Fast fashion is a growing idea in the fashion industry.
Fast Fashion can be defined in so many ways. It has something to do with COST, LABOR, PRODUCTION, ENVIRONMENTAL HAZZARD.
Just to put it in simpler term, fast fashion emerge because everything is cheap. Cheaper clothes because of cheaper labor cost, cheaper ingredients in creating your clothes, and over production of clothes and many more.
Fashion industry is becoming one amongst those industry who are polluting the planet. From creating the garment to the waste by products.
For me fast fashion became a thing because of buyers mentality. Clothes became so cheap that it became disposable. Buyers has this mind set that they can grab cheap clothes and the following week they can dispose it anyway. Its no long wash wear and re-use sometimes people keep buying stuffs and just throwing them away. Also the quality becomes less and less as these brands dont want your clothes to last for years so sone of them shrinks after few washes some becomes loose.
Imagine if I but 4 tshirst every month thats 48 tshirts in a year multiply that by 10,000 people thats 48K worth of shirts in a year and thats tshirt alone. We still have socks, trousers, jackets, polo shirts long and short sleeves.
And you thought these discarded tshirt that you put in H&M BOX or other brands Recycling box end up in the making of new clothes? Oooopppps nope they are not most of them are boxed and shipped to INDIA or PHILIPPINES ukay ukay store. And those unsellable items are discarded to the landfills.
So question is do we blame the companies for making cheap and fashionable items? Their main concern is to bring fashion to the masses at a cheaper price tags so you get to exoerience “high fashion” without breaking your banks.
Or should we blame the consumer for over spending? For buying more clothes because its the latest trend.
For me fast fashion is a behaviour both the brand and the consumer. If the consumer only buys clothes and keep using it for more than 5 years or until it wears off then no matter how hard these fast fashion brands market their goods it wouldnt matter.
People like me gets attracted with the word SALE!!!! It triggers our mind to buy that item on sale whether I need it or not.
Perhaps, if we change our mindset as a consumer and reduce our consumption for fashion then we are sending this fashion industry a clear sign that we dont need cheap clothings.
The problem is, eventhough we wanted to have our clothes last long but after few washes it wears off then that is concerning.
In the Philippines, buying clothes at ZARA or UNIQLO is expensive. Buying clothes at Baclaran or Divisoria is way cheaper. However, most of the time the quality is gazilion apart. Or its really cheaply done and most of the time it shrinks just after few washes.
And I dont blame them the general public because the salary is also cheap here and the city services are mega expensive plus tax and other deductables are also eating up the salary.
A call to action to our local fashion industry is to keep the quality great, something that can be worn after many washes and keep the prize low. Or else, this international retailer may just take over the consumption.
Bench for example is a local brand which is competing with Zara and other international brands. The quality is different though the style is somewhat going at par but so as the price.
To some it up, I wanted to buy locally produced garments however the quality is not the same. Local garments industry has the advantage because they know how humid the Philippines could get but sometimes its just not matching the fabric used versus the climatic condition of the country. Reduce the price make the quality great and that for sure secure the business plus it helps the general public buy less.
Otherwise, ukay-ukay or thrift shops is the next best place to buy. Its already popular here in the Philippines but we also dont want to be the garbage bin of other countries of their unused clothes so lets just be more careful too in buying at the thrift shops or ukay-ukay as we may be encouraging these other countries to be their dumping sites of textile waste.
Fast fashion is everyones concern. Textile waste is a product of fast fashion and the only way to help these fast fashion retailers to learn their lesson is when we stop over consumption of clothes. A single person doesnt need 50 tshirts to survive or to go to work. A working person doesnt need 30 polo shirts or 30 office attire to go to work. You do not need 10 jeans or 15 jackets.
So I will be challenging myself. I will re-use my clothes or any textile product that I am about to throw and I will also post the things that I am buying and where I bought it for 2023 to keep track of what I am buying. Lets see how would I go.
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