Senior Capstone | Zero | Chandler Kast

FAST FASHION

What is considered

FAST FASHION?

Fast fashion is the idea of mass-producing clothing at an extremely rapid pace, often made with cheaper materials causing consumers will constantly refresh wardrobes with styles that are trendy.

Other 14.%

Fast Fashion Brands

85.9%

AGES 18-24

While most contribute to the Fast Fashion Industry, they specifically target younger individuals but women in particular because they are often most concerned with being up-to-date on what current trends are fashionable.

In a generation surrounded by ever-growing technology and social platforms, the world is able to look at anyone across the globe with this “perfect life” with everything in order and organized.

The Fast Fashion Industry is projected to reach $260,930 million by 2028 from $210,190 from 2021.

12 PERCENT

Compulsive Buying Disorder is a newly studied phenomena where individuals with this condition often have prepurchase anxiety or tension that can be relived by a simple purchase. Fast Fashion plays a negative role on this creating simple cheap purchases to fill a void somewhere else. It is common for this trait to bed passed through generations.

70% of women find shopping as a form of entertainment

Often researching products, comparing prices or figuring out if its the right fit from them. This forces consumers to buy at a higher volumes with the low cost of fast fashion. The undesirable affordable prices satisfies the purchaser to get their sense of instant gratification. This leads countless articles of clothing left in closets unattended to and forgotten, waiting for the next trend to come around and already forgetting about the one that just took place. April Lane Benson, who is a psychologist that specializes in treating compulsive shopping Through studies her reason for people browsing the shopping sites as entertainment, she says it in a way that it is more of an existential crisis. She states

She then explains that people confuse the search for themselves with the search for stuff and materialistic Shopping then becomes this “quick fix” for other problems people also face with Compulsive Buying Disorder.

of a women’s wardrobe are considered inactive and unworn.

“Shopping is a way that we search for our selves and our place in the world”

CBD

Compulsive Buying Disorder

Is a disorder of excessive purchasing of unneeded and or unwanted items, having significant repercussions

With awareness around the disorder and research beginning to take place the etiology of CBD is currently unknown. Although biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors being likely contributers to the disorder. Researchers have found very close similarities to OCD, substance use disorders, and compulsive disorders. With a lot of unknowns is what makes this disorder a real issue, most treatments include some sort of therapy, consoling, or education.

5.8% have some form of shopping addiction

80% being women

Although researchers have found CBD to be more common in women, men are just as easily susceptible just with different interest. Men tend to be more interested in hardware, electronics, and automotive goods while women tend to buy clothing, shoes, and jewelry.

85% 74% 68% 92% 74%

of patients expressed concerned with CBD related debts

felt out of control when shopping

Felt that it negatively affected relationships

Tire to resist urges, often times weren’t successful

of the time they experienced an urge to but, it resulted in a purchase

Social Media

Fashion Interest

Compulsive Clothing

Buying

Wardrobe Clutter and Disorganization Clothing Acquisition

Fast Fashion Involvement

Reluctance to Discard Clothing (Saving)

HOARDING

With the constant purchasing of new things, the natural problem is having too much stuff. Except the reason this is a problem is when you compulsively buy new things on a regular basis, you are less likely to get rid of them because they seem as a necessity. The result of this is hoarding. Which symptoms include clutter disorganization, acquisition, and saving tendencies which are associated with excessive positive emotion with low-value possessions and anxiety, fear, or sadness associated with loss of possession. Further, as these inactive clothes are kept instead of discarded, in the extreme, it could be argued these are hoarding tendencies. The 3 main symptoms of compulsive hoarding are excessive clutter, excessive acquisition, difficulty discarding

75% of people who hoard also engage in compulsive buying tendencies

Hoarding can take a huge mental toll on the body because the constant thought of cleaning and discarding is always on the back of the mind. Often hoarders don’t start the process ever because they don’t know how and where to even start. The result of this is the hoarding gets worse and worse. One of the most common ways that people get rid of things they no longer want is to just easily throw it in the trash, take it to the curb and forget about it, out of sight out of mind. This again is another “quick fix” type of solution for the situation at hand. The real issue here is it causes a much bigger issue that not a lot of people know about which is clothing waste.

CLOTHING WASTE

With recent developments in sociological decluttering trends on the rise and trying to keep up with what is the next best thing in the fashion industry, consumers and throwing away clothing at an all time high. The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world behind only oil. The result of this is 2.1 billion tons of carbon emissions each year, which is about 4% of the globes total. This number is only going up with a projection of 50% increase in total emissions by 2030 if no action is taken.

Not only is the fashion industry responsible for 4% of the globes carbon emissions but as well it is responsible for over 20% of global water pollution. This comes from the process of dyeing and finishing fabrics where colors and other chemicals are applied. Almost 10% of the micropastics that get dispersed into the ocean comes from textiles. That is equivalent to the plastic pollution of more than 50 billion plastic water bottles

MILLION

tons of textile waste is discarded globally every year

That is equivalent to a garbage truck full clothes taken to a landfill or incinerated every second

Enough to fill one and a half the Empire State Buildings every day

In the United States alone

85%

of all textiles are burned or in the landfill each year

Around 81.5lbs per person per year in the U.S. this comes to an average of 11.3 million tons a year.

As of 2019 as a planet we are producing so much clothing waste per year that by the end of it we could fill the entire Sydney Harbor in Australia full of clothes. The Sydney Harbor is the largest natural port in the world with a size of about 21 cubic miles large and holds about 132 billion gallons of water. If clothing is made with non-biodegradable fabrics it has the ablility to sit in landfills for up to 200 years

Textile production uses on average 93 billion cubic meters of water ever year. It takes up to 2000 gallons of water to make a single pair of jeans

Around 5.5 years of drinking water for one person

With donations to either thrift stores or charities it then becomes their problem if it does not get sold. The companies then are forced to spend their own profits into sorting these unwanted garments and then of which about 25% goes directly to the landfill. An additional 40% - 50% gets exported overseas to secondhand clothing trade. This then overflows countries like Ghana and Chile and later ends up in landfills there.

With so much textile waste making its way to the landfills every single year it is important to note that they are the 3rd highest producer of methane emissions. They are only behind the burning of fossil fuels as well as farming and agriculture. #3

Clothes are being bought more than ever, in the past 15 years alone consumers have been buying 60% more clothes than they previously were. this is going to eventually lead to even more clothing in landfills and burned if no action is taken. Currently around 56 million tons of clothing are bought each year as study taken place in 2020. If we continue this number is expected to rise to 93 million tons by 2030 and all the way up to 160 million tons by 2050.

At the current rate, the fashion industry will end up using 1/4 of the entire global carbon budget by 2050.

2.6 MILLION

Tons of returned clothing ended up in landfills in 2020 in the United States alone. This lead to 16 million tons of CO2 emissions created by online return in the U.S. in 2020. This is the equivalent to the emissions of 3.5 million cars on the road for a year.

1% OF CLOTHES ARE RECYCLED INTO NEW ITEMS

ZER

Zero is a new adaptive reuse shopping center located on the waterfront in Seattle, Washington on Pier 56. Zero is a waste management forward place to shop to make conscious environmental decisions while getting necessary articles of clothing. The goal of Zero is to start to bring awareness to an ever growing problem which is clothing and textile waste. This will be adressed through a donation center, thrift shops, up-cycled fashion vendors, and a recycled art space.

Zero is just the beginning to help bring a shift into the clothing and fashion industry. Through design strategies and community engagement, it is our goal to help communicate the clothing waste crisis through a story telling nature and experience.

A: East Entrance

B: Retail, Thrift, Recycled Vendors

C: Donation Center

D: Women’s Restroom

E: All Gender Restroom

F: Men’s Restroom

G: Electrical

H: South Entrance

I: Recycled Art Space

J: Stair With Stage

K: Food Vendor

L: West Entrance

LEVEL 2

M: Storage

N: Donation Team’s Space

O: Sit Down Restaurant

P: Restaurant Kitchen

Q: Co-Working

A: Wood Beams

B: Woven Wicker

C: Tan Upholstered Fabric

D: Olive Chevron Fabric

E: Dark Grey Fabric

F: Steel Plates

G: Greenful Recycled Panels

H: Corrugated Metal Siding

I: Stone Wall

J: Raw Unfinished Wood

K: Dark Wood

L: Concrete Flooring

Waste management is handled by the donation center’s employees. They help organize incoming donations and dispurse textlies and clothing where they are needed throughout the complex.

Thrift Shops

Up-Cycled Retail

Donation Center

Donation Ofiice

Recycled Art Space

“Fast fashion is not free. Someone somewhere is paying.”

LucySiegel