The culture of fashion is changing, and it’s not taking the environment into account.
If you were to look across many British high-streets today, you would find more and more stores promoting what can be referred to as ‘fast fashion.’ A new wave of environmentally conscious activists are taking issue with the impact this trend is having on the planet.
Fast fashion is a term used to describe clothing which moves quickly from the catwalk to high-street stores and websites, many at affordable prices, encouraging customers to buy more clothes more often and creating more diverse seasonal trends for customers to keep up with. Examples of these fast fashion outlets would be the stores Zara and H&M, as well as the popular clothing websites ASOS and Missguided.
The problem comes when you start to question what happens to old clothes that consumers are replacing season after season?
Over the last few years, there have been rising fears that fast fashion is leading to a ‘throw-away’ culture, where more and more people are either throwing away perfectly good clothing because a new style is in trend, or the cheaply made garments are tearing and ruining after only a few wears.
We spoke to Erin Hall, a fashion student in Southampton. She said, “There’s definitely a throw-away culture when it comes to the fashion industry. Especially now nights out and special events are captured and saved over Instagram and Facebook, lots of people don’t want to be seen wearing the same things in different photos. There are some outfits you buy knowing that you’ll probably only wear it the one time.
“A major problem for this throw-away culture is multi-channel retailers, websites that are selling cheap clothes that are going to be thrown away quickly. Social-media influencers only add to this problem, they encourage their audiences to engage in this culture constantly. It’s definitely not good for the environment.”
We also managed to interview Maisie Tongeman, a Leeds based entrepreneur, who describes her label MGKTx as, “sustainable and ethical clothing. Starting conversations & changing culture.”
Others have also called out fast fashion for its unfair treatment and exploitation of the overseas workers that are manufacturing the garments. This is the sort of behaviour you may remember from the BBC’s Panorama episode “Primark: On The Rack” from 2008, documenting the working conditions of the people making clothes for Primark.
Now, social and environmental activists are speaking out over the ills of fast fashion.
There are ways you can stand up to fast fashion and stop taking part in the throw-away culture. Buying vintage and second-hand clothing is growing more and more popular in 2019 and is one way of buying clothes which will not contribute to the fast fashion industry. You can also fight throw-away culture by mending older clothes or donating them to causes that will put them to good use.
Kane Daly 