Carly Angel

Mrs. Sasser
Independent Research/11 AP
15 January 2019

A Look into Fast Fashion: The Causes and How to Help

Fast fashion is, an approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing that

emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers. For

the labors working in the textile factories it is a system that puts their lives in danger every day.

For brand executives it is a quick way to make a lot of money no matter the social

or environmental effects. For social media influencers it is a way that they can get paid for

simply posting a picture in a brands clothing. But, for the average consumer it is a word that they

have never heard before. The current state of our fashion industry has turned into a vicious cycle

of the mass production of micro trends and then throwing away all the excess, this is called fast

fashion. One of the main reasons this has happened is because of consumer buying behavior and

lack of consumer awareness. Ethically sourced clothing brands are trying to capture the clothing

market and help with the negative social and environmental effects of the fast fashion

industry, but for they are not getting enough positive exposure.

Forever21, Zara, and Top Shop are some of the biggest fast fashion retailers in the world.

They take trends from high end brands and social media sites, mass produce these clothes, and

then in a couple of weeks when the trend is out, they repeat this process. In doing this they are

creating an exponential amount of waste. In a recent CNN article, they expose the fact that H&M

has to unload 4 billion dollars in unsold merchandise. But the reality of situations like this is that

the majority of this unsold merchandise goes into landfills. While this issue is somewhat

prevalent in the media, the average consumer has no idea what is going on, so the problem is not

really getting better.

I.The environmental and social effects that result from the fast fashion industry are
having detrimental effects on our planet and all the people who are working in the industry.
A. There are many negative environmental effects.
1. A lot if these effects on the environment come from all of the waste that is
generated by the producers and consumers.
a. The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry
second to the coal industry. (Woodyard).
b. Lots of clothes are made in third world countries that are
completely dependent on coal, and coal has many bad
effects on the environment when it is burned. (Woodyard)
c. 4 billion lbs. of textile waste end up in landfills every year.
(Siegle).
The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of the world's
carbon footprint. (Woodyard).
B. There are also many social effects because a lot of the merchandise is made in
third world countries where worker safety is not prioritized.
1. Throughout all industry’s that require manual labor the conditions and
precautions taken to protect workers are not regulated. This is no exception
for the fashion industry.
a. “On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh,
which was home to several clothing factories, collapsed,
killing over 1,100 people and injuring approximately 2,500.
Hundreds of the survivors were left with permanent
disabilities. During the day before, cracks had appeared
throughout the building. Despite their apprehensions,
workers were instructed to go to work as
normal.” (Manganello pg 1).
b. Companies are not holding cooperate responsibilities for
what they are putting their workers through. (Manganello pg
1)
C. With all of these things going wrong in the industry there are some people and
companies that have dedicated their work to trying to fix them.
1. What are some practices or regulations that could be put into place to help
with all these issues?
a. There are some new practices that are making companies
model their supply chains to ensure worker safety.
(Manganello pg 2).
b. “At the consumer culture at large, for participating in an
endless cycle of new fashion trends, subsequently putting
pressure on garment workers to put their own safety at risk
in the name of supply and demand.” (Manganello pg 2)
2. New technologies that are connecting the supply chain. (Woodyard)
a. This is being used in sustainable brands as well. A New
Zealand brand, Rapanui, has an interactive supply chain that
can show you where your items are always in the ordering
process.
II. With the pressures put onto consumers by fast fashion companies, consumers are more
likely to buy more often and in bigger quantities. This consumer behavior is making the
fast fashion problem worse because the demand for the newest trends is so high. This is
not all the consumers fault though, because brands are intentionally using scare tactics to
get consumers to buy more often. These tactics are successful because there is an overall
lack of awareness.
A. Common consumer behavior is practicing bad buying behaviors and not disposing
of clothes in the proper and more effective ways.
1. “Fast fashion retailing is leading consumers towards an increased rate of
purchasing and the trend to keep clothing for an ever-shorter time with the
resulting rise in clothing disposal.” (Bianchi, Constanza, and Grete pg 1).
2. People are not taking responsibility with what they are buying and are
not disposing of it in the proper way.
a. “. Post-waste is defined as any type of garment that
the owner no longer needs and decides to discard...The
post-purchase component of the clothing consumption
process involves whether clothing is re-used, recycled, or
simply discarded or destroyed” (Bianchi, Constanza, and
Grete pg 2).
B. Brands are using scare tactics to make consumers believe that what they want will
not be available for much longer, so they need to buy it sooner rather than later.
1. Fast fashion retailers are known to create extreme human-induced scarcity.
(Gupta pg 1).
a. This is unfair to the consumer because they are
unaware that they are being manipulated to buy more
than they need. developing consumer education
programs and government policies, which
acknowledge the necessity of achieving
sustainability.” (Jung, Sojin, and Byoungho Jin pg
2).
2. “We conducted 21 face-to-face interviews with fast fashion store This
study shows how brands are making it seem that there is a lot less of the
merchandise than they have. This will be very helpful in showing how
fast fashion retailers are able to stay on top of the industry and control
consumers.
C. An overall lack of consumer awareness of the environmental and social
effects of the fashion industry and tactics used by retailers makes the cycle of over
consumption and rising waste a real problem. So how can consumers be a part of
the solution instead of the problem?
1. One-way consumers can change their behavior is by becoming educated
on consumption patterns and brand manipulation.

b. “In the long term, this study can serve as a valuable starting
point for developing consumer education programs and
 government policies, which acknowledge the necessity of
achieving
c. “ consumer education programs should encourage apparel
consumers to change their consumption patterns toward
reducing consumption volume and the amount of waste,
which will make the shift from quantity to quality as
emphasized in slow fashion.”(Jung, Sojin,
and Byoungho Jin pg 3).
2. Another way for them to help is by trying to purchase less frequently and from
ethically sourced brands.
a. There are many new brands coming out where they
will show you exactly where your clothes are
coming from and where they are made. So, if
consumers are more aware of this then they will be
less likely to fall into the trap of fast fashion.
(Childs).

III. Sustainable fashion, ethically sourced clothing, or slow fashion all represents a part of the
fashion industry where brands are making clothing in regulated factories and are using
ethically sourced materials. The average consumer is not going to shop at brands like
these though because the prices tend to be higher and they have a reputation of not being
that on trend.
A. For sustainable fashion brands they will generally promote the factories that they
produce their clothes in and the workers that they have making their clothes.
1. “Slow fashion is a new concept, which we would like to see
introduced as opposed to fast fashion proving that it is possible to
innovate in our production and consumption patterns, while aiming
for profit in a more balanced way and while respecting employees,
society and the environment. Slow fashion emphasizes quality and
not quantity, while also slowing down production and purchasing
habits.”( da Costa, Ana Gonçalvespg 1).
a. If consumers are aware of the ways that these
sustainable brands are treating their workers and the
conditions that their clothes are being made in, then
they will be more inclined to purchase the clothes.
2. A sustainable clothing store called Rapanui will let consumers
track exactly where their items are at every stage of the production.
They source all of their clothes from organic cotton farms and they
produce their merchandise in factories that hold worker standards
to a high level, they do not expose their workers to any harmful
chemicals. They also have a water conservation pact where they
use recirculated water in their factories. The power their factors
with renewable energy (Rapinui.com).
a. This is company is taking a step in the right
direction, so if a brand like this were to get traction
 their impact would be extremely impactful to the
entire fashion industry.
B. Social media is an advertising platform where all brands are on the same level. A
company with a 1-million-dollar advertising budget or a small sustainable
company can both utilize social media to their advantage(Childs). But the average
consumer still views sustainable fashion brands as less than because it does not
follow the fashion “norms”.
1. A main reason why people do not buy from sustainable brands is
because it does not comply with what society says that they should
be buying.
a. The identity position of the self-entrepreneurial
consumer is problematic from a sustainable
perspective as it holds back collective norms
and stable Sole’s et al. Construction of silence
on issues of sustainability 221 subjectivities
(Zwick & Cayla, 2011).
2. If these brands were to utilize the powers that social media holds
over consumers it would level the playing field in the industry
between fast and slow fashion brands. A study done in Malaysia
shows how powerful social media can be in the sustainability
effort.
a. “This study makes 2 contributions: ( 1) we draw on
the perspective of technology affordances to shed
light on both the enabling power and unintended
consequences of social media in the pursuit of
environmental sustainability; and on that account,
( 2) we contribute rich, empirically informed
insights toward understanding the under researched
phenomenon of digitally enabled, community‐
driven environmental sustainability.”( Tim, Yenni
pg 4).
C. An alternative way that is a lot more accessible and better short-term fix that is
sustainable and will help with all of the environmental and social effects is by
recycling clothing instead of throwing them away and wearing second hand
clothing.
1. An option that has been around for a great deal time is donating
clothing and shopping at second hand stores. This is something
easy for people to do because if you were going to throw it out
anyway you might as well give someone else the option to own it.
This can potentially reduce the tons of textile waste that is put into
landfills every year.
a. Hundreds of millions of dollars of clothes get
donated every year (ABC news).
2. There are also many new recycling programs that are being created
so that the clothes can be repurposed or exchanged with other
consumers.
 a. “New social awareness about textile waste has
prompted retailers to offer 'take‐back' programs that
allow consumer to return old clothes,”( Solér,
Cecilia pg 3).
b. “Another new phenomenon is swapping. This
channel offers new possibilities for consumers to
get rid of their clothes by meeting with other
consumers to exchange old garments.” (Solér,
Cecilia pg 3).

The fast fashion industry is a complicated collection of brands that are trying to be the

most successful and produce the most desirable clothes. But the measures that they are taking to

get to this point are not very ethical. The environment, the people working in the factories, and

consumers who are being manipulated into think that they have to buy more are all greatly

affected. But there are brands out there that are trying to help. By shopping local and ethically it

gives these big brands less momentum to keep up the cycle that they have created. This can only

truly be achieved when consumers realize that there are other options out there and that they

need to by buying more deliberately and sensibly.

 Works Cited

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Childs, Michelle. Phone Interview. 3 January 2018.

da Costa, Ana Gonçalves, et al. “Innovating in the Fashion Industry for a More Sustainable
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