By Gianna Ferace ’25
e hear the term fast fashion everywhere: on our news feeds, our social media, magazines, and more. But what does it even mean? Fast fashion is “inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends.” Marketing is the key to fast fashion, often replicating well-known and more expensive brands to appeal to buyers. Fast fashion companies copy their designs and recreate it with cheap material. The items can be sold for as low as just a few dollars, which draws in the consumer, making them buy more of their products. So why is fast fashion so bad? Isn’t it a good thing for others to have the option of low-costing clothes? While saving money while shopping is good, buying from fast fashion brands isn’t the way to go. Fast fashion harms our planet greatly, it’s responsible for 10% of global gas emissions and 20% of wastewater. The cheap materials used in their clothes, like polyester, are derived from fossil fuels, which contributes to global warming. Because garments are produced at such a fast pace, that also means that more and more clothes are disposed of by the consumers just as quickly, creating massive textile waste. Every year, hundreds of millions pounds of clothes are disposed of in landfills each year. In 2018, the Global Fashion Business Journal reported that the global fiber production has reached the highest all-time of 107 million metric tons.
So how can you do your part in stopping fast fashion? Unfortunately, the majority of clothing stores are fast fashion, and it’s almost impossible to find moderately priced clothing from sustainable brands, with most being priced high due to expensive materials that won’t harm the planet. If affordable to you, shopping from brands like Reformation, Everlane, and Djerf Avenue is a good way to still dress stylish while helping our Earth. Shopping secondhand is also a great way to shop sustainably, with places like Savers and Beverly Bootstraps being good options. If you like to stay on top of the trends, online shopping on websites like Depop and Poshmark is an alternative as well.
Finding affordable clothing can be tricky, and though fast fashion brands may check off all your boxes (low in cost, cute items, et cetera), we really shouldn’t purchase from them on a regular basis. Why would we want to add more harm to our planet when it isn’t even necessary? If you have the option of purchasing from sustainable brands and shopping secondhand, it’s a wonderful way to give Earth a little extra help.
