Written by Jomi Ogunlaja
So why are we buying from fast fashion brands again?
Let's begin by defining “fast fashion”. Fast fashion is a method where a brand tries to makes their clothing as fashionable, trendy, and affordable in the eyes of the consumer. Okay, so you might wonder "Why is it so bad?" "What's wrong with buying affordable clothing?" "What's wrong with wanting trendy clothing?"
Fast Fashion is terrible.
Fast fashion is the one of the leading industries that contributes to polluting the environment. Every year fashion companies bring out at least 150 million clothing items. Every season, new clothing items are going to be introduced to keep up with the latest fashion trends. Consumer's ultimately throw out their old clothes for trendy ones. The materials used to make these clothing items are cheap, bad for the environment, and usually unethically made. And unfortunately, for us, every year these clothes are found in the ocean.
Nonetheless fast fashion companies exploit LDC (least developed countries) by establishing factories with unethical working conditions. These factories employ children and women, have them work in an unsafe environment or sweatshop, and pay them less than average wages. Furthermore, fast-fashion companies don’t protect their workers which means the factories owner may either abuse, inflict physical and mental pain, especially on women.
Fast fashion companies to avoid.
Now we have an idea of what fast fashion is and why it is so problematic. Let's go over which brands our are favorites, are probably in our closets, and make an effort to start avoiding them.
- Nike
- Victoria’s secret
- Zara
- H&M
- Fashion Nova
- Shein
- Urban fitters
- Forever 21
- Hollister
Sustainable fashion is the future. Get ahead or get behind.
Sustainable fashion is defined as manufactured, designed, and distributed clothes that are more ecologically friendly. Additionally, these brands pay their workers better and treat them ethically. These brands make an effect to reduce their carbon footprints, harm no animals, create less textile waste, and less water waste.
Sustainable fashion brands to start buying from.
We now have an idea of what fashion sustainability means and why it’s a more viable option than fast fashion. The five brands we should support are;
I’m only an intern, i'm not here to crucify anyone for shopping at these large fast fashion brands. I have clothing pieces from some of these brands listed above. However, it's time for us to do better. Changes is slow, so it's better to start sooner than later. There's so much we have to learn learn in order to better ourselves and the environment.