Taking A Stance Against Fast Fashion
Feelings towards fast fashion have grown increasingly polarized over the past few years. For some, online shopping increased during the pandemic, but growing attention to workers’ rights and environmental impact pushed others to lower their number of impulse buys. A growing wave of ethical influencers calling out social media platforms for promoting unsustainable and unethical brands has brought the topic of fast fashion further into the spotlight. Thrifting has grown exponentially in popularity. Suddenly, it’s trendy to be sustainable and environmentally-friendly - yet it’s also still trendy to have the newest styles and accessories. For many lovers of fashion, it’s difficult to reconcile these two conflicting ideas.
Acknowledging the dichotomy of the fashion industry can be the first step to understanding the best way forward. Our culture is heavily visual - you are judged on your appearance instantly, whether you’re presenting yourself on camera or in-person. Fashion is an important social marker and cultural tool we use to identify and express ourselves. It even serves as a record of history. It also is the industry that sends more money towards modern slavery than all others (second only to tech) and that creates massive piles of landfill clothing in Accra. Accepting that fashion is both a cultural cornerstone and a creator of environmental and human degradation - at the same time - is key to navigating the nuances of this tension.
Aja Barber, a fashion journalist and author, suggests finding other ways to fill your time than just shopping fast fashion. She believes that changing your habits from spending a lot of money and time shopping to finding other ways of appreciating design and art can help lessen the effects of fast fashion, while also fulfilling your need for creativity. Redirecting creative energy into other outlets - even learning about the history of fashion or consuming content about fashion rather than consuming clothes - can help reverse shopping addiction, an actual medical condition that 20 million Americans are estimated to have. Yes, 20 million.
Finding ways to help combat the negative effects of the fashion industry can be useful as well. Spending your money at stores that are ethical is a great place to start - apps like Good on You can help you identify those stores easily. Finally, voicing your concerns through customer surveys, reviews, political activism, and/or voting is just as important. As Barber points out, consumer voices (and lots of them) can sway companies more than expected.