Fast Fashion: A fable of exploitation, environment and egregious ethics

Fast fashion refers to the business model through which many high street fashion brands make and sell clothes quickly, responding to market trends with rapid turnover and minimal costs. Rather than the biannual seasons of high fashion, it allows designers to produce new, affordable garments on an almost weekly basis. But fast fashion has become synonymous with the unsustainable and unethical business. Indefinite growth is impossible on a planet with finite resources. But our obsession with short-lived, poor quality fashion trends threatens more than just the environment. And it will take more than brand boycotts to overturn this multi-faceted issue.

The most common argument against flimsy single-wear dresses and mass-produced slogan tees is the impact of fast fashion on the environment. Our increasing consumption of these lower-quality, short-lived garments has a profound contribution toward climate change. In the UK, the average person buys 26.7 kg of clothing every year. For context, an extra-large American Apparel t-shirt weighs around 150 g. That is the equivalent of 178 t-shirts per person, where each t-shirt gets worn just twice before being replaced. It comes as no surprise that more than half of these garments are disposed of within a year. Up to 85 per cent of these typically non-biodegradable, synthetic fibres go to landfill. Even items that are donated or recycled, often end up in the landfill.

But fashion’s waste problems start much earlier in a garment’s life cycle. Untreated toxic wastewaters from production factories are often dumped directly into rivers. Fertilisers used in cotton production heavily pollute runoff water. Microfibres are released with every wash of a synthetic garment, wreaking havoc for aquatic life and human populations using the polluted water sources. The production process is energy-intensive and damaging, with synthetic fibres made using fossil fuels. Consequently, the apparel industry contributes to one tenth of global carbon emissions. Cotton, like many materials, requires huge quantities of freshwater for dyeing and finishing. It can take up to 20,000 L of water to produce just 1 kg. Other materials contribute to soil degradation and deforestation. The list is endless.

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Despite billions of pounds of annual profit, big fashion brands knowingly exploit workers living below the poverty line.

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However, this industry exploits humans just as much as it exploits natural resources. The fast fashion business model prioritises low production costs and rapid turnover in order to maximise profits. Aided by globalisation and the rise of online retail, fashion has seen the rise of brands like Zara and ASOS, where consumers can purchase garments at worryingly low prices to arrive the very next day. But a dress costing less than £5 begs the question: how can clothes be made so cheaply? In Fashionopolis, Dana Thomas highlights the issue of unreasonably cheap labour: “Fashion employs one out of six people on the globe, making it the most labour-intensive industry out there – more than agriculture, more than defence. Fewer than 2 per cent of them earn a living wage.” Despite billions of pounds of annual profit, big fashion brands knowingly exploit workers living below the poverty line.

Take Bangladesh, where the minimum wage is equivalent to £14.25. per month. For garment workers, this was increased to 8000 BDT – around £75 per month. Consequentially, working in the garment industry is hugely appealing. However, the reality is that this does not equate to a sufficient living wage. A living wage means being able to afford food, rent, healthcare, education, clothing and transportation, with some disposable income left over for savings or other purposes. Minimum wage in the UK is £8.72 for over 25s, decreasing incrementally for younger workers. However, in London, many employers vow to pay London living wage. At £10.75, this better reflects the inflated cost of living in the capital. Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, wages may be up to five times less than the amount a worker would need to provide for their family. And, although the United Nations state that a living wage is a human right, some surveys suggest that 93 per cent of brands are not paying garment workers enough. Instead, brands rely on the desperation of impoverished skilled workers to work poverty wages.

One-quarter of Bangladesh’s 168 million citizens are living beneath the poverty line. So, it comes as no surprise that fast fashion retailers rely on off-shoring to places like Bangladesh for high-quality but cheap labour. They exploit people to work for unreasonably low wages, in unsafe conditions. But these companies failed to recognise the ultimate price that would be paid by thousands in order to procure such cheap production costs. Between 2006 and 2012, more than 500 Bangladeshi workers died in garment factory fires. In 2012, a fire at the Tazreen factory in Dhaka killed 117 people, injuring a further 200. Nearby Rana Plaza, housed a number of garment factories totalling 5000 employees. Just one year after the Tazreen fire, an explosion at Rana Plaza killed 1134 and injured 2500. The workers, predominantly young women, were victims of unsafe, unregulated working conditions and neglect.

Though such incidents have led to the implementation of much stricter working regulations, the danger and corruption of cost-cutting through cheap labour remains unchanged. In 2016, H&M and Next were forced to admit to child labour accusations in their supplier factories in Turkey. Taking advantage of some of the 2.5 million refugees that had fled there since 2011, it was a clear and conscious breach of Turkish and international laws banning child labour. Primark and C&A also identified Syrian refugee working in their supply chains. But plentiful brands chose to ignore surveyor’s question outright. Either they chose ignorance over ethical investigation, or they were hiding something. And horrific working conditions continue to be exposed across the globe. Earlier this year, thousands of Bangladeshi and Cambodian workers protested over unpaid wages and safety concerns.

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Fast fashion is fuelled by discrimination and subjugation.

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Even those companies that reject off-shoring, have been accused of paying illegally-low wages to the fashion workforce. In Los Angeles, where large immigrant communities tend to congregate, it is a known secret that fashion factories take the form of unhygienic and overcrowded sweatshops. Of the workforce, 71 per cent are undocumented immigrants, abused for their lack of citizenship status. Little is done to protect these labourers, driving home the inherently racist values that fast fashion upholds. In fact, there is a frank lack of non-white employees in positions of power within the industry. We need more Black people and people of colour at board level. Because fast fashion is fuelled by discrimination and subjugation. Women account for 80 per cent of garment workers worldwide. Not only does this lead to gross gender pay disparities, but it facilitates sexual harassment of women and girls within unregulated factories. They cannot speak out against the daily injustices they face, for fearing of losing their already insufficient source of income. Much like the garments they create, they are treated as disposable.

Fast fashion’s endless list of shortcomings has unearthed a call for more conscious buying. Creation of apps and websites such as Good On You and Fashion Checker allow consumers to assess the environmental and ethical rating of renowned brands. These identify the actions brands are taking toward reducing impact and improving labour conditions, allowing users to make more informed purchases. If a brand is not transparent on its policies, it is highly likely to be hiding something. Eco and ethics warriors are calling for more to turn to sustainable fashion sources.

However, boycotting high street brands in favour of more sustainable options is tied to privilege and is not accessible to all. Firstly, eco-friendly and ethically conscious brands tend to be more expensive. In order to guarantee sufficient wages and sustainable materials, brands must charge more, making their products less affordable to those in lower-income brackets. Furthermore, fast fashion labels draw in a wider clientele base by providing ‘Petite’, ‘Curve’ and ‘Tall’ ranges. Rejection of such brands can cause difficulty for those looking for more specialist sizing/fit ranges. More sustainable brands already appeal to a smaller consumer base. From a business perspective, it is not viable for them to produce clothing outside of what is considered a ‘typical’ sizing range. When it comes to second-hand or vintage clothing, this issue is aggravated. Often, upcycling of second-hand garments involves reworking a larger product into something smaller, limiting accessibility for those who wear larger sizes.

So, sustainable fashion is exclusive, where does that leave us? As consumers, our responsibility is to partake in conscious buying, looking for more sustainable and ethical options if possible. Where fast fashion is unavoidable, research the brand you are buying from and really think about each potential purchase. Do you really need it? What is it made from? Where was it made? What are the implications of this? Can I source it elsewhere? But the real responsibility falls to the brands. They must accept accountability for the environmental and ethical implications of the fast fashion business model they have curated. And the onus falls to them to change it.