Where a 16- year old Greta Thunberg, an emblem of Gen Z climate consciousness, who has dominated headlines in past, being of our generation is fighting for a sustainable environment, we can't even wear a dress thrice to contribute our bit? The solution is simple "Buy less and buy better". Rather than buying 3 tops, consider buying 1 and get more use out of it. Shop ethically online and think twice before dumping your clothes, these small and easy solutions do matter in the long run.

It is important to remember that in a bid to aesthetically please our senses we don't contribute to a culture that is harming both, our present and our future. Sustainable fashion can't be just a 'charity project' or a change from the norm. It has to be something we consciously look forward to, it has to be the norm.

Now we leave it up to you to decide, whether fast fashion really is a trend or just trash we should get rid of!