Fast Fashion

I have always loved shopping at stores that have the newest trends for the lowest prices. I have rewards memberships at Forever 21, Lulu’s, Zara, and H&M. I had always been under the assumption that these brands must be on the consumers’ side since they sell clothes for such a low cost unlike many other fashion brands. In my mind, I considered brands like Free People and Lulu Lemon to be less ethical than cheaper brands because I thought that they were making more of a profit for themselves by selling their clothes at much higher prices. That was all before I watched the documentary The True Cost.

Released in 2015, The True Cost is about how companies in the fast fashion industry are reaping in huge profits for themselves by making their clothes cost very inexpensive and by producing them quickly, but their garment workers and the environment are the ones absorbing the negative consequences of the industry. Companies like H&M, Topshop, and Forever 21 outsource their labor to developing countries such as Bangladesh, China, India, and other underdeveloped Asian countries where polices to protect the workers and the environment are not in place. This movie shows how the clothing industry, which from the surface appears to be a glamorous and seemingly harmless industry, has so many immoralities that needs to be addressed immediately, so that a revolution of change can occur for global success.

Key Points from The True Cost:

•  There are over 40 million garment workers in the world
•  85 % of them are women
•  Most of these workers work in dangerous conditions and earn less than $3 a day
•  In 2013 a garment factory collapsed because of faulty conditions and killed 1000 workers
•  Fashion is the most labor dependent industry on earth!
•  Fashion is the 2^nd most polluting industry on earth (oil is the first)
•  90% of clothes that people donate just end up in landfills in third world countries
• In 1960 95% of American clothes were made in America
• Today, less than 3% of clothes worn by Americans are made in the US
• If workers’ wages in Bangladesh were doubled that would only increase the cost of a t-shirt by 3 cents

Pretty shocking, right? So, basically the fast fashion industry consists of brands that sell extremely cheap clothes to consumers by squeezing the very end of the supply chain in order to make the highest profit for themselves. I was very wrong to think that Forever 21 was ever on my side, because even though I’m only paying $10 for a pair of jeans, there is a much greater and unseen cost that is attached to me purchasing from them (the true cost). Fast fashion has convinced consumers that clothes are a disposable product and that as long as you are getting a great deal it doesn’t matter how it was made.

The marketing behind these brands is targeted towards millennials because we want the latest trends and have the budget that fits their prices. They show fashion as a way to express yourself, and they use that to help consumers’ justify the massive amount of spending that they do without having a guilty conscious. Zara, Forever 21, and H&M market themselves as glamorous and fun, when the bulk of the industry is heartbreaking and hidden. Forever 21 even puts Bible verses at the bottom of their bags to give the appearance that they are a company with high values.

This industry will only get worse if we don’t take a stand and educate others. We need to demand higher morals from this industry. We can make the change if we change our buying habits.