For people who love to shop, “fast fashion” — cheap, trendy clothing — allows them to indulge in the shopping experience more frequently. For those of us who don’t enjoy shopping, the opportunity to buy inexpensive new clothes helps us save money without having to put in the effort to find good clothing at secondhand stores.
But the cheap, on-trend items that we buy now and discard in a year or so are problematic. First, there are environmental costs to fast fashion. Clothing factories dump harmful chemicals, such as toxic dyes, into waterways. Fabric and clothes are shipped long distances in order to take advantage of cheap labor. Much of the clothing we buy is made using synthetic fabrics, which shed microfibers every time we wash our clothes. Too small to be trapped during wastewater treatment, these fibers end up in our waterways… and the food chain. And worn-out and out-of-date clothing often ends up in landfills at the end of its (short) lifespan. Synthetic materials in particular take a very long time to break down.
So part of the solution is to buy natural fabrics such as cotton, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Conventional cotton growers use a disproportionate amount of pesticides, exposing farm laborers to toxic chemicals. Growing cotton also requires lots of water. Organic cotton is a better choice. Wool is also a good choice, but there are drawbacks, including — again –water usage. Silk is fine, though it may disturb you to know that silk production is harmful to silkworms and moths. Bamboo sounds great — after all, it grows like a weed — but the fabric production often requires a lot of chemicals. In addition, bamboo’s growing popularity may be encouraging unsustainable farming practices. Producing linen from flax can contribute to water pollution. Hemp is a sustainable choice, but it can be challenging to find. It’s even more difficult to find unusual fabrics made of things like stinging nettles and coffee grounds.
In other words, some fabrics are better choices than others, but virtually all choices have some drawbacks. It’s best to limit our purchases altogether.
Fast fashion isn’t just bad for the environment; it’s bad for laborers. In many cases, the people who work in clothing factories receive extremely low pay to work under dangerous conditions. When factory fires occur, workers may be trapped inside the building. Fires aren’t the only danger to workers. In 2013, 1,134 people, including garment factory workers, died when the building they worked in collapsed. Even in U.S. factories, workers may be paid well below minimum wage. In some cases, our cheap clothing is the product of slavery. Slaves may pick the cotton that goes into our clothing — another reason to be careful about selecting cotton clothing. You can also find slavery in garment factories, both overseas and in the U.S.
What can we do about this?
The most important thing we can do is to buy only what we need. If you enjoy shopping for clothes, you can still do that, but you will be doing it less often. That means you’ll need to find some substitutes for that dopamine hit you get when you go shopping. Donate to charity, do an act of kindness, exercise, spend less time on your computer and more time sleeping, listen to music, take up meditation. I know this is easy for me to say as someone who hates shopping, but buying less is a very effective way to change things.
Need clothing but don’t have a lot of money? Buy used instead of going to [name of your favorite fast fashion store here]. I confess this advice is hard for me to take. Shopping online or in a store is so much easier than shopping in thrift stores or consignment shops. If you find a top you like but the size you picked doesn’t fit, you can usually get the same item in a different size if you’re buying new. In used clothing stores, you’re out of luck. Nevertheless, it’s far better to save money by buying used clothing than buying clothing that contributes to human suffering and the destruction of the environment.
If you have the money and don’t want to buy used clothing, purchase high-quality clothing that’s made to last. Look for organic, natural fibers and fair-trade garments whenever possible. Again, I know this isn’t easy. Sustainable fashion has come a long way from the dumpy Earth Mother look of the ’90s, but our choices are still fairly limited. Nevertheless, there are an increasing number of clothing companies out there with an ethical focus — and they don’t all charge an arm and a leg for their clothing, though the clothes will cost more than fast fashion. Consider retailers such as Fair Indigo, Indigenous Designs, and Mehera Shaw.
It can be challenging to purchase a sustainable wardrobe. Although I have made sustainable purchases, I’ve also made plenty of conventional purchases simply because it was easy. But every time we choose not to buy clothing we don’t need, or to spend a little time and/or money on making a sustainable purchase, we’re taking a small step toward changing the world for the better.