Ariel Longo/Staff reporter
Today fast fashion is largely supported by teenagers and young adults, even though it has a devastating social and environmental impact.
The reason why it became so popular is the relatively cheap price of every piece of clothing and because it supports fashion micro trends. Whenever a specific clothing trend appears, most of the big industries are more likely to produce lots of clothes that follow that specific trend and they’ll eventually stop as soon as the trend is not a news anymore. “I feel like social media trends deeply influence the way we dress. Sometimes most people buy clothes without thinking ‘will I ever wear this?’ or ‘Do I really like it or is it just trending right now?’ and the worst thing about it is that, since it’s just a trend, most of those clothes will be abandoned in the arc of a couple of months” said Yalda Rasulian, grade 12
This situation doesn’t only happen when new trends are born, but also, throughout the year, during Christmas and Halloween when clothing industries sell clothes that are holidays themed.
Although not many teens are aware of it, the truth behind the fast fashion industries is a menace for the environment and the workers, who are unfairly paid. Most of the times, while the company gets richer and richer, their workers get exploited while they try not to get behind the times and quantity of production. “The workers in the garment industry are required to put in 14 to 16 hours per day, seven days a week, and endure verbal and sometimes even physical abuse from managers. Oftentimes, workers are exposed to harmful substances while working without enough ventilation. Accidents and injuries are also frequent.” states the article “Fast Fashion: The Danger of Sweatshops” written by Lei Nguyen
Also, in order for the clothes to be produced on a daily basis and quickly, cheap materials are used. This leads to two main problem related to the waste of clothes: While the industry is trying to produce as many trendy clothes as possible, it often overproduces and once the trend is gone, there’s no way to try and sell those kind of clothes anymore.
The other problem is related to the cheap materials used in the production, which leads to clothes breaking or accessories oxidizing after a couple of months. In this case, most of the times the clothes and the accessories are thrown away, damaging the environment.
There’s little to nothing we can do alone to face the huge fast fashion industry, not to mention that, unfortunately, nowadays the fast fashion has already put roots in our lives and even if we tried so hard there’s no way we can totally avoid it. This doesn’t mean, though, that we can’t work on a better way to buy clothes without menacing the environment and promote exploitation.
There are many ways to contrast the fast fashion world, indeed. One of them, which is also becoming more and more popular among teens is to thrift clothes instead of buying them from multinationals. “Thrifting clothes is good because it helps the environment while being one of the cheapest options you could pick to buy clothes, also it’s easy to find good quality clothes” said Sofia Saienko, grade 12.
Thrift shops offer a huge variety of clothes of any size and kind, they’re also as cheap or even cheaper than fast fashion clothes. Buying by thrift shops not only means to save money but is also a huge help for our environment and contrast the consumerism often associated with big industries that are slowly trying to kill the world we live in and exploit the people living in it.