Spectrum Wellbeing has done the hard work for you and brought together all you need to know about the Fast Fashion industry! In this post we dive into some of your main questions including: What is Fast Fashion? Who are the Trending Fast Fashion Brands? and How is Fast Fashion Becoming a Problem? We also provide a list of our top tips for swapping fast fashion for sustainable fashion alternatives, helping you to avoid an unethical fashion faux pas!
Fast Fashion is the latest industry trend in which fashion designers take inspiration from high fashion runway garments and start to produce these hot new items en masse and as quickly as possible, making them accessible to every high street shopper. Sounds good, right? However, this process is somewhat of a catch 22 situation for shoppers. For this mass-production to be possible high street leaders have had to cut their costs, meaning that production facilities have been outsourced and garment quality is declining every year. In addition, fashion trends are now changing faster than ever as high street producers ramp up production speeds.
Fast fashion is bad for both the environment and the workers producing the clothes.
The environment: This may sound shocking,
but the fashion industry is the second
The workers: Not only is fast fashion bad for the environment, but it is producing working conditions that are unethical and quite frankly dangerous for employees. In order for companies to sustain fast fashion trends they must cut costs, and to do this they outsource production, provide the bare minimum in pay, demand extortionate working hours, provide unsafe working conditions, and exploit child labour. For example, garment workers are often forced to work 14 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. The video below shows the working conditions in a Bangladesh clothing factory that sustains fast fashion:
So what brands are driving this fast fashion industry? We have provided a list of the top 15 contenders below:
◾ H&MIf you want to know more about why these brands made our list, check out the following links:
70+ Fashion Brands And Reasons To Avoid
A Complete List of 25 Fast Fashion Brands to Avoid and Why
1. Thrift
Our first top tip is to ditch those high street fast fashion brands in favour of the hottest new trend; thrifting. In case you haven’t heard – VINTAGE IS IN – and it’s saving the environment. Instead of filling up your shopping basket with mountains of low price, low quality items why not head over to some of our favourite online vintage stores and bag yourself a quality piece - out with the new and in with the old, we say!
2. Sustainable fashion brands
So maybe you don’t like the idea of buying second-hand clothing – no worries, we got you! There are still brands out there who are operating in a sustainable way, and it doesn’t have to break the bank either! We’ve listed some of our favourite affordable, sustainable fashion brands below for you:
Boody – for your essentials
Happy Earth – Giving us major Urban Vibez
Girlfriend Collective – For all your exercise needs
3. Re-purpose
Last but not least, why not save your money all together? Next time you feel your wardrobe needs a bit of an upgrade, why not try to skip the fast fashion brands and re-purpose some of your old clothes! We think this is a great craft activity that will cure your Covid-19 lock down blues. Check out the latest TikTok clothing transformations for some inspo: