A myriad of clothing floods my screen and the tantalizing notion of a holiday deal draws me in. A life-sized teddy bear beckons me over for the cheap price of $7. Even so, I stop. I’m no billionaire, yet I can’t help but think: why are these items so cheap?
We’ve reached a new time for fast fashion, social media and ever-changing trends. With this surfaces an ever-growing demand for cheap clothing, evident everywhere around us today in the things we wear and the trends we adapt. Not many stop to think about whether the origins of these items are ethically sound.
Many brands have adapted the unethical ways of fast fashion. But we fail to think about the roots of these items, with origins often lying under the fast fashion umbrella. Fast fashion is extremely reliant on the exploitation of poverty stricken children. In order for buyers to pay less, children pay the price.
The truth is, almost all brands of prominence today fall under this fast fashion umbrella. When most think of fast fashion, brands like Temu or Shein come to mind. This of course is because of their glaringly cheap prices and large consumer base. Individuals online have even coined the term “Shein warrior,” referring to individuals who constantly buy from the brand. Both are leading companies in this fast fashion movement, and according to Wired, push out up to 6,000 items to their respective websites a day.
Fast fashion brands often employ child laborers due to the low cost of employment. According to the International Labor Organization, globally there are over 160 million child laborers – which is over 7% of all children around the world. The lack of education these children receive puts their future livelihoods in jeopardy and the childhoods of millions of children each year are stripped away for the sole purpose of manufacturing the affordable clothing people buy today.
The Industrial Revolution, with it’s powerful machinery and economic advances, came with the popularization of child labour. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, over 18% of all children aged 18 and below were employed in the 1800s. Since then, child labour has bloomed into a worldwide phenomenon where millions of children around world lose their childhood to intense factory work.
The U.S. currently has issued laws prohibiting children under the age of 18 to pursue work in hazardous environments. However, the same can’t be said for underdeveloped countries such as Ethiopia or Haiti. Laborers for fast fashion companies are often severely underpaid and overworked.
Fast fashion giants also tend to have a bad track record of stealing the ideas and designs of small artists. Most notably, in early 2023, popular athletic apparel designer Cassey Ho reported that fast fashion brand Shein had stolen her design, selling it for less than $13.
“$13 doesn’t even cover how much I spent to make that skirt at the raw cost,” Ho said.
In “This Is the Reality of America’s Fast-Fashion Addiction,” Rachel Greenley discusses the life of a warehouse worker making $18.75 an hour. Greenley covers the reality of the manufacturing process of your favorite clothing items.
“We support a system of throwaway clothes that didn’t deserve their trip around the world or the number of hands that touched them,” Greenley said.
Fast fashion is incredibly prominent in today’s society and an attempt to eradicate fast fashion completely would be futile. This issue goes hand in hand with the trend of overconsumption. I agree that buying clothing for cheap prices is incredibly compelling but is it really ideal to buy something that will tear at the seams next year?
When people see their favorite influencer buying one thing, they’ll flock to it as well, turning a blind eye to the unethical roots of these brands. Social media has normalized buying items in bulk with the concept of $1000 SHEIN hauls, persuading young audiences to follow suit.
The recent influx of labeling specific products as “essentials” has further fueled this trend of overconsumption. All of a sudden, people are telling you that ballet flats are vital to living your day to day life. Trends like this trigger FOMO and mislead audiences to believe that it is necessary to continuously buy the newest trends or else they miss out on the latest essentials.
This topic has sparked heated debate among users online. Individuals will argue that fast fashion is the only affordable option in the world we live in today. I share the sentiment of many who are unwilling to spend $50 for a plant-based hand sewn shirt. However, purchasing fast fashion once in a blue moon isn’t the problem; the constant purchasing of unnecessary items in order to follow trends and blatant overconsumption is.
There are many affordable counterparts to fast fashion such as thrifting or buying from small businesses. By refraining from jumping onto the newest microtrends, which will end up in a landfill in the next few days, individuals can invest in the futures of their closet and children worldwide.
The global fast fashion issue isn’t just confined to the threads of the fashion industry; it also creates issues for you and me. Globally, retail giants such as Shein ship over a million packages per day. According to the World Bank, the fast fashion industry is responsible for over 10% of global carbon emissions. Air pollution is among one of the leading causes of global warming.
The clothing produced by these companies are commonly made of polyester, nylon and acrylic. According to a study done by Greenpeace, approximately 101 million tons of abandoned garments find their way into landfills each year––almost 10% of the total clothing manufactured. Virtually all synthetic fibers contain microplastics that take years to decompose due to their non-biodegradable nature. Trends come and go but the irreversible damages created by fast fashion giants linger.
We as consumers must be conscious with our purchases. It’s important to remind yourself not to fall victim to the latest microtrend. We should strive to lessen the dent fast fashion has made on both the environment and the future of clothing.
