Fast Fashion: the flawed foundation for decades
On 24 April 2003, the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed. In a single instant, 1,134 individuals died under a crumbling eight story building. The day prior, workers acknowledged cracks in the foundation but were still required to work their shift given dangerous and alarming conditions. The Rana Plaza manufactured garments for 29 major companies like WalMart, JCPenney, and The Children’s Place. Fast fashion is not a new concept. Parallel to the Rana Plaza building, there have been cracks in the origins of fast fashion since its inception in the 1990’s. COVID 19 and social media caused the faulty fast fashion industry to collapse into a worse human rights situation called Ultra- Fast Fashion; nevertheless, people with purchasing power endlessly scroll to consume ultra-fast fashion garments, dyed with human rights violations while company owners and shareholders profit.
COVID-19: the trend toward screen shopping
COVID 19 created unprecedented times as it halted everyday operations, redefined normalcy and shut down business as usual. At its onset, brands cancelled more than $40 billion of finished and in-production goods. Fashion firms fired 37,637 employees; denying employees severance they’ve legally earned, essentially robbing workers a total of $39.8 million. Other textile factories closed indefinitely, laying off workers and compensating them for less than a month’s salary. The dip in consumption occurred from 2019-2020 and restored an upward trend in 2021. Amid the global pandemic, lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing, remote work, and screen shopping became the new norm, but not for garment workers who’s lives were compromised during the global pandemic. In 2022, the textile industry adapted to pandemic norms as companies were quick to capitalize on screen shopping. With growth and profit at the industry’s forefront, companies ignored previous human right violations that inevitably intensified as demands ramped up. Governments requested garment factories to reopen under COVID safe guidelines to social distance, operate at lower capacity, and provide masks. The suggested guidelines, however, were not enforced. Guidelines became burdensome and expensive for factories to maintain, especially as online shopping rates increased. With the use of social media platforms, companies, namely Shein, blast their followers with a myriad of digital trends to collect user data feedback, before the product is fabricated, creating fast fleeting fads called microtrends that contribute to throwaway culture. Microtrends have a life cycle that is merely a month long; garments are intentionally made to last one or two wears. COVID 19 took fast fashion and increased it tenfold to what we have now: Ultra-Fast Fashion. Today’s brands exploit labor and environmental practices to produce more and cheaper goods than ever before; done at the cost of 10,000 garment workers sowing 365 days a year, each working 75 hours a week. Consumers aren’t guaranteed quality products either. Clothes used for microtrends have depleted value, containing microplastic and acidic dyes that will take centuries to degrade. Clothing is a human necessity. If cheap clothes are all the vast majority of people can afford, there is a flaw in the system. The business is worth $100 billion, with investors, owners and stakeholders profiting 77.3% of annual returns. This is a stark gap when garment workers are paid $3.43 a day. The business’ gross profit is concerning, meanwhile government policies fail to act on the industry’s human rights violations, address detrimental byproducts and recognize poor-quality items that overflow landfills. The cracks in the industry’s foundation are growing into vastly bleak inequity gaps. We must restore human rights in the textile industry before it’s too late.
Status Quo: recognizing the pattern
We are convinced that cheap clothing is convenient, with its fast check out and smooth arrival, consumers see clothes come and go with ease. Ultra-Fast Fashion is not linked to consumers’ short-term attention span, but rather linked to the consumers’ habit. Ultra-Fast Fashion spreads short-lived microtrends that perpetuate throwaway culture, creating a status quo for quick, inexpensive, low-quality goods, made to last a few uses then toss away at the expense of slave wages. Throwaway culture has exacerbated and leached into corporations that treat their employees as disposable commodities; single use plastic straws, utensils, coffee pods, clothing and human beings, throwaway culture is consuming us. Exploitation in Ultra-Fast Fashion, mineral mining and agricultural industries beg us to confront major disparities that manifest on local and global levels. We must hold corporations and governments accountable, but most importantly we must recognize we are not complacent consumers. Each of us plays a pivotal role in the system to incite sustainable change. In the age of information, there are no exemptions for unknowing, our actions are timestamped for future and current generations.
