Cheap, low quality clothing isn't the only thing wrong with fast fashion. This industry makes up over 10% of all carbon emissions and consumes a devestating amount of water annually.

The fashion industry is going through some major changes lately. Sustainability and ethics are becoming a huge factor in many brand identities. Those companies that boast 15 or more collections a year are finally being called out.

What is Fast Fashion and What Does It Mean?

Fast fashion refers to mass manufacturing of low-quality, low-priced disposable garments. Fast also refers to how quickly the trends that these brands embrace come and go.

These companies harm the environment with greenhouse gasses and billions of clothing ending up in landfills. Comparatively, they also often mistreat and underpay their garment workers. The Rana Plaza Disaster shed some serious light on just how terrible fast fashion is.

Is Fast Fashion Really As Bad As They Say It Is?

This is like a 10 sided dice. There are tons of arguments both for and against fast fashion. When you compare the pros and cons, fast fashion has more negatives than it does positives.

There is the cost argument; that buying sustainable is more expensive. However, buying sustainably means buying less thus there is less annual spend on clothes. If you buy cheap, low-quality, you’ll have to replace it more frequently.

Environmental Impact

The massive carbon footprint of this industry for both production and waste is insane. The mass amounts of manufacturing require a huge amount of energy and contribute a tenth of the world’s carbon emissions.

It’s not just that, the toxic chemicals that go into production leak and contaminate fresh water. In addition to consuming 1.5 trillion liters of water each year.

Affect on Garment Workers

Fast fashion companies take advantage of their overseas employees. The majority of these workers are women and children. Typically, they are forced to work long hours, in dangerous conditions while receiving less than minimal pay.

Injuries, fires and accidents are continuous issues in textile production. There are tremendous human rights violations occurring within the fashion industry that need to be dealt with.

Chemicals Within the Clothing

The process of making clothes involves bleaching, dying and wet processing. All of which go into our skin and inevitably into our water after washing. Some of the chemicals in clothing production are:

Formaldehyde - for wrinkle resistance, is known to cause respiratory issues as well as skin irritation
PFCs (per-fluorocarbon) - for waterproofing and stain resistance, is linked to infertility and cancer
AZO Dyes - highly concentrated black and brown colors which contain PPD (p-Phenylenediamine), a chemical that causes allergies, skin irritations and organ damage
Solvents - used for pigments in dyes, can damage the body’s central nervous system and proper organ function

10 Fast Fashion Brands to Avoid and Why

H&M

H&M is one of the worst brands out there. They often have good news coming out but due to their massive marketing budgets they are just extremely adept at “greenwashing”. In fairness, they try but the reality is they come out with about 24 collections a year which just can’t be sustainable or ethical.

On the other hand, they do have a Conscious Collection. But if you look closely, the sustainable materials are blends with other fabrics to keep costs low. Keep in mind, fabric blends cannot be recycled.

Additionally, after the Rana Plaza Factory collapse, H&M promised to pay their workers adequate wages by 2018. It’s 2021 and they still aren’t being paid fairly. In fact, since the pandemic, Garment workers wages have decreased by 21%.

Zara

Probably one of the most well-known fashion brands out there currently. However, Zara is also known for knocking off runway designs by making similar products available in shorter periods of time.

The founder, Amancia Ortega is one of the worlds wealthiest, boasting a net worth of $66 billion. This is another company that uses “greenwashing” marketing tactics, while still using cheap labour.

UNIQLO

UNIQLO is a Japanese brand that actually has made some progress in becoming more environmentally sustainable. However, their labour rating is ‘Not Good Enough’ on Good On You. Their suppliers don’t pay liveable wages and there are even instances of workers not being paid at all.

TopShop

Rumour has it that TopShop has been struggling over the past few years and the pandemic really didn’t help them. The founder Philip Green has had some serious accusations thrown his way too. Some of which include:

Knowingly using sweatshops
Draining employee pension funds
Racism
Sexual harassment
Oh and bullying employees.

Fashion Nova

This brand rated ‘Very Poor’ on Good On You as it does not provide sufficient information regarding environmental policies. Not only that, it rated poorly for labor practices too. There isn’t even evidence that it pays fair wages to their garment workers.

Despite the high-status and highly paid influencer marketing, this brand sells cheap and low-quality clothing.

Pretty Little Thing

Recently Pretty Little Thing had the world questioning its ethics when they released a 99% off Black Friday sale. This sparked huge controversies and criticism regarding how it plans on paying factory workers with such low prices.

Not only that, PLT announced on their website that their clothing “may contain harmful chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects". In addition to that spooky fact, their sustainability page is riddled with unaccountability and consumer blame. It puts emphasis on what consumers need to do to be eco-friendly but providing no insight into their plans on becoming sustainable.

This is definitely one of the worst fast fashion brands to avoid.

Victoria Secret

Over the years, Victoria Secret has come under fire for lack of diversity. It is famous for using super thin and mainly white models to promote unrealistic and harmful beauty standards. The CMO went as far as telling Vogue that he would never use a plus-size or transgender model because it wouldn’t sell the fantasy.

If that wasn’t enough, this brand has also been revealed to use toxic chemicals in production. As well as providing little to no transparency about what factories it is working with.

Urban Outfitters

Urban Outfitters is seemingly inclusive but this brand has a history of cultural appropriation as well as the CEO’s obvious homophobia. Moreover, they have been accused of ripping off designs from independent artists on Etsy.

Shein

This is one of the worst fast fashion companies out there right now. They are known for high volume production sold at extremely low prices.

In addition to the environmental impact of this brand, Shein has also tried selling Islamic prayer mats and swastika necklaces. Its app is actually band in India for stealing data from users.

Mango

Mango is another fast fashion company that greenwashes in order to appear more sustainable and eco-conscious. Even with the sustainability report, code of ethics and transparency pledge, Mango still insufficiently provides clear sustainability commitments.

This brand aims to release a new collection every two weeks and designs almost 20,000 garments annually. It is literally impossible to be sustainable or ethical at that rate.

In addition, Mango was linked to the Rana Plaza Factory disaster that killed and injured thousands of garment workers.

Sustainable Influencers | Source

Conclusion

Fast fashion just isn’t a good thing. It impacts the environment, economy and society on extreme levels.

Most of these brands are well-known and their big marketing budgets make it difficult to find real transparency.

How Can You Avoid Fast Fashion?

Well, keep away from the brands listed above if you can.

Call out brands, demand real action and transparency.

Remember, consumers have a responsibility to keep these brands in check.

Also, keep in mind that buying into fast fashion and trends harms you as well. Embrace your personal style and express yourself without buying the latest thing or trend.

When you go shopping, keep it local! Support consignment, thrift or a neighbourhood boutique!

What’s Wrong With Fast Fashion