How Pricy your Cheap Clothing Actually is

We’ve all been there before. You walk into the mall, intending to buy one thing, maybe a few specific items, and, before you know it, you are leaving the mall with five bags on each arm. It’s hard to feel badly about it, though, because you got everything for such a good deal! But the truth is, buying cheap comes at a high cost.

The above situation describes an experience most of us have had before with “fast fashion”. Fast fashion is cheap, trendy clothing inspired by the catwalk and celebrities, reproduced at breakneck speed to be sold for a cheap price in high street stores. Though it may seem like the best thing that has happened to your bank account since Tangerine banking (I know you’ve seen those ads, too), in reality, it relies on exploitative working conditions and is destroying the environment. But how did fast fashion become so prevalent?

Over the past two centuries, clothes have gone from being tailor-made for each individual, to ready-made, to today’s industry of fast fashion. Fast fashion began in the 1990s with retailers like Zara, H&M, and Topshop. Today’s fashion industry looks nothing like it did in the past. Clothing has become cheap, quick, and of questionable quality. But with everyone able to shop for inexpensive, on-trend clothes whenever they want, the phenomenon of fast fashion has caught on quickly.

So, we know what fast fashion is, and we know when it started. But why is it such a harmful industry? Fast fashion is dependant on a few factors to make it inexpensive, the most important factor being cheap labour and people power, which enables retailers to create clothes as fast as possible for as little money as possible. One out of every six people works in an industry connected to fashion, and most of those people live in developing countries. The initial goal of this system was to provide jobs to workers in the developing world while providing us with the opportunity to have clothes as cute as celebrities’, even if we couldn’t be as rich as they were. Unfortunately, that isn’t what has happened. Fast fashion companies have been exposed for exploiting their workers by using child labour, forcing workers to handle dangerous chemicals, and grossly underpaying them.

Furthermore, because we are buying more clothing, we are also wasting more clothing. Mountains of cheap clothing are piling up in our landfills. The truth is, the fashion industry is horrible for the environment. The industry is responsible for 10% of the world’s carbon footprint. Because of the pressure to reduce cost and speed up production time, corners are cut in areas  like the management of water pollution. In fact, the fashion industry is the second largest polluter of clean water after agriculture. The list of ways fashion is harming the environment goes on and on, but the point is that fast fashion is horrible for the environment.

So you now know the true cost of fast fashion. What can you do about it? The biggest thing you can do is remember: “buy less, choose well, and make it last.” Limit how much you do buy by falling back in love with the clothes you already own. Go through your closet and try to make new outfits from old items or pair together two things you never would think to pair when you’re in a rush to get ready every morning. You can also be more selective about what brands you buy from and from what types of stores, too. A list of fast fashion brand alternatives that are ethical but still trendy includes: Either, And; Petite Studio; Maggie Marilyn; Lacausa; and many more! Second hand and vintage stores are also good alternatives since they reuse and repurpose old clothing. Finally, make all your clothing last. A lot of the clothes that are found in our landfills still have their tags on them. Make the commitment to wear all your clothes until they’re worn out. By following these practices, you’ll be doing your best to not contribute to a destructive and harmful industry.

What if you don’t follow these practices, though? What if, instead, you finish reading this article, fold the pages of the newspaper back together, and let all this information fall out of your mind after your cursory “that’s so sad!” thought? I think you’ve generated enough of an answer to that question from this article, so, instead, I’ll ask you another question: What would happen if you did?