Fast Fashion: The Real Price of Low-Cost Fashion (Sarah Quanci)
Look down at what you have on. Do you know where it was made? Do you even know what brand it is? Clothing is an important part of our day-to-day lives, yet it's not often at the forefront of our concerns. Currently, most of the world’s clothing industry is run by fast fashion brands. This is a billion-dollar industry with high amounts of waste, violations, and lawsuits. “Textiles are the second most polluting industry in the world” . So what even is fast fashion?
In research for this blog post, I watched the documentary Fast Fashion: The Real Price of Low-Cost Fashion in an effort to better understand this industry. Fast fashion is defined as “very inexpensive clothing that you are expected to replace very rapidly” . The idea is that you get addicted to shopping at the low prices and rate of new clothing to buy, and you end up buying clothes that you don’t even need. In the documentary they describe how “there is such a turnover and such a multiplication of designs that it encourages the consumer to come back”. They “subcontract to second or third tier factories where working conditions are of a much lower standard” which allows the companies to produce at a lower wage rate, at the cost of child labor, slave labor, or unsafe working conditions. But how much has the fashion world even changed? Along with the documentary, I watched a TEDx Talk, Fast Fashion’s Effect on People, The Planet, & You by Patrick Woodyard.
At the beginning of the video, he makes a comment about how “100 years ago you knew the name of the shoemaker in town, the tailor, the seamstress”. I think this is a great point that makes you think about the loss of connection to our purchases and purchasing power. Your clothing used to be tailored to your body, and of good quality so you didn’t have to purchase as much. In current times it’s often difficult to find reasonable quality clothes that fit you correctly. With how fast this fashion truly is, rather than a garment being thoughtfully made over a periodof weeks or months, these companies can create a garment “in one hour time and deliver same day”. At this point we all understand that fast fashion is a negative thing, but how could it negatively impact you? Well, they steal from small artists and designers. For example, Zara designers have admitted that since there’s such little time to produce designs, “designers go undercover, on journeys shamelessly described as inspirational”. At Zara, their lawyers imposed a “7 differences rule” in order to lawsuits. However, “small businesses have caught Zara making nearly identical copies of their pieces, this breaks the 7 differences imposed”. It's hard for small businesses to knock down these multi-billion dollar companies. Howare these brands even finding these artists to copy? Looking at the online retailer Shein, we can begin to understand how they “find” (steal) inspiration from artists. “[Recent lawsuits] allege that SHEIN is using a combination of AI and a powerful algorithm to scour the internet for designs and art that are receiving attention from potential customers”. This makes it virtually impossible for an artist to protect themselves from these larger businesses, not to mention if it even gets brought to their attention that they’ve had their art or designs stolen. There is really no doubt that this is true because Shein can create 6,000 new styles every day . Despite all this, fast fashion thrives. When Shein makes an order for products, they usually only get about 200 units of an item, rather than the standard 1,000 to 10,000+3. This is all so that they can test to see if the artist or designer noticed their stolen work; the small quantity allows Shein to claim it was a “blip” in the system3. Shein can then settle lawsuits cheaply, fast, with little financial loss, and often blames that a third party partner was responsible for the “mistake”.
All in all, I’m not here to call you to shop less or go purchase expensive clothing, but rather I want you to be informed. Informed on where your money might be going, and even how you should watch out for yourself and your fellow artists. Fast fashion certainly won’t be disappearing anytime soon, but I think it's critical we all understand the negative effects of these massive corporations. I find this topic quite interesting, and I encourage everyone to look into how they shop or where they shop for their clothes.
I find this very interesting. I ended up watching some of the "Fast Fashion: The Real Price of Low-Cost Fashion" video and the first thing that caught my attention was that from order to delivery, it only took 12 days. I honestly thing that is so crazy, especially since you know they are getting more than one order a day. It just goes to show how cheap some products are made and that they are not meant to last. And fact that they are only getting 3 pounds per hour which is about $4 an hour.
ReplyDeleteI have personally bought clothes from shein a couple of times because they were so cheap. Once they started getting dragged on social media about how they are sweatshops and people started getting "help me" on their receipts in their package, I completely stopped using them deleted the app. Most of the clothing that I got from there was cheap and not well made. Seams broke easily and clothes tore a lot. I do still have a pair of pants left tho that I still wear here and there but I had to get rid of the other stuff because they were ripping and falling apart.
The fact that these shein clothing places also steal designs really aggravates me as well. AI has already started to replace artist and has given a lot of us low hope and the fact that these shops just literally copy and paste someones design onto their clothing is crazy, I couldnt imagine how that artist feels. I have had a painting bought off of me before and someone tried to resell it as theirs and it ended up with me getting into an argument and really upset because of the fact.
This article was very interesting to me. When I get dressed each day, the last thing I think about is where the clothes I wear were made or even how they were made. I know that when I go shopping I'm always on the lookout for a good deal. I know that I tend to support brands that I know will last and hold up over time. These items are more attractive to me and I am more likely to buy them despite their price. I also agree with your point that in the past clothing was made to fit your specific body type, yet today everything is based on a generic size. I struggle with this every time I go shopping. I have to sometimes buy things that don't fit the way I want because I have no other option.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to imagine that the clothing we go out and buy could potentially be made by children, or anyone, in a sweatshop. This concept is not something many people think about. After reading this, it makes sense as to why some products are so cheaply made. The focus of many companies is volume over quality. It upsets me that people are being used to make clothes for us for very little compensation. Companies are using them to make money, yet they don't provide and care for their workers. This has made me want to make sure and do my research before I purchase anything from a company.
I have bought things from Shein because of the cheapness of their clothing, however my expectation was that there was no way I would put them in the dryer for fear of them falling apart or shrinking. Now that I have read this, I won't be buying anything from them again.
I felt like I could really tie this into the article I read about the use of AI and artists. People are finding that companies are using AI to allow people to create images that are very close, to even identical, to other accomplished artists. In doing this, the artist is not receiving their royalties or acknowledgement of their hard work, creativity, and passion. This is becoming prevalent in the clothing industry as well. It frustrates me that these companies steal the designs that people have worked so hard to put together and come up with so that they can reproduce copies that are not of the same quality and workmanship.