Fast fashion - a question of sustainability

This blog post deals with fast fashion and its very unsustainable way of production. Fast fashion is a phenomenon of our time. Nowadays, fashion and sustainability has no more in common. Brands like Zara, Forever21 or Primark are producing trendy, cheap and fast-moving clothing en masse. All over the year, there are huge sales in stores worldwide. The motto of many customers is like “the more clothes for the money, the more successful the purchase”. Through fashion blogs, advertising as well as social media platforms, such as Instagram, the need to always wear the latest fashion is reinforced, especially among young, female persons.

This unsustainable kind of clothing is woven, dyed and sewn in Asia, in countries like Bangladesh or China. The fact that customers in the Western part of the earth have a wide selection of different clothes and can buy them at a reasonable price is often at the expense of the workers in these countries of production. They are the true fashion victims and must endure very bad working conditions, as for example working days of up to 16 hours seven days a week and sexual harassment. Furthermore, they receive only minimal wages for their hard work. In addition, our environment is heavily polluted by the production processes. These environmental impacts range from chemicals used to produce textiles, which can pollute rivers and oceans, to high levels of both pesticide and energy use.

But the fashion industry is faced with a profound change sooner or later. The poor production conditions as well as the short life cycle of the clothing are increasingly criticized by the customers. Thus, there is still hope that the demand for handmade quality products will increase. Maybe, slow fashion, what means sustainable and conscious clothing, will be the beginning of a new future in the fashion industry.

Sources:

http://www.fastfashion-dieausstellung.de/content/MKG_Fast_Fashion_Wandtexte.pdf

https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/zeitgeist2015/fast-fashion-eine-frage-der-moral-1.18583472

https://www.iwkoeln.de/studien/iw-gewerkschaftsspiegel/beitrag/arbeitsbedingungen-in-textilfabriken-suedostasiens-alle-stehen-in-der-pflicht-106454

http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/12/high-environmental-cost-fast-fashion/

Picture:

http://philanthrobeats.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/fast-fashion-2.jpg