Fast Fashion Needs to Slow Down WORDS BY Finora Reilly ILLUSTRATION BY Preston Randall
F
ast fashion has had an immense effect on our world in the last few decades. We cycle through trends quicker than ever, and because of this short trend and garment lifespan, quality has also decreased. There are so many obvious issues with fast fashion, yet we can’t seem to get rid of the impact it has on our society. There are three spotlight issues I personally see with the fast fashion industry — the impact it has on workers, the environment and consumers. First, and most importantly, what is fast fashion? This term is a new one which has swept the globe by storm and refers to cheap, mass-produced garments that copy trends seen in higher sectors of the industry, closely following trends. Fast fashion is exactly what it says: the high speed pushing out of new garments. Fast fashion prioritizes speed, not the well-being of its surroundings. A very time-sensitive issue within fast fashion production is the impact it has on workers. The fashion industry is one of the few female-dominated industries in the world, and it employs just over 16% of the global workforce. The garment industry has historically had issues with treating workers ethically, from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire over a century ago to modern day labor rights violations of the Chinese Uighur population by at least 83 companies such as Zara, Nike, Adidas and Gap. The violations of human rights go further than just these placeable, large-name events, with zero percent of garment employees in Bangladesh and one percent in Vietnam making a living wage.
32
THEBURR.COM
The fashion industry exploits these countries that have incredibly low wages as a means to produce more and more profit. Wages are a major issue in the realm of workers’ rights, but this is in combination with poor working conditions. Many factories are not up to date with fire or health safety, lack ventilation and then on top of the unsafe building conditions, and many workers face physical and verbal abuse. Employees of these companies are expected to work upward of 16 hours a day, seven days a week while surrounded by toxic chemicals. Even more, they are sometimes not allowed basic human necessities like food, water and breaks. These workers are not treated like humans, but rather machines, and this is exploited by the garment industry. All this is partially due to the demands of the fast fashion industry, which are unrealistic and unreasonable. The speed of new trends in combination with how fast they die out is a recipe for disaster for both humans and the world around them. The environmental impact of fast fashion is also an incredibly pressing and important matter.
Pollution is one of the biggest worries we have about the globe as a whole, and the garment industry is a major contributor to that.
