Should students stop consuming fast fashion?
Generally, university students are characterised as being burdened with debt and largely image conscious. Assuming this representation of students is accurate, it would appear that fast fashion producers have found their primary target market within this demographic. Fast-fashion chains offer on trend, albeit low quality garments at an affordable price. Fashion is no longer a commodity solely for the affluent, but an accessible medium of expression for even those who complain about the price of textbooks. There is no longer a stigma attached to budget fashion, and consequently stores such as H&M, Forever 21 and Zara have gained great force. Although the inferior quality of these clothes is not a secret to consumers, the impact that they have on our society, environment and economy is commonly overlooked. The philosophy behind these producers is to generate mass volume, low quality and cheaply priced products and has been replicated to the point where ‘middle-market manufacturers shutter, and independent retailers either go high-end or go home’ (Cline, 2012). The emergence of low cost manufacturing in countries such as China and India have further facilitated its growth, and consequently the UK textile industry has suffered. The number of jobs in this industry has rapidly declined from 800,000 in 1980 to 100,000 today (Financial Times, 2013), signifying the eradication of a once fruitful industry. Reflecting on the aforementioned issues, a crucial question arises of whether students should continue shopping with short-term commitment, or whether they should adopt a more sustainable approach.
Clothing and style are an integral part of our lives that has existed long before the triumph of the fashion industry (Cline, 2012). The way we dress determines how others perceive us, and consequently fashion adds value to clothes that are otherwise inferior in quality. Hollander (1994) argues that fashion provides ‘great sartorial freedom and range’ and positively reflects the freedoms offered in our current society, whilst Negrin (2008) highlights the changeability of fashion as ‘liberatory insofar as it serves to denaturalise the body’. Considering the many positives of fashionable apparel, perhaps it is important on a socio-cultural level that everyone has access to it. Students in particular, who have an average yearly income of £10,931 (Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2013), are unable to afford the high prices of modern quality clothing and therefore fast fashion is their only means of gaining societal approval. An argument against this however, is that fast-fashion quickly exhausts trends, subsequently decreasing their lifespan. In response, companies must swiftly produce new trends, which consumers then feel obliged to purchase, resulting in a rapid vicious cycle of production, purchase and ultimately disposal (Cline, 2012). Essentially, fast-fashion encourages the swift disregard of items only recently purchased in favour of newer and ‘trendier’ garments. The environmental footprint this type of model leaves is immense. According to The Fiber Year Consulting (2015), the production volume in the world textile industry in 2014 rose by 4.1 per cent to 93.7 million tonnes from the previous year, a rapid increase from the 1950 statistic of 10 million tonnes (Cline, 2012). This rate of production is unsustainable, as approximately 145 million tonnes of coal are needed to preserve this level of textile production, and as a natural resource its dependability is set to decrease. The air pollution caused by this industry is further damaging. Toxic chemicals are used to create artificial fibres, which are subsequently dyed and treated in order to look brighter and softer (Cline, 2012). This model of production is damaging the environment around us at an alarming rate and it does not appear to be subsiding.
Aside from the negative environmental implications of fast-fashion, economically this model of business is largely unsustainable. Companies such as Zara have low margins and are thus more vulnerable to increases in material and labour costs (The Business of Fashion, 2013). The manufacture led economies that fast-fashion greatly depend upon are becoming consumer driven themselves, and as a result our western habit of textile consumption are being rapidly duplicated. Between 1999 and 2011, China’s consumer spending rose by 50 per cent (Demand Institute, 2015) essentially due to its success as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods (Financial Times, 2011). Consequently, fast-fashion producers are losing their price competitive edge and staying ahead means ‘better forecasting demand to maximise low-cost capacity’ (The Business of Fashion, 2013). Furthermore, this price pressure is coercing companies into ignoring the unsafeness of certain factories; effectively putting factory workers lives at risk whilst simultaneously destroying their own reputation (The Business of Fashion, 2013). Companies are also seeking to eliminate the risk of selling unsuccessful lines through the sale of ‘the same carefully orchestrated trends’ (Cline, 2012), resulting in a homogenous and generic fashion climate.
As evidenced by the above discussion, it is clear that fast-fashion is an unsustainable, vanity driven industry, which we should seek to avoid. Aside from its detrimental impact on the environment, and its adverse affect on the domestic economy, fast-fashion is an insult to our creativity and individuality. Companies should be encouraging innovation and steering technology towards the development of environmentally friendly and responsibly designed clothing. Instead, it is using that technology to mass-produce and mass-market inferior generic merchandise that even its own consumers quickly disregard. Therefore, students should change their shopping behaviour in order to support those companies that encourage quality and originality.
