The Dark Underbelly of the Glittery World of Fashion

On the surface, the fashion industry is all glitz and glam. Delve deeper and all of that is just a cover for the industry’s massive waste, pollution and labour exploitation.

Have you ever wondered how brands like Zara and H&M have sales almost every month? It is because they are fast fashion brands.

Fast fashion is a term that refers to a method of production, design, manufacturing and marketing that focuses on rapid and maximum clothing. The aim is to keep customers interested and pump out new trends consistently. However, this practice has serious environmental and ethical ramifications — right from sourcing materials to excess waste on and off the rack.

Design
The fast fashion story starts from its design. Up until the 20th century, fashion brands designed clothes for four main seasons — winter, spring, summer and autumn. Since the early 2000s, however, fast fashion brands have started to create collections for almost every single week of the year. Forced to come up with newer designs almost every week, designers are now overworked and underpaid.

Sourcing
The problem continues in the sourcing stages. To keep up with their enormous demand, they need to source cheap and, of course, fast. This in turn leads to sourcing material from developing countries that are once again enslaved by polluting practices — thus adding to the vicious cycle of producing material and clothes and also underpay.

Production and Manufacturing
Did you know it takes 1800 gallons of water to produce one pair of jeans? To put that into perspective, the average human uses 600 gallons of water every week! Besides this, fast fashion brands use chemicals, dyes and other detergents to produce their products. This adds up to one-fifth of the world’s industrial waste. What’s more, fast fashion brands use the open-loop cycle of production, which means that their waste directly flows into rivers and oceans. 20–30% of the world’s microplastics are released by fast fashion companies. In fact, fast fashion contributes to climate change more than both international aviation and shipping combined.

Labour
According to research carried out by Fashion Checker in 2020, 93% of fast fashion brands are not paying their employees a living wage. Apart from this, fast fashion brands do not maintain gender equality. 80% of all employees are women. Fast fashion brands also do not care for their employee’s safety or their rights. An infamous example of this was the 2013 Dhaka factory collapse that injured thousands and claimed the lives of many, with none of the workers’ families receiving help of any kind from the brand.

On the shelves
After this exhaustive process, the clothes are finally stocked in stores, but not for long. Fast fashion brands now have 50–52 week seasons. So the clothes are barely put on mannequins before they are ready to be replaced. Consumers too have inculcated this attitude. In 2019, The Guardian published a study that found, “One in three young women, the biggest segment of consumers, consider garments worn once or twice to be old.” The constant update of designs from fast fashion brands has made it seem as if clothes are infinite. But the resources and efforts made to create these clothes are not.

After Waste
When the clothes are off the rack, they are usually immediately taken to landfills and dumped there. In 2019, the Clean Clothes Campaign estimated that one in three fast fashion garments end up in a landfill. And this is carried out not only by customers but retail stores as well. Around 500 billion dollars of value is lost every single year in wasted clothes because of underutilization and lack of recycling.

Taking the first step
It is painfully obvious how fast fashion brands are producing clothes without environmental, economic and humanitarian considerations. They have questionable ethical practices, are major polluters and, most importantly, do not seem to care. In 2020, many popular brands were rated with less than 10% transparency on the Fashion Transparency Index. Zara, H&M, Westside, Allen Solly and countless others that are go-to’s for billions are the problem.

We can no longer wait around for these brands to change their practices. We all must try to make more sustainable and ethical fashion choices for our planet and people. Identify sustainable fashion brands, buy second hand from thrift shops, practise recycling and upcycling your clothes and educate yourself about sustainable fashion and its practices.

Start by joining the sustainable fashion course at Habbit taught by Nancy Dhamija. Nancy is well known in the sustainable fashion circles in India and has even started her own sustainable fashion brand, Closet Library. Download the Habbit App and enrolling today. We have many more diverse skills for you to explore!