Why We Should Be Talking about Fast Fashion

We keep getting news about workers dying in factories of the Fashion Industry. But we should be talking about it with the right words. We should be talking about the Fast Fashion Industry.

The choice of words we make when talking about an issue can be very powerful.

It's important because the Fashion Industry is not going to disappear any time soon.

And it shouldn't.

Because fashion can be fun, pretty, empowering, creative, helpful... It is a beautiful industry when executed and consumed properly.

And for making a change in an industry, one of the first steps is educating its participants.

That is why it is important to use the right words when talking about the Industry issues and we should address them as Fast Fashion related instead of just the textile or just fashion industry.

What is exactly Fast Fashion?

Fast Fashion is the massive production and consumption of nowadays fashion products that treats clothes, people, and the environment as disposable.

As they say in the Treehugger's post: Fast Fashion is clothing's equivalent to fast food – cheaply made, with low-cost materials, and are not built to last.

"The workers who make the clothes are paid too little while enduring awful work conditions; the trendy styles and low prices make us want to consume more, so we fill our closets with a surplus of items that stretch, stain, and pill too easily; and those items end up in the trash before long."

Fast Fashion does not only have an awful impact on the environment. For example, the issue of the big amount of waste that ends up in huge landfills.

But it also has lots of ethical and social issues.

Because, in order to sell cheap, you have to produce even cheaper.

That has led to factories that employ people in very poor working conditions (some would even say slavery conditions).

Factories that aren't safe or healthy, and that are falling apart.

Rana Plaza Collapse, 2013

What is going on in the factories that produce for Fast Fashion companies?

In 2021, as per of today:

• 29 people were killed in a factory incident in Morocco.

According to Morocco World News, in Morocco, the textile industry makes up 54% of Morocco’s informal sector.

It isn't unusual fiding residential villas hosting illegal sweatshops with people working in exploitation and inhumane working conditions.

In this particular clandestine factory, a short circuit happened when the place was flooded after heavy rains.

A factory that was producing for big European brands as are Zara, Mango, El Corte Inglés...

• 1,100 workers from Bangladesh are owed 1 year's salary and allowance.

Straight from the Business & Human Rights Resource Center, I have found this case of more than a thousand workers who are owed A YEAR of wages.

The factory was illegally closed last year and they are still waiting for their money and trying to get it reopened. Because these people are living inhumane lives, especially during this corona-pandemic situation.

So this month they have taken the action of directly addressing Bangladesh's Prime Minister.

• A young woman, Jeyasre Kathiravel, a worker of one of the H&M factories in India was “raped, poisoned, and killed”.

Jeyasre Kathiravel was called by her supervisor on 1 January and asked to report to the factory premises and she never came back home.

Four days later her body was found in a wasteland area.

As Deadline says "H&M have said they will review their business relationship with a garment factory in India used to produce their clothes."

In conclusion...

All of these horrific things have happened just in the three months of 2021.

And I said at the beginning of the post, the Fashion Industry isn't going anywhere.

So we have to re-educate ourselves as consumers and producers to participate in the Fashion Industry in a sustainable and healthy way.

That is how the Slow Fashion movement was born and what it is trying to accomplish.

And because not everything in the Fashion Industry is bad, in my opinion, it is very important to address the industry with the right term. Referring to it as Fast Fashion Industry or Slow Fashion Industry when it applies.

I think we should be talking about Fast Fashion, instead of just the fashion or textile industry because it is a little step toward re-educating ourselves.

So I encourage you to keep learning about the alternatives to Fast Fashion.

I would never ask people to radically stop buying Fast Fashion, but to really put thought into what you buy. Why you buy it. Which brand you're choosing. Which implications could your actions have.

My advice is just to be curious, think, wonder, and keep learning.

If you got to the end of this post,

thank you ✨

And let's keep learning together! 💛