Undoubtedly, fashion trends are one of the most ephemeral trends to exist. What is trendy one day will suddenly be tacky the next. With the proliferation of social media, people are becoming increasingly more aware of their appearance and what they wear. Fashion has become more than just a tool for modesty or to protect yourself from the elements; it is a form of self-expression, and can represent one’s affiliations with cultures, beliefs and more. As fashion becomes increasingly important to us, we inevitably start owning more pieces of clothing. This behaviour is further spurred on with influencer fashion hauls.
What are fashion hauls? Fashion hauls are typically videos showing influencers unpacking large clothing purchases. More often than not, these videos from high level influencers flaunt hundreds of dollars in cheap merchandise from websites like Forever 21, Shein, Princess Polly and more unsustainable fast fashion brands. Fast fashion refers to readily available, inexpensively made fashion that is popular today (Bick et al., 2018). The average person is hence fed the illusion that they, too, need to continuously purchase and have a wide variety of clothing pieces in order to be relevant and popular like these influencers.
So a few weeks ago, we talked about luxury pollution in class (Week 9 lesson). We watched a documentary called “The True Cost” and had a really interesting discussion afterwards about fashion and pollution. I would like to bring up some of these point of discussion in this post. One of the things we discussed was “Is the consumer always right?”. I argue that the consumer is not always right because the consumer only acts based on what they know. This knowledge is affected by a myriad of factors including individual assumptions, marketing and advertising and cultural beliefs.
An issue that I would like to bring up here is greenwashing in the fast fashion industry. This issue was also brought up during the discussion segment of the seminar and I was able to hear many insightful opinions from my classmates. Greenwashing refers to a marketing technique that capitalises on the emotional appeal of eco-friendly and fair trade goods. Companies market their products as “green” without adhering to any criteria (Bink et al., 2018). Examples of this might be clothing items made out of recycled fibres. While recycled fibres might sound eco-friendly, the process behind creating thee recycled fibres and weaving it into a new garment is incredibly energy and resource intensive. As a result, it is unclear whether such products truly leave a smaller ecological footprint than a brand new garment. Yet, they are being marketed as a ‘sustainable’ option. Therefore, it is crucial for consumers to be critical of what they consume and question the true cost of their actions. Meaningless labels create further uncertainty and create opacity in the market as consumers are unaware of what exactly they are consuming.
Arguably, one of the biggest issues with fast fashion is the environmental injustice that it produces. Annually, 80 billion pieces of new clothing are purchased worldwide, translating to $1.2 trillion annually for the global fashion industry (Bick et al., 2018). The majority of fast fashion products are manufactured in the Global South while the United States consumes more clothing and textiles than any other nation in the world (Bick et al., 2018). This means that the burden of the negative impacts of fast fashion are unfairly shouldered by the Global South countries while the Global North (like the United States) rarely experience them despite being the cause of the issue. Fast fashion results in significant environmental issues. For example, textile dyeing results in pollution as untreated wastewater from dyes are often discharged into local water systems, releasing heavy metals and other toxicants that can adversely impact the health of animals in addition to nearby residents (Bick et al., 2018). There can also be air pollution inside these manufacturing factories which result in occupational hazards, including respiratory hazards due to exposure to air pollutants like cotton dust and synthetic air particulates (Bick et al., 2018).
So think about the impacts of your actions before you purchase that new t-shirt. I’m not saying that we cannot enjoy fashion as a form of art of self-expression. Just be aware of how your fashion practices may affect people around the world and environment.
Bick, R., Halsey, E. & Ekenga, C. C. (2018). The global environmental injustice of fast fashion. Environmental Health, (17)92, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7.