The Fashion Industry’s Responsibility to Consumers, Workers, and the Cost of “Fast Fashion”
In fashion, there are standards we uphold designers to. We expect to be presented with quality products with an authentic touch. The manufacturing of the hottest trends should be held to that same standard but what happens when we lower our standards? Do we get the same quality products? Do the workers behind the production of what we wear get the pay they deserve? Is the industry being conscientious of their carbon footprint and the sustainability they lack? In this fast marketed and even faster trendsetting society we live in, where is the line drawn?
The fashion industry has a responsibility to consumers by producing products that are everlasting and timeless. Not only is the industry missing timeless pieces but they are also lacking a sense of the impact of fast fashion on the environment. The biggest misfortune of fast fashion is the absence of ethics in the workplace, workers are put in obscene conditions at a very low wage and expected to work at a rapid pace. Is it too much to ask for a more sustainable-slow fashion where workers are in safe working conditions and paid reasonably? According to Bick et al. “Low and middle-income countries (LMICs) produce 90% of the world’s clothing. Occupational and safety standards in these LMICs are often not enforced due to poor political infrastructure and organizational management. The result is a myriad of occupational hazards, including respiratory hazards due to poor ventilation such as cotton dust and synthetic air particulates, musculoskeletal hazards from repetitive motion tasks.” What was once the working conditions in the early stages of manufacturing in the United States has been carried into LMICs such as Bangladesh and China. The fashion industry is responsible for changing safety standards and building better facilities that meet the criteria so workers are not exposed to hazards and life-threatening accidents.
Fast fashion brings a variety of complications, as stated previously, workers are being put in dangerous working conditions but it doesn’t stop there. The overproduction of inexpensive clothes is building up in landfills, Bick et al., states, “Approximately 85% of the clothing Americans consume, nearly 3.8 billion pounds annually, is sent to landfills as solid waste, amounting to nearly 80 pounds per American per year.” Now that trends fade so quickly landfills are seeing more and more clothes and textiles being disposed of. As clothes are being dumped, even more clothes and textiles are being purchased, creating a vicious cycle that is known as the fast fashion model. Bick et al., says “Approximately 500,000 tons of used clothing are exported abroad from the United States each year, the majority ending up in LMICs. In 2015, the United States exported more than $700 million worth of used clothing. Second-hand clothing not sold in the United States market is compressed into 1000-pound bales and exported overseas to be “graded” (sorted,categorized and re-baled) by low-wage workers in LMICs and sold in second-hand markets. Clothing not sold in markets becomes solid waste, clogging rivers, greenways, parks, and creating the potential for additional environmental health hazards in LMICs lacking robust municipal waste systems.”
Consumers play a part in the fast fashion model and they too have a responsibility to the fashion industry as well as the workers. Bick et al., suggests “Consumers in high income countries can do their part to promote global environmental justice by buying high quality clothing that lasts longer, shopping at second-hand stores, repairing clothing they already own and purchasing from retailers with transparent supply chains.” If retailers that contribute to the fast fashion model begin taking responsibility a domino effect is bound to occur and consumers are to follow suit. Retailers also hold the responsibility of being honest and speaking on the current issues that the fashion industry is facing with the fast fashion model. Knowledge is power and the more consumers know about the effects of their inexpensive shopping sprees and disposing of clothes the more conscious they’ll be of what it takes to be fashionable.
The cost of fast fashion is large, it is a model that needs many repairs and changes. Bick et al., mentions a few ways to create a different and more effective model, “High income countries can promote occupational safety and environmental health through trade policy and regulations. Although occupational and environmental regulations are often only enforceable within a country’s borders, there are several ways in which policymakers can mitigate the global environmental health hazards associated with fast fashion. The United States, for example, could increase import taxes for garments and textiles or place caps on annual weight or quantities imported from LMICs. At the other end of the clothing lifecycle, some LMICs have begun to regulate the import of used clothing.”
The fashion industry and fast fashion retailers have a huge responsibility to take on but it is an effort that not only the industry has to take on but consumers have to take on too. It has to be a collective effort in order to make the changes that are needed not only environmentally but occupationally as well. As the age-old adage says: quality over quantity. There doesn’t have to be an extra cost to be fashionable.
