The world has gone from an era of bespoke or customised clothing to the present age of ready to wear, disposable garments.
In the 1950s, an average American spent a whopping 10% of their annual income on clothing and apparel whereas, today, the average American consumer spends a mere 3% of their annual income on the same.
This, of course, can be attributed towards an upsurge in incomes, across the globe but, only partially so.
The biggest cause for this, is the saga of fast fashion. The model of fast fashion is immensely similar to that of fast food; cheap, quick and of questionable quality.
So, what is it that baits us into the traps of fast fashion?
The answer is simple - affordability, convenience and a general rising need to confine to societal pressures of looking trendy and up to date.
The latter is known as the demonstration effect of consumption that is, the tendency of people to emulate the consumption style of others.
On the whole, fast fashion seems like the need of the moment.
But like most of its contemporaries, the convenience of fast fashion comes at the cost of environmental forfeiture.
It is estimated that between 80 to 150 billion pieces of clothing are produced each year, 85% of which ends up in landfills, unrecycled.
The garment industry is the second biggest polluter of clean water on the planet. The pollution of clean water is linked to the development of diseases such as polio, cholera, typhoid, cancer along with miscarriages amongst women. The fashion industry is accountable for 10% of the global carbon footprint. An average consumer throws away about 31.75 kilograms (70 pounds) of clothing per year. Globally we produce 13 million tons of textile waste each year 95% of which could be reused or recycled.
The environmental impact of fast fashion is alarmingly enormous but it is only one of two downsides of fast fashion.
One of every six people on the globe are employed in the garment industry, most of whom are habitants of developing countries.
The fashion industry is widely known for it’s unethical labour practices which may include, but are not limited to child labour, underpayment and unsafe handling of toxic, harmful chemicals.
In Colombian mines, Bangladeshi factories, or Vietnam textile mills, labor standards are so low that even though the apparel industry is the largest employer of women globally, less than 2% of these women earn a living wage.
All things considered, what is the solution present to us?
Although many claim that sustainable fashion can be had by all, realistically it can be prohibitively expensive. The base costs that go into sustainable fashion are inherently more expensive due to sourcing costly eco-friendly natural materials and paying people a fair wage for sewing garments.
The attainable, more budget-friendly options include thrift shopping, renting clothing and largely shifting our consumption patterns towards the paradigm of minimalism.
Ultimately, the problem of fast fashion may be completely impertinent to a single mother struggling to raise her two kids in a Mumbai slum or the dying man in an overcrowded Indonesia hospital trying to gather all his remaining strength to take in one more breath. They have far more urgent problems than the impact of fast fashion or the crisis of liberal democracy.
Nonetheless, the construct and foundation of fast fashion continues to be an unnerving one, in the world we live in, today.
However unnerving it may be, there is a silver lining to all prospects.
40% of the people across the globe today are connected digitally.
If a mere 10% of that figure decide to make a change and incorporate sustainability in their lives, we can eliminate 4,717,360,648 kilograms of textile waste from our landfills.
Ultimately, we can choose to either be a part of the problem or a part of the solution.
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