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COLLOQUIUM PAPER AREA OF
STUDY AND WRITE UP
FAST FASHION CHEAP FASHION
By
Krishna gupta
Page 1
CONTENT
Acknowledgement……………………………………………………………………3
Introduction & Objective………………………………………………………….4
Recent Scenario………………………………………………………………………..5
History………………………………………………………………………………………6-15
Facts of Fast Fashion……………………………………………………………….16-23
Advantage & Disadvantage of Fast Fashion…………………………….24-29
Theeffects of Fast fashion………………………………………………………30-36
Plans to reduce the Fast Fashion trend……………………………………37-38
American Situation………………………………………………………………….39-40
Case study on USA market……………………………………………………….41--46
Survey Questioners………………………………………………………………….47-48
Survey Analysis………………………………………………………………………..49-52
Inferences and Suggestion……………………………………………………….53
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….54
References……………………………………………………………………………….55
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I, Krishna Kumar Gupta, of Fashion and Lifestyle Accessories, semester VII, 9/1141 would
like to take this opportunity to thank my subject faculty Mr. Aravendan for his excellent
support and constant guidance throughout this module of colloquium paper. I would also
thanks to all those who have helped me directly or indirectly during the module. Finally I
thank NIFT, Chennai for providing us with the necessary infrastructure and facilities that
helped us in the successful completion of our final product.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 3
INTRODUCTION
In this module colloquium paper we have to discuss and pick one issue or
problem prevailing in the fashion industry and as the word colloquium itself
mean gathering information from various sources for discussion or an
assembly for conference. At last we have to document the whole matters and
discussion together.
OBJECTIVE
FAST FASHION
OBJECTIVE
• To study the history of fast fashion
• To know the advantage and disadvantage of fast fashion
• To know the effect of fast fashion on society and environment
• Finally to come up with suggestions that or inference whether fast fashion is acceptable by
society or not as fast fashion is like a fast food.
Research Methodology
• Explorative method
• Descriptive method
• Case study
• Survey method
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 4
RECENT SECNARIO
My area of study is how fashion is changing so rapidly and how does it affect the retail
market throughout the world. Due to the frequent change in the fashion trend in very quick
time succession the garments and product are available in a very affordable price. Retailers
like including Mango, H&M, Topshop, Primark and Uniqlo, who have wasted no time in
tapping into younger consumers' ever- shorter attention spans, and lifestyle changes like
mobile communications, the internet, and social networks.
One of the biggest retail success stories of the past decade has been the phenomenal rise of
fast fashion, a shopping trend spurred by rapidly changing styles and the ready availability of
cheap brands. In a session entitled 'Is fast fashion killing fashion?' at last week's IAF World
Apparel Convention in Hong Kong, delegates were in left in no doubt the concept has forced
the industry to change.
The undoubted pioneer of the fast fashion concept is Spanish clothing retailer Zara, with its
4,780 stores in 77 countries and a formula for success that relies on the regular creation and
rapid replenishment of small batches of new goods.
With new lines being dropped into shops every 4-8 weeks (or twice a week in the case of
Zara), it's a recipe that ensures customers can always find new products every time they
visit the store, as well as encouraging more visits and more frequent purchases because
items are in limited supply.
And it's a blueprint that has been emulated by numerous other retailers including Mango,
H&M, Topshop, Primark and Uniqlo, who have wasted no time in tapping into younger
consumers' ever- shorter attention spans, and lifestyle changes like mobile communications,
the internet, and social networks.
The growth of fast retailing "seems to be phenomenal," Arvind Singhal, CEO of Indian
consultancy Technopak told delegates at last week's IAF World Apparel Convention in Hong
Kong. Even during the recession Zara owner Fast Retailing booked revenues up 29% from
2008-09, followed by Primark (up 24%) and H&M (up 19%) - figures that would be
"spectacular, even at the best of times."
In contrast, traditional brand names like Liz Claiborne are struggling, while upmarket
retailers like Nordstrom and Saks have been lowering their price points in order to compete.
It also seems unlikely there will be any let-up in fast fashion's advance across the globe.
"Initial reports suggest it will have even more impact in new markets like China and India
than could ever have been imagined," Singhal says.
As evidenced by the fact Zara has opened 44 stores in China since 2006. And in India, where
it made its first foray earlier this year, the retailer achieved a turnover of $2.7m in its first
two days of opening.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 5
HISTORTY OF FAST FASHION
FROM RAGS TO RICHES TO RAGS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RISE OF FAST
FASHION
For a woman who loves fashion as much as I do, I absolutely loathe shopping. Sifting through the
retail dregs; overpriced, high-end department stores; designer sample sales strewn with trampled
clothes; trendy discount retailer racks with garments falling apart on the hangers; outlet stores
overflowing with misshapen rejects; and smelly second hand stores make me itch.
”Manolo Madness” from Flypaper
This is hardly what I would consider the path to glamor that I imagine as I turn the glossy pages
of Vogue. And while I wish I could just stitch and alter my wardrobe into one-of-a-kind originals,
as I am trained by profession to do, the irony of it all is that as a fashion designer I hardly have
the time to make repairs to my wardrobe, much less actually sew anything for myself. A girl’s
gotta pay the rent, after all. This plight of the modern woman – not enough time, too little money,
and seemingly too high standards – is a pathetically malfunctioning equation. But perhaps it’s
not that my standards that are too high. Maybe it’s just a sign that the times are indeed changing.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 6
The infamous Marie Antoinette, who was well known for her taste in ridiculous hats and
hairdo’s and expensive wardrobes. Image via Marie Antoinette, Sony Pictures.
There was a time in history when beautiful clothes could only be acquired by members of the
Royal Court. Only the extremely wealthy could afford fine clothes. The middle class might have
been able to painstakingly make their own out of less fine fabrics and trims. But homemade,
roughly-hewn rags were all that was available to the poor.
Girls learning sewing in home ec. Image via 3-b-s.eu
Thank goodness this all changed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when the sewing
machine made fashion available to more people. As it became a common appliance in
households of average means, like my grandmother’s in the 1920′s and 30′s, women were
inspired to get creative and could make their own designs for themselves and their families, even
on modest budgets. This marked a time in history that began to blur class distinctions, and
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 7
women in the lower and middle classes began to rise in the ranks of style within society,
especially if they had a taste and a talent for sewing.
Women hit the the workforce. Image via lexydeg
WWII marked a new kind of revolution for women, the right to join the workforce in place of
their husbands who were off at war, and fashion once again changed. Women liked this new
sense of equality in the workforce and especially the keys to financial freedom. Time for home
sewing projects became more sparse as climbing the ladder and acquiring spending power slowly
overtook women’s desire to manage home economics during the next several decades. In this
time, the fashion industry boomed to meet consumer demand and provide more options for this
new force of female consumers.
Fast forward to today.
Most female consumers are busy running businesses and households simultaneously and many
have little knowledge of sewing, which sadly takes away any skill to recognize quality in
craftsmanship. Combined with the fashion industry’s ability to attach aspirational dreams to
meaningless stuff through marketing, women are generally willing to accept any item with a label
they recognize as long as it proves affordable to buy. Design and original taste has been replaced
by owning the most recognizable bling. And fast fashion, like fast food, has signaled the death of
style and taste for the masses.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 8
Insane closet behavior. Image via Apartment Therapy
The fashion industry has become a multi-billion dollar business in which entrepreneurs and
investors look for ways to cut costs while increasing revenue for shareholders. The best way to do
that is to produce and sell huge quantities of product to a mass market. This equation of making
high volumes require an enormous investment which increases the risk immensely, a risk that
most shareholders would not be comfortable knowing about. Which means that the buck gets
passed to reduce the risk while keeping the profit margin steady. Who does it get passed to? Us.
The consumers who pay the same price for half the quality; the workers, who have to do twice as
much work for the same pay; and the environment, which is heavily fertilized to yield greater
crops or dumped upon to avoid expensive waste removal processes. Sound familiar? Oddly, the
fashion retail recession appears to be coinciding with the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008.
We come full circle to the era of Marie Antoinette, where only the richest of the rich can afford
and experience the quality and taste of haute design and couture, while the vast majority of the
population swims in low quality rags with fancy tags that will shortly only be worthy of garbage
dumps. This epidemic of “trashion” is now spreading throughout the world, to developing nations
that want the same standards that America and other westernized nations have set, leaving the
knowledge and traditions of weaving, spinning, and cultural costume to the wayside to be
forgotten.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 9
“I think we are all secretly artists. It’s just a matter of allowing yourself to see.” – Fay Leshner.
Image via Stylelikeu.com
But throughout this history of mass culture, there have always been rebels, men and women, who
defy the system with their originality and creativity, regardless of their economic status. Marked
by their burning desire to express themselves and their joie de vivre, this counter culture of
personal style mavens take the less-traveled path to acquiring their wardrobes. These people look
for the alternatives to shopping at H&M, the Gap, or, god forbid, Abercrombie & Fitch.
Whether they save their dimes to buy that one coveted item from their favorite local couturier, or
they have maintained the knowledge to sew and spend their precious free time doing so, or
perhaps insist upon searching through vintage and second hand stores for one of a kind, original
pieces, the way art and antique collectors might, they have found ways around limitations set by
economics or a limited industrial selection.
This does require somewhat of an effort, but then again, so does making enough money to pay off
last month’s credit card bills. The effort is well spent because these stylish individuals appear to
be having the kind of fun with their clothing that many of us cannot even imagine. They stand out
in a crowd without being celebrities harassed by paparazzi; confusing and criss-crossing all class,
social, and economic lines, and meanwhile looking rather jaw-droppingly fabulous.
Fast Fashion gathered pace from the end of the 1990’s when brands began to look for new
ways to increase profits. Globalisation had grown rapidly in the 80’s and 90’s and paved the
way for value and mid price brands to shift the bulk of their production to the developing
world where labour and overheads cost a fraction of those in Europe.
High street brands were coming under increasing pressure from supermarket chains
developing their own lines of low cost clothing. Initially they sold items like simple T shirts
and underwear, however the move of George Davies from Next to Asda signalled a new era
for supermarket clothing and a move into high fashion, low cost items.
Traditionally, most fashion labels have produced two main collections a year, spring/summer
and autumn/winter. However, in order to keep the customer focused on the high street, High
Street brands needed to create some interest within their stores mid season.
Certain companies re-examined their supply chains and developed a system which several
other brands then followed. They segmented their supply chain, keeping basic items
manufactured in the far east but brought the production of the more high fashion items closer
to home.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 10
This had several benefits. Firstly it decreased their financial outlay on forward orders and
also allowed them to make decisions about the fashion items much later in the season. This
added flexibility and ensured they were able to react to the market quickly and deliver ‘on-
trend’ items within their stores.
This model could then be developed through the use of new technological systems which
linked all parts of the supply chain together. This new system allowed for the development of
‘just in time’ manufacturing and has now developed to a stage where they are able to turn a
garment around from drawing to shop floor in just two weeks.
Consumers reacted positively to this trend which in turn has resulted in the widespread
speeding up of fashion.
Factory workers are feeling the effects of this. A Sri Lankan factory owner interviewed by
Oxfam demonstrates the pressure they are now under; “Last year the deadlines were about 90
days… [This year] the deadlines for delivery are about 60 days. Sometimes even 45… They
have drastically come down.”
‘Instead of 40,000 garments being manufactured across four styles for 20 weeks at a rate of
500 per styles per week… all that is firm is the first five weeks across four styles at 500 per
style per week. This is a commitment to 10,000 garments. The remaining 30,000 is unknown.
Nor is there any promise of how many styles and at what manufacturing rate per week.’ Just
Style (2006) Purchasing trends in the fashion industry www.just-style.com
The Clean Clothes Campaign describe similar instances with garment workers in China “We
have endless overtime in the peak season and we sit working non-stop for 13 to 14 hours a
day. It’s like this every day – we sew and sew without a break until our arms feel sore and
stiff”
The increase in the amount of clothes people consume also has consequences for the
environment. More clothing is shipped and flown from the Far East to Europe than ever
before and the life cycle of these garments is decreasing.
Statistics show that on average, UK consumers send 30kg of clothing and textiles per capita
to landfill each year and that 1.2 million tonnes of clothing went to landfill in 2005 in the UK
alone. Moreover, textiles present particular problems in landfill as synthetic (man-made
fibres) products will not decompose, while woollen garments do decompose and produce
methane, which contributes to global warming
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 11
The History of a Cheap Dress
Everywhere American consumers shop — from outlet malls to department store sales racks
— deals flourish. But where can one find the cheapest dress? “Fast fashion” purveyors like
Forever 21 and H&M are known for their low prices, high volume, and rapid turnover of
styles. It’s amazing to think that a hundred years ago, at the birth of ready-made clothing as
we know it, women would drop six hundred dollars for a Parisian knock-off.Today a
fashionable dress is cheaper than a bag of dog food. How did we get here?
In the early 1900s, the sewing machine had only been around a half a century and the
production quality and fit coming off the assembly lines needed some polishing. Decent
menswear could be bought off the rack, and men were slowly warming up to ready-made
duds. But for women there was a deep divide between high-end European fashions acquired
by the wealthy and the flimsy, flashy, of-the-moment items available to everyone else.
According to Jan Whitaker’s book Service and Style, a history of department stores, a ready-
made knockoff of a French “lingerie style” dress started at $25 ($621.50 in today’s dollars) at
Marshall Field’s in 1902. It was more feasible for the average girl to buy a ready-made
women’s suit, which started at $7.95 ($190) or, better yet, the quintessential shirtwaist, which
sold for just 39 cents ($9.34) at the turn-of-the-century. The fashion-hound of modest means
was better off making her own dresses or ordering them from the local dressmaker.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 12
By the 1950s, quality ready-made fashion was within the reach of the middle-
class. America’s garment industry was the envy of the world and womenswear was its
number one product. The International Ladies Garment Workers Union had almost 450,000
members and the sweatshops of the industry’s early days had been largely abolished. The
1955 Sears Catalog was a veritable wonderland of nipped-waisted frocks with Dior-inspired
voluminous skirts. Style, quality, and affordability had found a meeting point. For a
reasonable $8.95 ($72), you could order Sears’ “best acetate and rayon crepe” slim-cut dress
in black or navy blue, with a set-on bodice and detachable nylon-organdy collar. The dress
came with a rhinestone pin. Women also continued to sew athome, using a myriad of
fashionable patterns available in women’s magazines.
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A typical 1950s catalog.
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Fast forward fifty years and the price of mass-market fashion has plummeted, as the garment
industry has moved to lower wage countries. We now only make 3% of our apparel in the
United States, down from 90% in 1955. The prices of these imports are so low that we have
long since abandoned our sewing machines and deserted our dressmakers. Our clothes have
also become increasingly casual and simplified, another reason for lower price tags.
As clothes have become cheaper, our clothing consumption has gone through the roof. In
1930, the average American woman owned an average of nine outfits. Today, we each buy
more than 60 pieces of new clothing on average per year. Our closets are larger and more
stuffed than ever, as we’ve traded quality and style for low prices and trend-chasing. In the
face of these irresistible deals, our total spending on clothing has actually increased, from
$7.82 billion spent on apparel in 1950 to $375 billion today. And the discounters are reaping
the rewards. According to the latest Standard & Poor’s Industry Survey, the average
American consumer is primarily looking for value with an impulse-buy standard of quality
when they purchase clothing. As a result, H&M, Zara, and Wal-Mart — all discounters who
sell low-quality clothing — are now the most powerful clothing brands in America.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 15
FACTS ABOUT FAST FASHION
Flashback! Nearly four decades back - lifestyle fashion stores were all the frenzy in the
sixties where clothing retailers like Biba and Habitat offered great collection for the young
consumers. They displayed model lifestyles lines and made buyers think "which one is better
for me?" Most clothing retailers joined the league for the up and coming era of seventies like
Marks & Spencer and Mothercare followed by the major player 'Next' in the eighties, which
were largely preferred.
Meanwhile, the major Italian player 'Benetton' marched on high street with, offering colorful
designer clothing for the whole family. Their strategy resulted affirmative with noticeably
contemporary window showcase in all stores with independent units. The company was
successful in Britain, however, having a long standing in the market, they witnessed failure to
keep up pace with the accelerated high fashion pressure by the other European competitors,
which are now the known as Mango, H&M and Zara.
The rise of these competitors on high street has been witness successful because of a higher
demand for fast fashion. Styles showed in magazines and other advertorials are what people
wish to wear. Top designers have created collection extensions, which cater people who can
afford to spend their hard earned cash on triple figure. This resulted success to the affordable
collection of European fashion brands
A Swedish player, H&M offered readymade clothing stores stocked with fashionable
collection at reasonable costs. Its successful strategy was its own slogan 'fashion & quality at
the best price' innovative design, reasonably priced and competent logistics. Based in
Stockholm, a team of 100 fashion designers assures that nothing has been imitated from the
runway platforms. They are mostly inspired from street-trends, movies, magazines and
exhibitions. Impressively, the designs reach retail shelves within 2-3 weeks. H&M's high
profile designer tie-ups with Karl Lagerfield and Stella McCartney have resulted entire
collections available to the mass people at lower prices. This strategy is supported by huge
advertising campaigns, which easily compete with the major brands.
In a world of advertisements and promotions, there is one store that has made strategy to not
to spend penny on advertising, "Zara", a wing of Europe's biggest, rapidly evolving and most
triumphant fashion clothing retailers, Grupo Inditex. Other well popular stores in similar
chain are Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Pull and Bear. Inditex operates business via more than
two thousand stores in 56 countries. The first Zara shop was launched in 1975 at La Coruna,
Galicia and at present it operates more than four hundred owned stores globally. In the
previous five years they have witnessed sales up by 25 percent year on year.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 16
Zara runs its own design and production unit in La Coruna, Spain, which leads cancellation
of the large out-sourcing operations, like H&M does in over nine hundred firms. It is modern,
offering up-to-date lifestyle yet standard clothing lines for men, women and children. Zara
offers reasonably priced, radical clothing, however, not of the top quality, which will last
only for some seasons.
As same as Zara, H&M can also put designs on retail shelves within three weeks. Its product
assortment is cheap and small yet frequent, offering consumers huge selection that results
repeated visits to their stores to find "What's New". Hitherto, Zara has launched over ten
thousand new designs and most of these will just be attainable for few weeks.
Another Spanish player, Mango is a reputed multinational brand devoted to designing,
producing and selling fast fashion and accessories only for women. Its clothing line includes
Suit, Casual Sport, and Mng Jeans. It might not be as huge as H&M or Grupo Inditex, but has
played excellent particularly in the UK.
No shopping malls resemble absolute with exclusive of these three brands. The pace of these
companies in responding to changing consumer demands is an ideal proof to the retailing,
producing and logistics skills needed in latest fashion industry. These new strategies are set
up to develop aptitude to take advantage of the challenges of a competitive world market.
Besides the diversification in product assortments there is one thing common in all these
brands that is "intelligent logistics". Well-organized communication between sales staff
directly to the headquarters and producers lead them to match steps with high speed turnover.
The fact is that buyers are becoming preference savvy and smarter in order to what they shop.
Even though they always have their preferred designer, they are also acquainted that a
throwaway piece of fast fashion from a retail chain store will complete their outfit choices. At
so reasonably priced all of these retail perceptions play on Friday nights when people feels
they have nothing to wear.
Retailers are sent in a scuffle to make-out the major catwalk trends from the drawing sheets
to the sales shelves as fast as possible
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"Saturday, Queen Street Mall, you are sitting in Gloria Jeans and flipping through the newest
copy of RUSSH that you just bought from borders. Plastic bags surround your feet from a
day of shopping as you plan potential outfits with which to fill your wardrobe for the
upcoming summer. Chances are these garments will be worn once or twice and then
discarded once the trend is over or they fall apart due to inferior manufacturing.
6 million 330 thousand tons of clothing and footwear a year is contributed to landfill in the
United States alone.
Globalization has made it possible to produce this clothing at increasingly lower prices,
prices so low they make the purchase tempting and the disposal painless. Some call it “fast
fashion,” the clothing equivalent of fast food. This idea of "fast fashion" leaves a pollution
footprint, with each step of the clothing life cycle generating potential environmental and
occupational hazards. Recently, there has been an increased interest on the environmental
impacts of our consumer behaviour.
So are you thinking about what you are doing to the environment? And more importantly,
thinking about what can you do to help?
Fast Fashion is term used to describe the cheap trend clothing, usually sold by stores such as
Sportsgirl or Witchery in Australia, or Topshop in the UK. Retailers now will have something
new every month or even week in some cases, instead of just two collections
(Autumn/Winter and Spring/Summer) each year. This change in consumer buying behaviour
is driven by both the reduction in the price of clothing and increased marketing of new trends
and fashions.
Fast fashion clothes are generally only worn a few times before being replaced by the latest
trend.
But even if no bunnies were harmed in the making of your outfit, ask yourself if any children,
rivers, or patches of ozone were destroyed in the quest for your $10 cotton on (or H&M)
singlet.
Immense amounts of petro and polluting chemicals are used in Synthetic fibres like polyester
which are regularly used in the production of 'fast fashion' clothing. These present health
risks for workers, organisms and the environment in the vicinity. Green house gas emissions,
chemical pollution and landfill waste are well reported as being key issues in environmental
impacts of fast fashion.
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The growth of cotton, the most widely used natural fibre uses huge amounts of chemicals that
are damaging to the health of the workers and the surrounding environment. Manufacture of
these textiles when combined with the transport of the garments around the world produces
vast amounts of green house gas.
If that wasn't enough to make you think, there is then the problem of disposing of unwanted
clothing. The amount of clothing ending up in landfill is astounding, and on average a person
in the UK will contribute 30kgs (roughly 75 pounds) a year. These textiles present particular
problems in landfill as synthetic (man-made fibres) products will not decompose. Even
natural textiles pollute water systems with chemicals and dyes that are washed out by rain
water, woollen garments decompose but produce methane, which again harms the
environment.
Are you ready to do something yet? Donnatella Versace “there should be more quality." And
it is undeniable when the current situation that the "Fast fashion" is causing is taken into
consideration, with each step of the clothing life cycle generating potential environmental and
occupational hazards. Buying an investment piece of clothing, something you really love and
will last years and in some cases a lifetime – reduces its real cost per wear and is far more
ethical than purchasing bags and bags of cheap clothing the second a new watered down
catwalk trend hits stores.
Cheap clothing that you will probably wear just once.
if we want to be eco friendly and smart about our fashion purchases, we should put our
money toward well-made items that are, unlike clothing from Sportsgirl or Bardot, seasonless
and trendproof—a classic black blazer, jeans made from organic cotton, or a little black dress
that never goes out of style.
Sure, they're not the most exciting purchases, but if they last, they'll survive any fashion
whims.
Recycling of clothing is a great idea but the quality of many fast fashion items makes them
less desirable second hand. The quality of the clothing that is coming through recycling
plants is on the decline, which makes it harder to reuse.
And whilst there are a numerous manufacturers of eco textiles and brands with excellent
environmental credentials available, it is consumer behaviour – Your behaviour, Our
behaviour - that will need to change in order to reduce the impact of fashion and clothing on
the environment.
Fashion retailers driven by consumer demand and will change their products and marketing
to respond to a change in customer behavior.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 19
So make the change from fast fashion to sustainable style. Choose clothes in classic styles
that will last more than one season. Store clothes carefully to make them last, keeping shoes
and clothes out of the sun will prevent any sun damage or dust and where possible, mend and
repair instead of replacing.
Obstacles to fast fashion
Against such stellar growth it might seem strange to question whether a concept that's so
obviously popular and makes fashion accessible to a large number of people could also be
killing the industry.
But Robin Anson, managing director of Textiles Intelligence, believes there are quite a few
things getting in the way of fast fashion.
"Everything's getting faster, including fashion," he says. "But fast fashion can't happen
without facilitators. While low prices might encourage more purchases, to get low prices you
need low labour costs, low raw material costs, and high productivity - but the quality must
still be good."
Other facilitators are logistics (but the conundrum here is getting from a low-cost source to
the consumer quickly); nearby manufacturing (for in-season replenishment); technology tools
(to allow the supply chain to communicate, speed sample making etc); and online retailing,
which enables consumers to buy online or pre-select so they can make purchases quickly in-
store.
"If cheap fashion is finished, then fast fashion is too," Anson adds. "One thing that
everybody's buying is cotton. The cotton price has doubled this year from $0.50 to $1.0 per
pound, and while we don't see any further massive increase in prices, we don't seem them
coming down either.
"So for the foreseeable future, high cotton prices are here to stay. And as labour costs get
lower and supply chains get more efficient, raw material aspect assumes a higher proportion
of the final price.
"But raw materials are just one component. Other threats to export prices include rising
labour costs - not just in China, but also in countries like Bangladesh, and the appreciation of
the renminbi."
He also suggests climate change could impact on fast fashion, since rising sea levels in cotton
and garment producing countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh will affect prices and
capacity.
And what about a consumer backlash against a throwaway society? "There's pressure to
reduce food miles and the same could be said about clothes miles. This could favour nearby
sourcing."
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 20
Market demand
However, for Dr Marc Schumacher, director of retail, franchise and international marketing
for German casual wear company Tom Tailor, "fast fashion is not to do with cheap products
but with market demand."
He told International Apparel Federation (IAF) delegates: "I believe the core competence of a
company is marketing, and fast fashion is a demand from the market. Fast fashion means
taking a decision later and responding more quickly.
Tom Tailor makes casual wear for men, women and children, which it sells in its own 87
stores, as well as various franchise stores and shop-in-shops. The company has 12 collections
a year, and by blocking fabric in Asia can get its lead times down to just five weeks,
Schumacher said.
"The rate of technology advancement means ideas can be exchanged even faster," he added.
"Take this to the next level, and as technology gets cheaper and faster then fashion will get
faster too."
Threat to quality and creativity
Shorter lead times and more deliveries "are doing a lot of damage to the design profession,"
believes Michael Tien, chairman of workwear retailer G2000. "Designers don't have the time
any more to be really creative. Fast fashion needs them to be very quick at 'adapt, copy and
paste,' not design as an art form. So it's not good for originality."
He fears quality is also under threat since "no-one cares about the quality of disposable
clothes, and this is not good for the clothing industry as a whole."
That said, "making trendy stuff more affordable" does enable consumers to buy more units -
and it lets them be more creative in the way they put outfits together. "In Hong Kong, selling
more units creates more jobs. Units translate to jobs and employment opportunities in places
like China," says Tien.
He also agrees that fast fashion is forcing the whole industry to change the way it operates,
and that even luxury brands have been forced to follow suit with new ideas and more
deliveries.
But at the end of the day, Tien contends "different customers have different needs" and not
all will be lured by the likes of Zara. In China, for example, there is huge demand for more
quality-conscious upmarket brands. "If you can identify these specific needs then you can
compete."
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H&M and Zara are the pioneers of fast fashion, a retail model built on rapid cycles of mass-
produced fashions sold at rock bottom prices. Most clothiers today are scrambling to sell
goods cheaper and faster than ever before and to retrain consumers to shop continuously,
compulsively, and on-the-spot. Our consumption of clothing has gone through the roof as a
result. Americans are now buying 68 garments and 8 pairs of shoes per year on average.
Disposable purchases have largely replaced long-term investments. Clothing used to be as
personal as it gets—handcrafted, locally made, customized, kept for years. Clothes are now
bought on a whim, barely worn, and tossed aside. As supply chains have spread out around
the world, our understanding of clothes has been packed off along with our garment trades,
and we feel adrift as shoppers—unsure of what to look for and unclear on when we’re getting
a good deal for our money. This is partly why we just opt to shop cheap instead.
Sewing clothing is very labor intensive, which is why a $10 or $20 price tag on a dress
should be raising eyebrows instead of just opening our wallets. Companies like H&M place
their orders in a network of factories in countries such as Bangladesh and China, where
poverty wages are legal (Bangladeshi garment workers are paid $43 a month) and workers
have little choice but to put in the exhausting hours needed to feed the 24/7 fast-fashion
machine. Not only does this debase the skill and craftsmanship of sewing, but factories in the
United States cannot compete. Between 1990 and 2012, the United States lost half of our
garment and textile industries. We now make 2 percent of our clothing here.
Trends are now changing constantly, and producing clothes with quality and workmanship
have become passé. Large corporate fashion chains have yearly growth demands that are
largely at odds with producing well-made products made in an ethical way. It's become
increasingly difficult to find quality and timeless pieces at any price point. Consumers are
largely left with a landscape of corporate, mass-produced fashion (overpriced designer goods
are our other "option").
As anyone who’s bought a $10 dress and put it through the wash knows, many of our
purchases are essentially disposable—and we’re now tossing 68 pounds of textiles per capita
a year. Our landfills are being filled with toxic, non-biodegradable duds and our charity thrift
stores are awash with disintegrating and discolored garments that won't have much of a
second life.
To feed our clothing addiction, approximately 82 million tons of fiber is now being produced
worldwide, largely in countries with very minimal environmental standards. In China, I've
traveled through an unimaginable landscape of factories along highways enshrouded in smog
and saw dyes dumped in ditches in Bangladesh. The environmental toll of the fashion
industry is being taken out on countries most U.S. consumers will never visit and is not
reflected in the price tag of a $10 dress.
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Amazingly, Americans now have closets brimming with clothes and yet we often find
ourselves thinking, "I have nothing to wear." This common refrain is the clothing equivalent
of eating a high-calorie fast food meal and feeling hungry a half hour later. Just like fast food,
fast fashion feeds on our basest urges—thriving on impulsiveness and our sense of scarcity in
bad economic times. We need an alternative to fast fashion not only because it undermines
the environment, the economy, and human rights, but because it clutters our homes and our
minds with stuff we don’t really desire or value.
But how do we begin to address the problem? If we shopped a little less (even if we cut our
consumption in half, we’d still be buying almost three new garments a month) and instead
diverted more of our dollars to locally-made designers and companies who have strong
environmental and human rights records, the rest of the industry would be forced to take
notice. Fashioningchange.com is a fantastic resource that directs consumers of popular brands
like H&M and Forever 21 to ethical alternatives.
Consumers could also make a difference by supporting brands that are not simply stylish but
also have some semblance of a shelf life. Part of being a responsible fashion consumer is
thinking about the entire life cycle of clothing, and owning well-crafted clothes that are more
of an investment motivates us to repair, refashion, and maintain them. Good clothing is not
unlike a home-cooked meal. It takes a little more thought and planning and costs a little more,
but leaves us feeling more satisfied.
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ADVANTAGES OF FAST FASHION
To the Customer
Change is GOOD!
Fast Fashion helps you try different styles and trends within a short range of time. It helps
you change, experiment and revamp your look without having to change your budget much!
Fast fashion allows you to be a new you every time you step out to go someplace with your
gal pals! They say change is the only constant in life; but I say - change is good.
It’s FAST!
Being as fast as it is, fast fashion helps you keep up with the here and now. Sometimes we
lose interest in something if we get it too late. It happens with everything in life... you wait so
long for something to happen, that when it does, it just doesn't mean the same to you. That
will never happen if you keep up with fast fashion. Fast fashion gives you instant
gratification! well - not instant really; but two weeks is definitely better than having to wait
six months!
Something New - EVERY TIME!
Fast fashion can never become boring, repetitive, plain, old, out-dated... it will continue to
make a style statement with every new line, with every new trend, with every product it
comes up with. Fast fashion always manages to dazzle the customers and leave them in a
daze. It leaves you begging for more! Besides, fast fashion is easy, comfortable and really
cool. When was looking all that a problem?
To the Retailer
Conducive to Growth
Being able to successfully establish yourself as a fast fashion retailer requires an
exceptionally talented staff, and creative minds beyond which can be imagined. The constant
challenge is conducive to growth and can take a retailer to heights that may be envied by
other retailers and brands. Being in the fast fashion line acts like something I call a
'constructive pressure'. You are always made to push the limits of your creativity, your talent,
and your capacities... and the results can be remarkably profitable.
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Rapid Profits
Fast fashion is all about who gets it first. Early bird gets the worm; so the profits gained
through a fast fashion trend are huge and quick! Within the first couple of years too, a fast
fashion retailer can show tremendous growth and can take over the market as nobody else has
been able to. This acts as one of the major factors of luring people into the fast fashion
market or industry.
Easy Recovery
Recovering from possible losses because of the failure of a particular clothes line or a fashion
style launched by a fast fashion retailer is quite easy and early than that of other fashion
brands. If fast fashion retailer suffers losses, it can easily and quickly launch a new product
that may become twice as much a hit than the previous one was expected to be.
The old-school fashion experts prefer to stick to their fashion concepts, being rather swift at
pointing out the disadvantages of fast fashion. However, many a fast fashion product will
have 'veni'-ed, 'vidi'-ed and 'vici'-ed till the two school of thoughts debate and come to one
final answer (or even simply agreed to disagree!) It's all a matter of perspective... as with a lot
of concepts, some love it, some don't! But if you are someone who loves trying new things,
and experimenting with your look - in short, if you are someone like me, you are gonna
quickly develop a liking for fast fashion. Happy Shopping!
DISADVANTAGE OF FAST FASHION
 It is unsustainable. It has short product life cycle.
 The focus largely lies on imitation of original products which misleads the customer.
Those who are aware of this replication or who have lack of fashion consciousness
wouldn't suffer, but those interested in purchasing original brands are deceived by
these fast fashion trends.
 The retailers make closest copies of the original which involves reputation risk and
using lowest cost labor amounts to labor exploitation making it an ethical issue.
 There is also scarcity experienced of qualified personnel in manufacturing garments.
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 There is a tough competition due to low-cost producers. These retailers use more
style, take less time in producing the garment and have rapid delivery.
 Another negative aspect of fast fashion is, it stands against costume designing. Both
are closely related to each other but costume designing has got hardly any recognition
as compared to (fast) fashion designing.
It is unsustainable. It has abbreviated artefact activity cycle.
The focus abundantly lies on apery of aboriginal articles which misleads the customer. Those
who are acquainted of this archetype or who accept abridgement of appearance alertness
wouldn't suffer, but those absorbed in purchasing aboriginal brands are bamboozled by these
fast appearance trends.
The retailers accomplish abutting copies of the aboriginal which involves acceptability
accident and application everyman bulk activity amounts to activity corruption authoritative
it an ethical issue.
There is as well absence accomplished of able cadre in accomplishment garments.
There is a boxy antagonism due to bargain producers. These retailers use added style, yield
beneath time in bearing the apparel and accept accelerated delivery.
Another abrogating aspect of fast appearance is, it stands adjoin apparel designing. Both are
carefully accompanying to anniversary added but apparel designing has got hardly any
acceptance as compared to (fast) appearance designing.
Apart from fast appearance there are added concise appearance trends like appearance fads
which endure for appreciably beneath aeon than fast fashion. It al of a sudden becomes
accepted and as well disappears quickly. The abstinent appearance trends endure for a ample
bulk of time area humans get time to access it. It has greater achievability of getting alternate
i.e., it can abandon but can as well return. Accepting such abrogating appearance and a
amount of disadvantages, how can fast appearance accept a ablaze future? It appears, retailers
accomplish money and the trend disappears. The abstraction of banking advance appears as
their capital aim and the action is assertively about this basal principle. It consistently
charcoals an acting appearance trend.
These are some fast appearance disadvantages that one has to be acquainted of. You can
adjudge for yourself, whether to accede it as benign or non-beneficial. I achievement the
commodity helped you in accepting a fair abstraction about the facts of fast fashion.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 26
To make the situation very clear and to know the advantage and disadvantage of fast fashion
to a retailer let’s just take an example of the Spanish brand ZARA.
Advantages and disadvantages of zara
Fast Fashion, as the name suggests, is contemporary fashion trend that appears in the market
at a point and vanishes off within a short period of time and also takes a little time to be
produced. But how far is it beneficial? What are advantages and disadvantages that Zara has
in comparison to its competitors? The following article deals with these queries and the
disadvantages of fast fashion.
Advantages of Zara
1. Short Production Time – ZARA can react quickly to recent trends and thus offers more
fashionable clothes. Consequently, creates an incentive for the customers to visit the shops
more often.
2. More styles – More choice, and more chances for ZARA of hitting it right.
3. Lower quantities – Scarce supply. A customer feels that he/she is going to wear something
unique.
because it has unique company features in comparison to its competitors – it can react,
produce and allocate in their shops a new fashion line for a periodless than 30 days. Zara
produces every 2-3 weeks a new fashion line and creates more than 40000 designs per year.
In Zara stores, customers can always find new products —but unfortunately for the customers
they are in limited supply. For that reason, a customer buys a garment because she knows that
if she comes tomorrow that garment won’t be there. Fashion specialists assert that this is the
key marketing strategy that distinguishes Zara from its competitors. I as a customer I’ve got
the sense of feeling myself exclusive, since only a few items are on display, even though the
fact that stores are pretty spacious.
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People think in the following way when they are shopping in Zara – “This pullover fits me,
and there is one on the rack. If I don’t buy it now, I’ll lose my chance.” Zara’s production
speed allows it to have such a marketing strategy. An interest fact that I have found recently
is that this amazing firm expands extremely fast-almost every day one Zara shop is opened.
The above-mentioned business strategy force Zara’s competitors to struggle for the market
and to consider their business strategies. In my opinion, Zara is the best place for people who
want to wear a for example a jacket for 100 euro that looks like a jacket for 3000 euro.
Disadvantages of Zara
1. Zara’s focus largely lies on imitation of original products which misleads the customer.
Those who are aware of this replication or who have lack of fashion consciousness do not
suffer, but those interested in purchasing original brands are deceived by these fast fashion
trends.
2. Another negative aspect of fast fashion is, it stands for inexpensiveness and actually it is
not true.
According to the first disadvantage I have read many articles in which is stated that Zara is
copying but I wasn’t sure till one day I went out shopping and I saw similarities between
Zara and Balmain fashion.
Obviously Zara’s men collection was inspired by Balmain. It would be rude to say that Zara
has stolen the Balmain collection but it definitely deserves punishment. Zara is a firm with
enormous budget but probably its 200 designers are not creative enough that’s why they
just copy and paste. But they cannot copy normally because when you closely examine a
garment from Balmain for 3000 euro jacket all the details are extremely elaborated even the
buttons. Also notice that Balman clothes has no folds on the upper part of the sleeves in
comparison to the copy of Zara.
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Second disadvantage that I have found in the web is that in many case studies is stated that
Zara fashion is very cheap. For instance, the group members participating in this research
argue that is not true, because it is relatively expensive in comparison to competitors like
H&M. Two members of the second semester IBMAN group in the Berlin School of
Economics and Law-Mr.Kronsbein and Mr.Cregelin have conducted another research in
Berlin to gather data about the effectiveness of sales of the above-mentioned firms. The
outcome was surprising there were at least twice as much people with H&M bags, as with
Zara ones in the same day and hour. Although, there are small group of posh people with
higher incomes which prefer to buy Louis Vuitton , Versace and for them Zara is relatively
cheap. In my view, Zara isoverpriced because the real price of garment do not exceeds more
than 2-10 euro and it is normal to be sold for price between 20 – 30 euro. For that reason, I
and the majority of people that were questioned by me prefer to go to H&M because this firm
has clothes with relatively high quality and they are sold for lower prices. Although Zara has
many disadvantages but it is still one of the biggest retailer of clothes in world and I respect it
for that achievement.
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THE EFFECTS OF FAST FASHION
The Environmental Impact of Fast Fashion
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says the clothing and
textiles sector in the UK produces around 3.1m tonnes of carbon dioxide, 2m tonnes of waste
and 70m tonnes of waste water per year. Whilst this is less than 1% of the total UK CO2
emissions and 2% of waste it is still a huge amount.
Whilst everyone has a need and right to dress well, 2.4 billion items of unworn clothing in
Britain’s wardrobes and a wear once culture suggest that significant reductions in the
environmental impact of the UK Fashion industry could be made is consumers turned away
from fast fashion.
Over a series of articles, I want to explore the environmental impact of fast fashion and
propose some solutions. Today I want to highlight some of the issues to be considered.
If Britain keeps throwing away rubbish at its current rates, it will run out of space by 2018.
We send 1.5 million tonnes of clothing to Landfill each year, this has increased. This is about
1.5% of the total. Clothing sent to landfill is problematic in a number of ways, many
synthetic fabrics do not decompose, the natural fabrics that do produce methane which
contributes to global warming. Unless action is taken soon this problem will get worse each
year, people bought a third more clothing in 2006 than they did in 2002, whilst consumption
may have slowed due to the economic crisis this is
The growth in Fashion consumption had led to a huge growth in water consumption by the
Fashion industry. The production of clothing uses water in huge quantities, to put this in
perspective the UN recommends that people need a minimum of 50 litres of water per day for
the most basic needs such as drinking, cooking and sanitation. Compare this to how much
water is used in clothing production;
One pair of jeans takes around 2000 litres
One T-shirt takes around 400 litres
With 3 pairs of jeans sold in the UK every second and 2 billion t-shirts sold worldwide each
year, it’s clear that a huge amount of water is diverted for clothing production that could be
used by the 10% of the world’s population facing chronic water shortages each day. We will
ask what are designers doing to reduce the amount of water used in the production of clothing
and what can you do as consumers.
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The huge use of water isn’t the only environmental problem caused by the Fashion industry.
Polyester, the most widely used manufactured fibre, is made from petroleum. With the rise in
production in the fashion industry, demand for man-made fibres, especially polyester, has
nearly doubled in the last 15 years. Its production requires huge amounts of crude oil and
releases acidic gasses such as hydrogen chloride into the air and solvents into the waste
water.
Cotton is the most pesticide intensive crop in the world: these pesticides injure and kill many
people every year. It also takes up a large proportion of agricultural land, much of which is
needed by local people to grow their own food. These chemicals typically remain in the
fabric after finishing, and are released during the lifetime of the garments. These aren’t the
only offenders; Nylon manufacture creates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 310 times more
potent than carbon dioxide, PVC is highly toxic and even wool can cause workers to be
exposed to harmful chemical in the sheep-dip used. Again we will ask what designers can do
to reduce the environmental impact of clothing production and what the risk is to your health
of chemicals in clothing.
The final cost to consider with regards to Fast Fashion is the human costs. China has
emerged as the largest exporter of fast fashion, accounting for 30% of world apparel exports.
According to figures from the U.S. National Labour Committee, some Chinese workers make
as little as 12–18 cents per hour working in poor conditions. And with the fierce global
competition that demands ever lower production costs, many emerging economies are aiming
to get their share of the world’s apparel markets, even if it means lower wages and poor
conditions for workers.
What does that mean for the sweatshop worker? The Guardian described the life of a
sweatshop worker in an expose of a GAP supplier, 16 hour working days, working for no
pay, housed in dirty overcrowded conditions with the risk of beatings if they aren’t seen to
work hard of good enough. Did I mention that this worker was 10 years old? It’s no wonder
that sweatshop workers have higher suicide rates than the local populations or that factory
owners have been installing netting to stop workers at the Foxconn factory jumping to their
deaths.
Whilst these examples may be extreme, the average wage for sweatshop workers in around
50pence per day ($0.65) and the average working day is 12 hours long, with minimal breaks
and 6 days’ work per week. This is the human cost of Fast Fashion.
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FAST FASHION IS LIKE FAST FOOD
it’s cheap, addictive and unsustainable
‘We now buy 40% of all our clothes at value retailers, with just 17% of our clothing budget.’
TNS Worldpanel (2006) Fashion Focus issue 29
A Cambridge University study reports that in 2006, people were buying a third more clothes
than they were in 2002 . Brands began competing against each other for market share by
introducing more lines per year at lower costs, culminating in a situation where ‘fashion
houses now offer up to 18 collections a year’ and the low cost, so called ‘value end’ is
‘booming; doubling in size in just 5 years.‘ This naturally has led to pressure on the supply
chain.
“Buyers pressure factories to deliver quality products with ever-shorter lead times. Most
factories just don’t have the tools and expertise to manage this effectively, so they put the
squeeze on the workers. It’s the only margin they have to play with.” (Oxfam report, 2004)
The increase in the amount of clothes people consume also has consequences for the
environment. Statistics suggest that on average, UK consumers send 30kg of clothing and
textiles per capita to landfill each year and that 1.2 million tonnes of clothing went to landfill
in 2005 in the UK alone.
Some companies have started to address problems associated with fast fashion through
training their buyers in responsible buying practices.
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OPNION OF THE FEW PEOPLE ASSOCIATED WITH THE INDUSTRY
Elizabeth Cline
Our consumption of clothing is growing at an alarming rate. Most Americans have closets
brimming, if not overflowing with clothes. Few of those purchases are made here -- 3% of
apparel is produced in the United States, down from about half in 1990. While American
factories sit empty, our thirst for cheap imported clothing has kept the cash registers at many
stores humming throughout the recession.
Fashion's environmental footprint has also mushroomed. There are more than 80 billion
garments produced around the world today, and according to a study by the UK's Cambridge
University, the industry is creating 70 million tons of waste water as of 2006 in the UK alone.
In China, the largest clothing manufacturer in the world, the textile industry is also a major
polluter. Last year, I traveled undercover to southern China and saw smog enshrouding a
landscape of factories and, more shockingly, hundreds of factory workers wearing cheap,
trendy clothes. As China's consumer class grows, already-scarce resources like water and
petroleum may soon buckle under all of this shopping.
In July, when it came out that the Olympic uniforms were made in China, Americans were
outraged, making it clear that we're growing weary of soulless consumption. I believe we're
ready for more meaningful wardrobes, and to support our amazing clothing heritage. My
mother recently gave me a dress that she wore in high school in the 1960s. It was made by
Jonathan Logan, a juniors brand that was considered cheap for its day -- the dress is 100%
wool, fully lined, finished with French seams and made in the USA.
What's so wonderful about locally made fashion is that it offers designers tight control over
their product, has a lower environmental footprint and makes it easier to keep an eye on any
labor problems. And according to a Cotton Incorporated Lifestyle Monitor survey,
approximately 55% of consumers agree it is "very/somewhat important" that their clothing is
made in the U.S.
I was recently in Portland, Oregon, and met with the owners of Spooltown and the Portland
Garment Factory, two small shops that have opened recently in a city that had very little
existing garment industry infrastructure. They were able to build profitable manufacturing
businesses from scratch. Just imagine what other Americans cities could do with the right
government and consumer support.
Major fashion brands also have an obligation to dramatically reduce the amount of water and
energy used and waste emitted in making and selling their clothes, as well as to offer
consumers more stylish products that are made out of recycled and eco-friendly materials.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 33
Nike is creating athletic team uniforms out of recycled PET bottles and has recycled more
than 28 million pairs of athletic shoes through their Reuse-a-Shoe program; Eileen Fisher has
just released a beautiful line of bluesign-certified silk shirts dyed without hazardous
chemicals; and H&M has agreed to stop using toxic and nonbiodegradable perfluorinated
compounds, called PFCs, in their outerwear by 2013. These efforts need to be expanded.
Clothing designers also need to rethink the materials they're using and how they're sourced.
Fortunately, eco-friendly textiles have improved so much in recent years that luxurious eco-
friendly fibers like Tencel, Modal and Cupro have far more in common with silk than a hemp
sack. Some emerging designers are eschewing new textiles altogether for upcycling, which
means taking waste and reclaimed textile material and turning it into a product with higher
value. I recently bought a lovely red tunic upcycled from a men's dress shirt produced by a
small Brooklyn designer called State.
Designer on the rise: Mohapatra's moment
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, we are throwing away 68 pounds of
textiles per person per year and donating such a staggering volume of clothes that a majority
of our donations to charity have to be sold to textile recyclers who then sell more than half of
our used clothes overseas, largely to Africa. Retailers like Eileen Fisher and Patagonia are
accepting returns of their worn products -- Fisher resells them in her Green Eileen retail store,
while Patagonia recycles theirs into new products. Fast-fashion stores need to start these
types of recycling programs. Consumers can also take more responsibility by repairing and
caring for the clothes they own, trading their duds at clothing swaps and, for the particularly
creative, refashioning last year's styles into fresh looks.
Now for the million-dollar question: How can you afford this? It all starts by taking an honest
look at how you're spending money on clothes. The average American consumer spends
$1,700 a year on apparel. Most of us own more clothing than we know what to do with, so I
encourage people to first of all buy less clothing and to try to limit trendy, throwaway
purchases to only one or two a season. Divert the rest of your clothing budget to clothes that
you truly love and are going to wear for several seasons. If just a quarter of our purchases
were put toward locally made or eco-friendly fashion and fashion companies with a
commitment to sustainability, we could change the face of the industry. I also believe we'd be
happier with our clothes.
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The Wasteful Culture of 'Fast Fashion'
Thanks to globalization and cheap labor abroad, companies are now able to inexpensively
and quickly churn out trendy garments at low prices. In an age of rampant consumerism, as
evidenced by tens of millions of views of YouTube "haul videos" and other media devoted
solely to materialism, retail chains such as Forever 21, H&M, and Charlotte Russe have
proliferated at an alarming rate over the last decade.
"Fast Fashion," as the movement is known, has paved the way for outright disposable
fashion. It's not uncommon for shoppers to don items once or twice before discarding them.
Sometimes, it's not even a choice because the garments are so poorly made that they fall apart
after a single wearing.
"The specificity of the fashion business is that it is subject to trends," says Andrew A. King,
professor of business administration at the Tuck School of Business, who has researched the
fashion industry. "As such it brings suppliers to seasonally offer consumers new alternatives
to stimulate their purchases. Fast fashion poses a threat since its logic is based on copying the
designs of high-end producers and quickly diffusing them—sometimes even before the high-
end goods, which are based on a complicated and high quality supply chain, are distributed.
As such, it mines the overall investment in style by design departments of high end
producers."
Research by the American Apparel and Footwear associations tends to back this up. They
report that Americans annually purchase an average of eight pairs of shoes and 68 pieces of
clothing. Meanwhile, secondhand clothes molder. According to Elizabeth Cline's book
Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, a New York based Salvation
Army only sells approximately 11,000 items of the five tons of clothing which is processed
daily.
Unfortunately, I expect this trend to get worse before it gets better. As upscale brands such
Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, and Prada report flagging sales growth in the luxury market,
shoppers will flee to lower end stores to indulge their buying addictions.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 35
This culture is a problem because it often exploits low-wage workers in other countries, feeds
an industry of counterfeits, and is environmentally unsustainable. Moreover, the movement is
not limited to the apparel industry. Our landfills are packed with disposable products such as
razors, drinking cups, and even furniture.
Single-use goods are nothing new. Nor is planned obsolescence, which has existed for
decades. But this movement is becoming more disturbing as the trend accelerates. New
electronic gadgets are constantly launched, but we haven't figured out how to recycle all of
the old components nor handle the hazardous chemicals in their cores.
We need to shift back to a time when longevity and craftsmanship are valued. Harding-Lane's
CEO Stephen Gifford agrees and commits his company to promoting eco-friendly materials
and sustainable manufacturing of baseball caps with needlepoint stitching. His inspiration
springs from watching more and more garbage wash up on the New England beaches he
loved as a child. He says his company, Harding-Lane, "prides itself on producing high-
quality products whose proceeds allow for us to explore the ways in which we can live a
more environmentally responsible life." His company Web site offers visitors the story
behind the product and links to some of his favorite companies and organizations that are also
doing their part to educate consumers and protect the environment.
It's a good start, though it's doubtful such a counter movement will have the same momentum
as the culture which necessitated its birth.
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PLANS TO REDUCE THE FAST FASHION TREND
The plan aims to make fashion more environmentally sound and ethical
The government has launched a campaign to tackle the environmental impact of a "fast
fashion" culture.
About two million tonnes of clothing end up in landfill every year.
More than 300 retailers, producers and designers are part of the "sustainable clothing action
plan", launched at the start of London Fashion Week.
Ministers say customers should be sure clothing is made, sold and disposed of "without
damaging the environment or using poor labour practices".
The initiative outlines commitments to make fashion more sustainable throughout its
lifecycle: from design and manufacture to retail and disposal.
It hopes to draw attention to the environmental impact of cheap, throwaway clothes, which
have become hugely popular on the High Street but are adding to the UK's landfill.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says the clothing and
textiles sector in the UK produces around 3.1m tonnes of carbon dioxide, 2m tonnes of waste
and 70m tonnes of waste water per year.
Gases such as CO2, emitted by fossil fuel burning, and methane, released from landfill sites,
are widely believed to be contributing to global warming.
As part of the action plan:
Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury's have pledged to increase their ranges of Fairtrade
and organic clothing, and support fabrics which can be recycled more easily
Tesco is banning cotton from countries known to use child labour
Charities such as Oxfam and the Salvation Army will open more sustainable clothing
boutiques featuring high quality second-hand clothing and new designs made from recycled
garments
The Centre for Sustainable Fashion at the London College of Fashion will be resourced to
provide practical support to the clothing sector
The Fairtrade Foundation will aim for at least 10% of cotton clothing in the UK to be
Fairtrade material by 2012.The Minister for Sustainability, Lord Hunt, announced the plan at
the launch of the sixth season of estethica, the world's leading showcase of ethical designer
fashion, at London Fashion Week.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 37
He said climate change was a bigger problem than the economy, and the clothing industry
was "responsible for lots and lots of greenhouse gas emissions".
Launching the action plan, he said: "It's going to be great for the fashion industry, great for
the climate and for anyone who's in the supply industry in developing countries to those
working in retail.
"We believe customers want sustainable clothing and we want to give them as much as
possible."
Complex challenges
Jane Milne, business environment director of the British Retail Consortium, said retailers
should be "applauded, not criticised, for providing customers with affordable clothing,
particularly during these tough economic times".
"They're raising standards for overseas workers, offering clothes made from organic and
Fairtrade cotton and encouraging the re-use and recycling of unwanted clothes," she added.
The challenge is to reduce the amount of damage we are doing now, while a revised,
sustainable model of consumption is created
Malcolm Ball, ASBCI chairman
Fast fashion from UK to Uganda
The ASBCI, the forum for clothing and textiles, said the industry was "very cognisant" of the
environmental issues it faced and "highly motivated" to find solutions.
Chairman Malcolm Ball said the challenges facing the industry and the consumer were
"complex".
Taking cotton as an example, he said organic cotton was highly desirable but represented
only a fraction of world production, adding that growing it "requires vast amounts of the most
precious resource on earth - water".
"There are many voices who argue the current Western model of fast and cheap fashion is
totally unsustainable in the medium to long term," he said.
"The challenge is to reduce the amount of damage we are doing now, while a revised,
sustainable model of consumption is created."
Cheap, throwaway clothes are adding to the UK's landfill
Allana McAspurn, of ethical fashion campaign body Made-By, said change would be
gradual: "It's about continuous improvement - a step-by-step approach.
"We've created a situation where we've got really cheap clothes and that's not going too re-
addressed overnight."
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 38
IF WE LOOK IN THE CASE OF AMERICA
Amazingly, Americans now have closets brimming with clothes and yet we often find
ourselves thinking, "I have nothing to wear." This common refrain is the clothing equivalent
of eating a high-calorie fast food meal and feeling hungry a half hour later. Just like fast food,
fast fashion feeds on our basest urges—thriving on impulsiveness and our sense of scarcity in
bad economic times. We need an alternative to fast fashion not only because it undermines
the environment, the economy, and human rights, but because it clutters our homes and our
minds with stuff we don’t really desire or value.
But how do we begin to address the problem? If we shopped a little less (even if we cut our
consumption in half, we’d still be buying almost three new garments a month) and instead
diverted more of our dollars to locally-made designers and companies who have strong
environmental and human rights records, the rest of the industry would be forced to take
notice. Fashioningchange.com is a fantastic resource that directs consumers of popular brands
like H&M and Forever 21 to ethical alternatives.
Consumers could also make a difference by supporting brands that are not simply stylish but
also have some semblance of a shelf life. Part of being a responsible fashion consumer is
thinking about the entire life cycle of clothing, and owning well-crafted clothes that are more
of an investment motivates us to repair, refashion, and maintain them. Good clothing is not
unlike a home-cooked meal. It takes a little more thought and planning and costs a little more,
but leaves us feeling more satisfied.
Cheap fashion has fundamentally changed the way most Americans dress. We buy a new
garment a week on average and make regular pilgrimages to outlet malls, cheap chains like
Forever 21, and the sales racks of department stores and off-priced retailers like TJ Maxx.
Retailers are producing clothes at enormous volumes in order to drive prices down and profits
up, and they've turned clothing into a disposable good. But what are we doing with all these
cheap clothes? And more importantly, what are they doing to us, our society, our
environment, and our economic well-being?
In Overdressed, Cline (a former fast-fashion junkie herself) sets out to uncover the true nature
of the cheap fashion juggernaut, tracing the rise of budget clothing chains, the death of
middle-market and independent retailers, and the roots of our obsession with deals and steals.
She travels to cheap-chic factories in China and Bangladesh and looks at the impact (both
here and abroad) of America's drastic increase in imports. She even explores how the
pressures of cheap have forced retailers to drastically reduce detail and craftsmanship;
making the clothes we wear more and more uniform, basic, and low quality.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 39
Cline shows how consumers can break the buy-and-toss cycle by supporting innovative and
stylish sustainable designers and retailers, returning to custom clothing, refashioning clothes
throughout their lifetime, and mending and even making clothes themselves. Overdressed
will inspire you to vote with your dollars and find a path back to being well dressed and
feeling good about what you wear.
Fashion can do a lot for the public personas of politicians’ wives. Jackie Kennedy’s iconic
pillbox hats, boxy crew cardigans and bouffant hairstyle inspired women around the world to
imitate her glamorous look. Today’s political spouses still sport Jackie O.–level bling; take,
say, the $2,000 Sophie The allet sundress Michelle Obama wore on her Hawaiian vacation or
Ann Romney’s $990 Reed Krakoff bird-print blouse worn in a recent television interview.
But in the wake of the Great Recession, style hawkers have been quick to point out the more
affordable items those women are donning too.
Thriftier threads can make high-rolling politicos and their wives seem more relatable. Kate
Middleton’s first postnuptial outing with Prince William, in a $90 cornflower blue shift from
Spanish retailer Zara, endeared her to Middle England. In the U.S., Michelle Obama’s Today
show appearance in an H&M polka-dot ditty had a similar effect.
But the rise of bercheap apparel chains like Zara, H&M and Uniqlo, which are popularly
called fast-fashion retailers for their ability to churn out modish styles at record speed, also
carries big costs for U.S. apparel makers and the environment. In recent years, cut-rate
European and Japanese clothiers have raked in more customers and bigger profits than
traditional U.S. apparel companies like Gap and American Eagle Outfitters by mass-
producing lower-quality digs that keep pace with runway styles. That’s led more shoppers to
cast aside hefty chunks of their wardrobes as fresh looks come up, which leads to more waste.
The fashion frenzy has picked up speed since the financial crisis, as traditional U.S. clothiers
try to win back trend seekers on a budget from more-agile competitors. Slow goers like Gap
and Macy’s are swapping out big orders of staples like T-shirts for smaller, more frequent
batches of hot knickknacks like handbags and hair bobbles. But with wages rising in China,
the fast-fashion model–which relies on higher sales volumes and slimmer profit margins–
could hurt American clothing companies and jobs, since they rely more on Chinese
manufacturers. Unlike with European brands that can source quickly from nearby locations
like Turkey and Romania, suppliers closer to U.S. apparel makers tend to be more expensive.
There’s a trend in fashion that could clash with a First Lady’s persona.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 40
A CASE STUDY SHOWING THE SITUTION IN THE USA TAKEN
FROM THE BOOKSEVEN PAIRS OF $7 SHOES
In the summer of 2009, I found myself standing in front of a rack of shoes at Kmart in Astor
Place in Manhattan. This particular location is inside of the former annex to Wanamaker’s,
one of those regal mid-century department stores that sold fine goods of all varieties,
including high-end fashions direct from Paris. Today, Wanamaker’s is gone. Today,
Wanamaker’s is a Kmart.
The rack itself stretched up above my head, and the shoes—canvas slip-ons made of nothing
more than a rubber sole glued to a sheath of cotton—hung down like fruit from a tree. In my
mind, these shoes might as well have grown there on that metal tree. They had no origins, no
story. They just magically appeared. And to my unbelievable fortune, they had been marked
down from $15 to $7 a pair. My synapses starting fringe, my pulse quickened, and before my
thinking brain could kick in, I was standing at the cash register with my bright red plastic
shopping basket brimming with seven pairs of plucked slip-ons. I cleared the store out of my
size.
My arms ached as I carried my haul in two parachute-sized bags back to the subway. Those
shoes looked like a cross-section of the earth’s crust within a few weeks—the thin rubber
soles cleaving and separating from the flimsy canvas tops. Before I could wear them all out, I
got tired of them and the style changed, so I’ve got two pairs left taking up space in my
closet.
The average price of clothing has plummeted in recent decades. And cheap clothes have
undergone a total image overhaul, where they no longer imply some inherent compromise in
style and quality. Bud- get fashion is seen as chic, practical, and democratic, and our
conversations are dotted with wow-inducing stories of clothing “steals.” At a birthday party
last year, a college friend thrust a ruffed, canary yellow pleather bag in my face. “Five
dollars!” she boasted. Another friend messaged me online recently to exclaim: “I just paid
$10 for a $50 dress! $30 for a $60 one!” Fashion magazines, tabloids, and morn- ing talk
shows now routinely run stories on how to land fashion deals. For a decade, I only bought
cheap fashion, and the vast majority of it was from just four budget-fashion retailers that
seemed to appear out of nowhere about ten years ago: H&M, Old Navy, Forever 21, and
Target. I owned a few items from off-price stores Ross and T.J. Maxx, as well as a buzzy
basics chain called UNIQLO and the Spanish retailer Zara. H&M, Zara, and Forever 21,
known as fast-fashion retailers, are experts in constantly stocking new trends and know
exactly how to hook consumers into shopping more regularly. But these aren’t the only
retailers moving away from the seasonal cycle of selling and moving toward luring shoppers
into their stores on a continual basis.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 41
There are some regional differences in the cheap fashion available to people. Maybe your
preference is for discounted name brands at the outlet mall or T.J. Maxx or for regional fast
fashion stores like Cato, Charlotte Russe, Rainbow, and Rue 21. Maybe you shop at
department store chains like Kohl’s or at pure discounters like Wal-Mart or even Dollar
Store. But these retailers are all running on the same high volume, low-priced fashion
formula that has squeezed the life out of the rest of the industry, forcing independent
department stores to con-
Solid ate, middle-market manufacturers to shutter, and independent retailers to either go high-
end or go home. Budget fashion has now remade the entire apparel industry in its image. And
it has profoundly changed the way we think of clothing.
We tell ourselves we can’t afford higher prices. We’re in the midst of a recession. Health care
costs are out of control. And have you seen gas prices? But many consumers are just hooked
on a cheap fashion treadmill—we’ve quickly grown accustomed to paying less and get- ting
more. My sister will pay $400 a month to drive a nice car, but don’t try to charge her or me
more than that $40 for a dress. I’ve seen guys in my local coffee shop working on $1,800
Apple laptops and wearing $10 Wal-Mart shoes. Americans spend more money on eating out
in restaurants every year than they do on clothes. It’s not that we can’t pay more money for
fashion; we just don’t see any reason to.
As any economist will tell you, cheaper prices stimulate consumption, and the current low
rate of fashion has spurred a shopping free- for-all, where we are buying and hoarding
roughly twenty billion garments per year as a nation.1 we’re running out of oil and water.
Icebergs are melting. We’ve permanently altered our climate. China, where most of our
clothes are now produced and where the population is gaining a taste for fashion, is in
environmental crisis and on track to gobble up more fibre and fashion-related resources than
we do. The problems created by the fashion industry in the West are quickly being matched
and multiplied in other parts of the world. Buying so much clothing, and treating it as if it is
disposable, is putting a huge added weight on the environment and is simply unsustainable.
Here’s an incredible fact—I paid less than $30 per item on average for each piece of clothing
in my closet. Most of my shoes cost less than $15 a pop. That clothes can be had for so little
money is historically unclothes can be had for so little money is historically unprecedented.
Clothes have almost always been expensive, hard to come by, and highly valued; they have
been used as alternate currency in many societies. Well into the twentieth century, clothes
were pricey and precious enough that they were mended and cared for and reimagined
countless times, and most people had a few outfits that they wore until they wore them out.
How things have changed. We’ve gone from making good use of the clothes we own to
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 42
buying things we’ll never or barely wear. We are caught in a cycle of consumption and waste
that is unsettling at best and I think unsatisfying at its core.
When I started writing this book, I got all my clothes out of storage and piled them up in my
living room. I cleaned out the closets in my bedroom and hall, pulled out the bins from
underneath my bed, and dragged up three trash bags and two oversized plastic containers
from my basement. I made a mountain of it, and then sorted it all, making lists of the brand
name or designer, the country of origin, the fabric, and, if I could remember, the year I
bought it and how much I paid. It took me almost a week to go through it all. My roommate
helped me bring the clothes up from the basement and commented, dryly, “I find owning so
much clothing overwhelming.” It was such a simple statement, but she said it as if I’d done it
on purpose. Each of those purchases seemed almost inconsequential in the moment, a deal
here, a deal there. But just like a few extra calories here and there result in an expanding
waistline, my closet and my life were consumed with cheap fashion.
Here’s the damage: I owned sixty-one tops, sixty T-shirts, thirty- four tank tops, twenty-one
skirts, twenty sweaters, fifteen cardigans and hooded sweatshirts, thirteen pairs of jeans,
twenty-four dresses, twenty pairs of shoes, eighteen belts, fourteen pairs of shorts, fourteen
jackets, twelve bras, eleven pairs of tights, five blazers, four long- sleeved shirts, three pairs
of workout pants, two pairs of dress pants, two pairs of pyjama pants, and one vest. Socks
and underwear not-
Withstanding, I owned 354 pieces of clothing. Americans buy an average of sixty-four items
of clothing a year, a little more than one piece of clothing per week.2 It might not seem all
that extreme, until you see it all piled up in your living room. My wardrobe is what the
average American produces in a little over five years, precisely the amount of time I lived in
my apartment. My 300-plus-piece clothing collection made me almost exactly an average
American consumer.
Another humbling fact about my wardrobe: I owned more clothing than I did anything else,
and probably knew the least about it of any- thing I buy. I checked the labels on my eggs, but
not on my T-shirts. I didn’t know the significance of fbers like polyester, nylon, or elastin,
which so much of our clothing is now made of. I knew nothing about garment construction,
nor could I recognize quality. And I was certainly no fashionista with an encyclopaedic
knowledge of the designers where all these trends were coming from, although I some- times
wish I looked as put together as those girls. I have friends who were surprised I was writing a
book about clothes. You? They’d say, scanning my outfit for some missing sign of great
style. But one need not have the sharpest fashion acumen or know a single thing about
clothes to accumulate massive amounts of them.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 43
I always hear in the news that we’re going to shop our way out of the current recession. It’s
hard to believe when you consider what’s happened to the domestic garment industry, once
an important segment of America’s manufacturing base. The United States now makes 3 per
cent of the clothing its consumers purchase, down from about 50 per cent in 1990. We have
chosen low-priced clothes made in other countries, and the loss of our garment trades has
contributed to a de- cline in domestic wages, the loss of the middle class, and the problem of
unemployment, especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. It would now take
tremendous investment and training to get our garment industry back in shape to compete
with other countries, particularly China, where a staggering 41 per cent of our clothes are
now made. I travelled to the factories there and was astonished at not only the sophistication
of their factories but by how the American consumer lifestyle is spreading there as well.
Many books about fashion begin with an argument for why we should take fashion seriously.
I’m going to take a different approach and say that fashion largely deserves its bad reputation.
It’s now a powerful, trillion-dollar global industry that has too much influence over our
pocketbooks, self-image, and storage spaces. It behaves with embarrassingly little regard for
the environment or human rights. It changes the rules of what we’re supposed to wear
constantly, and we seem to have lost our sense of self along with changing trends. We
oscillate through countless colors, prints, and silhouettes each year. Most of the time we are
buying the same basic item of clothing—tank tops and sweaters in the latest color, simple
blouses with some added embellishment, jeans in a new fit—over and over again, just
tweaked slightly with the season’s latest must-have feature.
Designer or brand name clothing has become a proxy for quality and style. We travel sixty
miles round trip on average and pay the at- tending gas and tolls to get deep discounts on
brand names at outlet malls.3 Some of us stand in line at Target or H&M or Macy’s,
overnight in some cases, to be the first to grab shoddy facsimiles of clothing by luxury
fashion designers like Versace and Missoni. We’ve completely lost our gauge of whether or
not the material garment we’re buying is worth our money. The fashion industry has largely
been split into ultra-high-end and low-end clothing and consumers have been divided into
warring camps of deal-hunters and prestige shoppers, with little in between. And with “good”
clothes now outrageously priced, shopping cheap is more of a non-choice than we recognize.
Fashion should be flexible and responsive. Instead, global chains are trying to take the risk
out of fashion by selling the same carefully orchestrated trends, which are repeated on the
racks of virtually every retailer, making our store-bought looks feel homogenous and generic.
A half-century of competition based on low price has also forced the fashion industry to cut
corners on quality, construction, and detail, leaving most of us wearing very basic and
crudely slapped together clothes. Just two decades ago, the garment industry wasn’t nearly so
consolidated. Our choices weren’t nearly so narrow and controlled and focused on the bottom
line.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 44
Fashion is obsolescence. Fashion is change. The fact that thousands of affordable variations
on the hot, new look can go from design concept to a store rack in a matter of weeks or a
couple of months is, if nothing else, a modern marvel—as designs have to be drawn and
transmitted, fabric has to be ordered, and the garment has to be sewn by human beings before
being typically shipped around the world to a retail outlet. It could be argued that the fashion
industry has mastered what it is designed to do—sell affordable versions of new styles.
Because of low prices, chasing trends is now a mass activity, accessible to anyone with a few
bucks to spare. Trends are exhausted faster, giving the fashion industry yet another
opportunity to come up with something else for us to buy and wear. This cycle is speeding
up, and more trends than ever now exist at any given moment. In Brooklyn,
I watch them spread before my eyes. One week, I spotted a handful of people wearing sailor-
inspired blue-and-white striped shirts. Two months later, virtually one in every five people
seemed to be wearing the fad. In recent months, I’ve seen the same thing happen with high-
waisted shorts, jumpsuits, midriffs, combat boots, and floral print dresses.
Fashion is publicly expressed. Everyone can see who’s out of step. And keeping up with the
latest styles now demands that we shop constantly. T.J. Maxx recently ran a commercial
featuring a fashion stu- dent named Lindsay, who chirps, “I never wear the same thing
twice.” T.J. Maxx would have us believe cash-strapped college students should buy a new
piece of clothing for every single day of the year. Similarly, many celebrities are never
photographed wearing the same thing twice. Today’s trendsetters seem to be the people who
change their outfits the most often.
Here we are, having arrived in a so-called fashion democracy, where everyone can afford to
be stylish and follow trends. How does it feel? I started writing this book because chasing
trends with one eye on the price tag didn’t get me any closer to liking my clothes. My
wardrobe ultimately left me feeling slavish and passive. I definitely wasn’t any closer to
being well dressed. I was devoting too much time and way too much space in my house to a
habit I knew shamefully little about. Why would someone who knows nothing about clothes
own so much clothing?
People crave connections to their stuff, and I was missing that connection. Our fashion
choices do have social outcomes and meanings, and I had to dig deep to find them. Supply
chains are spread out all over the world, few of them in the United States. We’re completely
in the dark about what fashion has cost the environment and American jobs. These costs
certainly aren’t on price tags, dropping lower and lower every year. I went in search of the
rest of the story of our clothes. Most of our lives are spent in clothing. It’s a basic need, but
more than that, clothing and style are a huge and integral part of our every- day lives. Clothes
are an essential part of the economy and easily the second largest consumer sector, behind
food.4 Dressing sharp, dressing up, and caring about what we wear existed long before the
fashion industry, and these values can exist outside of it as well. Surely our closets can be
defined by something other than price-gouging designers, discounted brand names, or the
cheap trends that follow them both.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 45
Clothes could have more meaning and longevity if we think less about owning the latest or
cheapest thing and develop more of a relationship with the things we wear. Building a
wardrobe over time, saving up and investing in fewer well-made pieces, obsessing over the
perfect hem, luxuriating in fabrics, and patching up and altering our clothes have become old-
fashioned habits. But they’re also deeply satisfying antidotes to the empty uniformity of
cheap. If more of us picked up the lost art of sewing or reconnected with the seamstresses and
tailors in our communities, we could all be our own fashion designers and constantly
reinvent, personalize, and perfect the things we own.
I haven’t just looked to the past for clues on how to dress going forward. Thanks to
advancing technology, more progressive garment production models, and the development of
environmentally friendly textiles, it’s now entirely possible to design clothing responsibly
with- out sacrificing style. In fact, I found that ethical designers, without the pressures of
having to satisfy corporate shareholders or consistently dazzle with high- profle runway
shows, are not only working with some of the most interesting and amazing-feeling fabrics
on the market, they are some of the most innovative designers in the industry right now.
In the days after I lugged that parachute-sized bag of slip-ons down Second Avenue,
shamefaced, I started thinking about how I shopped growing up. It was the mid-nineties, not
so long ago, and the global clothing giants had taken their hold. But clothes were still
expensive enough that buying them was a semiannual treat. In middle school, my friends and
I would share new clothes to make our wardrobes seem bigger. But I more often shopped in
thrift stores because they were affordable and full of unexpected treasures. I loved scrounging
through Salvation Army looking for T-shirts that I could cut up or pants that I could shred
and restyle. My mom also had a sewing ma- chine when I was little, and a few times I
remember going to a seam- stress to have our clothes taken in or out.
I didn’t have much to go on, other than these little hints that cloth- ing used to foster
relationships and stay with us through life. We were once stewards of the clothes we owned.
The promise of a different way of doing things, of actually liking and understanding clothes,
and the embarrassment of lugging a supersized bag of shoes on the subway were enough to
set me on a journey. In the process, I found out how exactly cheap fashion took over, met the
people who have escaped the tyranny of trends, and ultimately curbed my own dead- end
cravings for low-cost clothes.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 46
SURVEY QUESTIONEAR
NAME:
SEX:
AGE:
OCCUPATION:
1. Do you like fashionable products?
YES/NO
(If NO directly move to question 7)
2. Are you always updated about the latest trend?
YES/NO
3. How often do you change your wardrobe?
Every month
Every 2 month
Every 3 month
Every 6 month
4. How much do you spend while you go for shopping?
Rs. 3000
Rs. 5000
Rs. 10,000
Rs. 20,000
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 47
5. What brands do you mostly prefer?
Mango
Zara
Hugo boss
Chanel
H & M
Ralph Lauren
Jimmy choo
6. Are you aware of the new collection launched every season?
YES/NO
7. Given a choice what would you pick?
1 Pair of Chanel denim or
1 pair of denim and tee from Zara
8. What’s your top priority when you go buy clothes?
Style
Comfort
Fashion
Looks
9. How many times do you go for shopping or buying new clothes?
Every 2nd
week
Every month
Every 3 months
Mention if any other………………..
10. Do you prefer high-end fashion or FAD?
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 48
SURVEY ANALYSIS
1.DO you like fashionable products
YES no
4%
96%
2.Are you always updated about the latest trend?
yes no
21%
79%
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 49
3.how often do you change your wardrobe?
every month erery 2 month every 3 month every 6 month
23%
18%
21%
38%
4. What brand do you prefer?
Mango Zara H & M Chanel Hugo boss Jimmy Choo Ralph Lauren
6%
9%
12%
20%
9%
13%
31%
5. How much do you spend while shopping?
amount Rs. 3000 amount Rs. 5000 amount Rs.10000 amount Rs.20000
4%
23% 34%
39%
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 50
6.Are you aware of the new collection launched every
season?
yes no
30%
70%
7. Given a choice what would you pick?
1 pair of Chanel denim 1 denim & 1 tee from ZARA
32%
68%
8. what's your top priority when you buy new clothes?
style comfort fashion looks
27%
18%
19%
36%
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 51
9. how often do you go for buying new clothes?
every 2nd week every month every 3 month others
13% 14%
27%
46%
10. Do you prefer high end fashion , FAD or both?
high end fashion FAD both
29%
39%
32%
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 52
INFERENCE AND SUGGESTION
Fast fashion is now a rising trend in the global fashion market, the youth today are so aware
of the changing trend and fashion that they don’t care whether it’s a FAD or high end fashion
in order to maintain their style and looks. Nothing can be better if people get fashion in much
less price than before.
The survey conducted by me in the campus and online tells that people have lot of money to
spend on shopping and buying fashion. They change their wardrobe very frequently which
show which shows that the fashion today have become fast and people are always looking for
best deal in term of money. People are not bothered about the brand name and quality at all;
they are just looking for more and more trendy clothes which they are getting in every 2
weeks’ time and in a much cheaper price.
The phrase very correctly describes the situation “fast fashion is like fast food.” If we see
the current scenario due to this fast fashion which is available very cheaply there are lot of
wastage and it also has an adverse effect on the environment. Thought a lot steps are being
taken to slow down this trend all over the world but looking at the top retailer in the world
like ZARA and H & M the way they are expanding their business it is really a very hard task
to even slow down the process which is FAST FASHION CHEAP FASHION.
Interestingly the survey shows a very nice result that people still prefer high end branded
fashionable product but their buying habit tells a completely different story. In my survey I
mostly targeted youth and tried to know how and what they think when it comes to fashion,
FAD and high end fashion. Though this trend of fast fashion is tickling up from the youth to
the older generation gradually but the result shows the older generation still prefer high
fashion branded clothes over the on-going fast fashion cheap fashion.
Fast fashion cheap fashion with all its merits and demerits is fast moving on-going trend
which is very difficult to slow it down with the big retailer involved in the business and
expanding it very fast all over the world it is there to stay.
C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 53
Fast fashion cheap fashion
Fast fashion cheap fashion

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Fast fashion cheap fashion

  • 1. COLLOQUIUM PAPER AREA OF STUDY AND WRITE UP FAST FASHION CHEAP FASHION By Krishna gupta Page 1
  • 2. CONTENT Acknowledgement……………………………………………………………………3 Introduction & Objective………………………………………………………….4 Recent Scenario………………………………………………………………………..5 History………………………………………………………………………………………6-15 Facts of Fast Fashion……………………………………………………………….16-23 Advantage & Disadvantage of Fast Fashion…………………………….24-29 Theeffects of Fast fashion………………………………………………………30-36 Plans to reduce the Fast Fashion trend……………………………………37-38 American Situation………………………………………………………………….39-40 Case study on USA market……………………………………………………….41--46 Survey Questioners………………………………………………………………….47-48 Survey Analysis………………………………………………………………………..49-52 Inferences and Suggestion……………………………………………………….53 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….54 References……………………………………………………………………………….55 C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 2
  • 3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I, Krishna Kumar Gupta, of Fashion and Lifestyle Accessories, semester VII, 9/1141 would like to take this opportunity to thank my subject faculty Mr. Aravendan for his excellent support and constant guidance throughout this module of colloquium paper. I would also thanks to all those who have helped me directly or indirectly during the module. Finally I thank NIFT, Chennai for providing us with the necessary infrastructure and facilities that helped us in the successful completion of our final product. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 3
  • 4. INTRODUCTION In this module colloquium paper we have to discuss and pick one issue or problem prevailing in the fashion industry and as the word colloquium itself mean gathering information from various sources for discussion or an assembly for conference. At last we have to document the whole matters and discussion together. OBJECTIVE FAST FASHION OBJECTIVE • To study the history of fast fashion • To know the advantage and disadvantage of fast fashion • To know the effect of fast fashion on society and environment • Finally to come up with suggestions that or inference whether fast fashion is acceptable by society or not as fast fashion is like a fast food. Research Methodology • Explorative method • Descriptive method • Case study • Survey method C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 4
  • 5. RECENT SECNARIO My area of study is how fashion is changing so rapidly and how does it affect the retail market throughout the world. Due to the frequent change in the fashion trend in very quick time succession the garments and product are available in a very affordable price. Retailers like including Mango, H&M, Topshop, Primark and Uniqlo, who have wasted no time in tapping into younger consumers' ever- shorter attention spans, and lifestyle changes like mobile communications, the internet, and social networks. One of the biggest retail success stories of the past decade has been the phenomenal rise of fast fashion, a shopping trend spurred by rapidly changing styles and the ready availability of cheap brands. In a session entitled 'Is fast fashion killing fashion?' at last week's IAF World Apparel Convention in Hong Kong, delegates were in left in no doubt the concept has forced the industry to change. The undoubted pioneer of the fast fashion concept is Spanish clothing retailer Zara, with its 4,780 stores in 77 countries and a formula for success that relies on the regular creation and rapid replenishment of small batches of new goods. With new lines being dropped into shops every 4-8 weeks (or twice a week in the case of Zara), it's a recipe that ensures customers can always find new products every time they visit the store, as well as encouraging more visits and more frequent purchases because items are in limited supply. And it's a blueprint that has been emulated by numerous other retailers including Mango, H&M, Topshop, Primark and Uniqlo, who have wasted no time in tapping into younger consumers' ever- shorter attention spans, and lifestyle changes like mobile communications, the internet, and social networks. The growth of fast retailing "seems to be phenomenal," Arvind Singhal, CEO of Indian consultancy Technopak told delegates at last week's IAF World Apparel Convention in Hong Kong. Even during the recession Zara owner Fast Retailing booked revenues up 29% from 2008-09, followed by Primark (up 24%) and H&M (up 19%) - figures that would be "spectacular, even at the best of times." In contrast, traditional brand names like Liz Claiborne are struggling, while upmarket retailers like Nordstrom and Saks have been lowering their price points in order to compete. It also seems unlikely there will be any let-up in fast fashion's advance across the globe. "Initial reports suggest it will have even more impact in new markets like China and India than could ever have been imagined," Singhal says. As evidenced by the fact Zara has opened 44 stores in China since 2006. And in India, where it made its first foray earlier this year, the retailer achieved a turnover of $2.7m in its first two days of opening. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 5
  • 6. HISTORTY OF FAST FASHION FROM RAGS TO RICHES TO RAGS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RISE OF FAST FASHION For a woman who loves fashion as much as I do, I absolutely loathe shopping. Sifting through the retail dregs; overpriced, high-end department stores; designer sample sales strewn with trampled clothes; trendy discount retailer racks with garments falling apart on the hangers; outlet stores overflowing with misshapen rejects; and smelly second hand stores make me itch. ”Manolo Madness” from Flypaper This is hardly what I would consider the path to glamor that I imagine as I turn the glossy pages of Vogue. And while I wish I could just stitch and alter my wardrobe into one-of-a-kind originals, as I am trained by profession to do, the irony of it all is that as a fashion designer I hardly have the time to make repairs to my wardrobe, much less actually sew anything for myself. A girl’s gotta pay the rent, after all. This plight of the modern woman – not enough time, too little money, and seemingly too high standards – is a pathetically malfunctioning equation. But perhaps it’s not that my standards that are too high. Maybe it’s just a sign that the times are indeed changing. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 6
  • 7. The infamous Marie Antoinette, who was well known for her taste in ridiculous hats and hairdo’s and expensive wardrobes. Image via Marie Antoinette, Sony Pictures. There was a time in history when beautiful clothes could only be acquired by members of the Royal Court. Only the extremely wealthy could afford fine clothes. The middle class might have been able to painstakingly make their own out of less fine fabrics and trims. But homemade, roughly-hewn rags were all that was available to the poor. Girls learning sewing in home ec. Image via 3-b-s.eu Thank goodness this all changed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when the sewing machine made fashion available to more people. As it became a common appliance in households of average means, like my grandmother’s in the 1920′s and 30′s, women were inspired to get creative and could make their own designs for themselves and their families, even on modest budgets. This marked a time in history that began to blur class distinctions, and C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 7
  • 8. women in the lower and middle classes began to rise in the ranks of style within society, especially if they had a taste and a talent for sewing. Women hit the the workforce. Image via lexydeg WWII marked a new kind of revolution for women, the right to join the workforce in place of their husbands who were off at war, and fashion once again changed. Women liked this new sense of equality in the workforce and especially the keys to financial freedom. Time for home sewing projects became more sparse as climbing the ladder and acquiring spending power slowly overtook women’s desire to manage home economics during the next several decades. In this time, the fashion industry boomed to meet consumer demand and provide more options for this new force of female consumers. Fast forward to today. Most female consumers are busy running businesses and households simultaneously and many have little knowledge of sewing, which sadly takes away any skill to recognize quality in craftsmanship. Combined with the fashion industry’s ability to attach aspirational dreams to meaningless stuff through marketing, women are generally willing to accept any item with a label they recognize as long as it proves affordable to buy. Design and original taste has been replaced by owning the most recognizable bling. And fast fashion, like fast food, has signaled the death of style and taste for the masses. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 8
  • 9. Insane closet behavior. Image via Apartment Therapy The fashion industry has become a multi-billion dollar business in which entrepreneurs and investors look for ways to cut costs while increasing revenue for shareholders. The best way to do that is to produce and sell huge quantities of product to a mass market. This equation of making high volumes require an enormous investment which increases the risk immensely, a risk that most shareholders would not be comfortable knowing about. Which means that the buck gets passed to reduce the risk while keeping the profit margin steady. Who does it get passed to? Us. The consumers who pay the same price for half the quality; the workers, who have to do twice as much work for the same pay; and the environment, which is heavily fertilized to yield greater crops or dumped upon to avoid expensive waste removal processes. Sound familiar? Oddly, the fashion retail recession appears to be coinciding with the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008. We come full circle to the era of Marie Antoinette, where only the richest of the rich can afford and experience the quality and taste of haute design and couture, while the vast majority of the population swims in low quality rags with fancy tags that will shortly only be worthy of garbage dumps. This epidemic of “trashion” is now spreading throughout the world, to developing nations that want the same standards that America and other westernized nations have set, leaving the knowledge and traditions of weaving, spinning, and cultural costume to the wayside to be forgotten. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 9
  • 10. “I think we are all secretly artists. It’s just a matter of allowing yourself to see.” – Fay Leshner. Image via Stylelikeu.com But throughout this history of mass culture, there have always been rebels, men and women, who defy the system with their originality and creativity, regardless of their economic status. Marked by their burning desire to express themselves and their joie de vivre, this counter culture of personal style mavens take the less-traveled path to acquiring their wardrobes. These people look for the alternatives to shopping at H&M, the Gap, or, god forbid, Abercrombie & Fitch. Whether they save their dimes to buy that one coveted item from their favorite local couturier, or they have maintained the knowledge to sew and spend their precious free time doing so, or perhaps insist upon searching through vintage and second hand stores for one of a kind, original pieces, the way art and antique collectors might, they have found ways around limitations set by economics or a limited industrial selection. This does require somewhat of an effort, but then again, so does making enough money to pay off last month’s credit card bills. The effort is well spent because these stylish individuals appear to be having the kind of fun with their clothing that many of us cannot even imagine. They stand out in a crowd without being celebrities harassed by paparazzi; confusing and criss-crossing all class, social, and economic lines, and meanwhile looking rather jaw-droppingly fabulous. Fast Fashion gathered pace from the end of the 1990’s when brands began to look for new ways to increase profits. Globalisation had grown rapidly in the 80’s and 90’s and paved the way for value and mid price brands to shift the bulk of their production to the developing world where labour and overheads cost a fraction of those in Europe. High street brands were coming under increasing pressure from supermarket chains developing their own lines of low cost clothing. Initially they sold items like simple T shirts and underwear, however the move of George Davies from Next to Asda signalled a new era for supermarket clothing and a move into high fashion, low cost items. Traditionally, most fashion labels have produced two main collections a year, spring/summer and autumn/winter. However, in order to keep the customer focused on the high street, High Street brands needed to create some interest within their stores mid season. Certain companies re-examined their supply chains and developed a system which several other brands then followed. They segmented their supply chain, keeping basic items manufactured in the far east but brought the production of the more high fashion items closer to home. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 10
  • 11. This had several benefits. Firstly it decreased their financial outlay on forward orders and also allowed them to make decisions about the fashion items much later in the season. This added flexibility and ensured they were able to react to the market quickly and deliver ‘on- trend’ items within their stores. This model could then be developed through the use of new technological systems which linked all parts of the supply chain together. This new system allowed for the development of ‘just in time’ manufacturing and has now developed to a stage where they are able to turn a garment around from drawing to shop floor in just two weeks. Consumers reacted positively to this trend which in turn has resulted in the widespread speeding up of fashion. Factory workers are feeling the effects of this. A Sri Lankan factory owner interviewed by Oxfam demonstrates the pressure they are now under; “Last year the deadlines were about 90 days… [This year] the deadlines for delivery are about 60 days. Sometimes even 45… They have drastically come down.” ‘Instead of 40,000 garments being manufactured across four styles for 20 weeks at a rate of 500 per styles per week… all that is firm is the first five weeks across four styles at 500 per style per week. This is a commitment to 10,000 garments. The remaining 30,000 is unknown. Nor is there any promise of how many styles and at what manufacturing rate per week.’ Just Style (2006) Purchasing trends in the fashion industry www.just-style.com The Clean Clothes Campaign describe similar instances with garment workers in China “We have endless overtime in the peak season and we sit working non-stop for 13 to 14 hours a day. It’s like this every day – we sew and sew without a break until our arms feel sore and stiff” The increase in the amount of clothes people consume also has consequences for the environment. More clothing is shipped and flown from the Far East to Europe than ever before and the life cycle of these garments is decreasing. Statistics show that on average, UK consumers send 30kg of clothing and textiles per capita to landfill each year and that 1.2 million tonnes of clothing went to landfill in 2005 in the UK alone. Moreover, textiles present particular problems in landfill as synthetic (man-made fibres) products will not decompose, while woollen garments do decompose and produce methane, which contributes to global warming C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 11
  • 12. The History of a Cheap Dress Everywhere American consumers shop — from outlet malls to department store sales racks — deals flourish. But where can one find the cheapest dress? “Fast fashion” purveyors like Forever 21 and H&M are known for their low prices, high volume, and rapid turnover of styles. It’s amazing to think that a hundred years ago, at the birth of ready-made clothing as we know it, women would drop six hundred dollars for a Parisian knock-off.Today a fashionable dress is cheaper than a bag of dog food. How did we get here? In the early 1900s, the sewing machine had only been around a half a century and the production quality and fit coming off the assembly lines needed some polishing. Decent menswear could be bought off the rack, and men were slowly warming up to ready-made duds. But for women there was a deep divide between high-end European fashions acquired by the wealthy and the flimsy, flashy, of-the-moment items available to everyone else. According to Jan Whitaker’s book Service and Style, a history of department stores, a ready- made knockoff of a French “lingerie style” dress started at $25 ($621.50 in today’s dollars) at Marshall Field’s in 1902. It was more feasible for the average girl to buy a ready-made women’s suit, which started at $7.95 ($190) or, better yet, the quintessential shirtwaist, which sold for just 39 cents ($9.34) at the turn-of-the-century. The fashion-hound of modest means was better off making her own dresses or ordering them from the local dressmaker. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 12
  • 13. By the 1950s, quality ready-made fashion was within the reach of the middle- class. America’s garment industry was the envy of the world and womenswear was its number one product. The International Ladies Garment Workers Union had almost 450,000 members and the sweatshops of the industry’s early days had been largely abolished. The 1955 Sears Catalog was a veritable wonderland of nipped-waisted frocks with Dior-inspired voluminous skirts. Style, quality, and affordability had found a meeting point. For a reasonable $8.95 ($72), you could order Sears’ “best acetate and rayon crepe” slim-cut dress in black or navy blue, with a set-on bodice and detachable nylon-organdy collar. The dress came with a rhinestone pin. Women also continued to sew athome, using a myriad of fashionable patterns available in women’s magazines. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 13
  • 14. A typical 1950s catalog. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 14
  • 15. Fast forward fifty years and the price of mass-market fashion has plummeted, as the garment industry has moved to lower wage countries. We now only make 3% of our apparel in the United States, down from 90% in 1955. The prices of these imports are so low that we have long since abandoned our sewing machines and deserted our dressmakers. Our clothes have also become increasingly casual and simplified, another reason for lower price tags. As clothes have become cheaper, our clothing consumption has gone through the roof. In 1930, the average American woman owned an average of nine outfits. Today, we each buy more than 60 pieces of new clothing on average per year. Our closets are larger and more stuffed than ever, as we’ve traded quality and style for low prices and trend-chasing. In the face of these irresistible deals, our total spending on clothing has actually increased, from $7.82 billion spent on apparel in 1950 to $375 billion today. And the discounters are reaping the rewards. According to the latest Standard & Poor’s Industry Survey, the average American consumer is primarily looking for value with an impulse-buy standard of quality when they purchase clothing. As a result, H&M, Zara, and Wal-Mart — all discounters who sell low-quality clothing — are now the most powerful clothing brands in America. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 15
  • 16. FACTS ABOUT FAST FASHION Flashback! Nearly four decades back - lifestyle fashion stores were all the frenzy in the sixties where clothing retailers like Biba and Habitat offered great collection for the young consumers. They displayed model lifestyles lines and made buyers think "which one is better for me?" Most clothing retailers joined the league for the up and coming era of seventies like Marks & Spencer and Mothercare followed by the major player 'Next' in the eighties, which were largely preferred. Meanwhile, the major Italian player 'Benetton' marched on high street with, offering colorful designer clothing for the whole family. Their strategy resulted affirmative with noticeably contemporary window showcase in all stores with independent units. The company was successful in Britain, however, having a long standing in the market, they witnessed failure to keep up pace with the accelerated high fashion pressure by the other European competitors, which are now the known as Mango, H&M and Zara. The rise of these competitors on high street has been witness successful because of a higher demand for fast fashion. Styles showed in magazines and other advertorials are what people wish to wear. Top designers have created collection extensions, which cater people who can afford to spend their hard earned cash on triple figure. This resulted success to the affordable collection of European fashion brands A Swedish player, H&M offered readymade clothing stores stocked with fashionable collection at reasonable costs. Its successful strategy was its own slogan 'fashion & quality at the best price' innovative design, reasonably priced and competent logistics. Based in Stockholm, a team of 100 fashion designers assures that nothing has been imitated from the runway platforms. They are mostly inspired from street-trends, movies, magazines and exhibitions. Impressively, the designs reach retail shelves within 2-3 weeks. H&M's high profile designer tie-ups with Karl Lagerfield and Stella McCartney have resulted entire collections available to the mass people at lower prices. This strategy is supported by huge advertising campaigns, which easily compete with the major brands. In a world of advertisements and promotions, there is one store that has made strategy to not to spend penny on advertising, "Zara", a wing of Europe's biggest, rapidly evolving and most triumphant fashion clothing retailers, Grupo Inditex. Other well popular stores in similar chain are Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Pull and Bear. Inditex operates business via more than two thousand stores in 56 countries. The first Zara shop was launched in 1975 at La Coruna, Galicia and at present it operates more than four hundred owned stores globally. In the previous five years they have witnessed sales up by 25 percent year on year. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 16
  • 17. Zara runs its own design and production unit in La Coruna, Spain, which leads cancellation of the large out-sourcing operations, like H&M does in over nine hundred firms. It is modern, offering up-to-date lifestyle yet standard clothing lines for men, women and children. Zara offers reasonably priced, radical clothing, however, not of the top quality, which will last only for some seasons. As same as Zara, H&M can also put designs on retail shelves within three weeks. Its product assortment is cheap and small yet frequent, offering consumers huge selection that results repeated visits to their stores to find "What's New". Hitherto, Zara has launched over ten thousand new designs and most of these will just be attainable for few weeks. Another Spanish player, Mango is a reputed multinational brand devoted to designing, producing and selling fast fashion and accessories only for women. Its clothing line includes Suit, Casual Sport, and Mng Jeans. It might not be as huge as H&M or Grupo Inditex, but has played excellent particularly in the UK. No shopping malls resemble absolute with exclusive of these three brands. The pace of these companies in responding to changing consumer demands is an ideal proof to the retailing, producing and logistics skills needed in latest fashion industry. These new strategies are set up to develop aptitude to take advantage of the challenges of a competitive world market. Besides the diversification in product assortments there is one thing common in all these brands that is "intelligent logistics". Well-organized communication between sales staff directly to the headquarters and producers lead them to match steps with high speed turnover. The fact is that buyers are becoming preference savvy and smarter in order to what they shop. Even though they always have their preferred designer, they are also acquainted that a throwaway piece of fast fashion from a retail chain store will complete their outfit choices. At so reasonably priced all of these retail perceptions play on Friday nights when people feels they have nothing to wear. Retailers are sent in a scuffle to make-out the major catwalk trends from the drawing sheets to the sales shelves as fast as possible C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 17
  • 18. "Saturday, Queen Street Mall, you are sitting in Gloria Jeans and flipping through the newest copy of RUSSH that you just bought from borders. Plastic bags surround your feet from a day of shopping as you plan potential outfits with which to fill your wardrobe for the upcoming summer. Chances are these garments will be worn once or twice and then discarded once the trend is over or they fall apart due to inferior manufacturing. 6 million 330 thousand tons of clothing and footwear a year is contributed to landfill in the United States alone. Globalization has made it possible to produce this clothing at increasingly lower prices, prices so low they make the purchase tempting and the disposal painless. Some call it “fast fashion,” the clothing equivalent of fast food. This idea of "fast fashion" leaves a pollution footprint, with each step of the clothing life cycle generating potential environmental and occupational hazards. Recently, there has been an increased interest on the environmental impacts of our consumer behaviour. So are you thinking about what you are doing to the environment? And more importantly, thinking about what can you do to help? Fast Fashion is term used to describe the cheap trend clothing, usually sold by stores such as Sportsgirl or Witchery in Australia, or Topshop in the UK. Retailers now will have something new every month or even week in some cases, instead of just two collections (Autumn/Winter and Spring/Summer) each year. This change in consumer buying behaviour is driven by both the reduction in the price of clothing and increased marketing of new trends and fashions. Fast fashion clothes are generally only worn a few times before being replaced by the latest trend. But even if no bunnies were harmed in the making of your outfit, ask yourself if any children, rivers, or patches of ozone were destroyed in the quest for your $10 cotton on (or H&M) singlet. Immense amounts of petro and polluting chemicals are used in Synthetic fibres like polyester which are regularly used in the production of 'fast fashion' clothing. These present health risks for workers, organisms and the environment in the vicinity. Green house gas emissions, chemical pollution and landfill waste are well reported as being key issues in environmental impacts of fast fashion. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 18
  • 19. The growth of cotton, the most widely used natural fibre uses huge amounts of chemicals that are damaging to the health of the workers and the surrounding environment. Manufacture of these textiles when combined with the transport of the garments around the world produces vast amounts of green house gas. If that wasn't enough to make you think, there is then the problem of disposing of unwanted clothing. The amount of clothing ending up in landfill is astounding, and on average a person in the UK will contribute 30kgs (roughly 75 pounds) a year. These textiles present particular problems in landfill as synthetic (man-made fibres) products will not decompose. Even natural textiles pollute water systems with chemicals and dyes that are washed out by rain water, woollen garments decompose but produce methane, which again harms the environment. Are you ready to do something yet? Donnatella Versace “there should be more quality." And it is undeniable when the current situation that the "Fast fashion" is causing is taken into consideration, with each step of the clothing life cycle generating potential environmental and occupational hazards. Buying an investment piece of clothing, something you really love and will last years and in some cases a lifetime – reduces its real cost per wear and is far more ethical than purchasing bags and bags of cheap clothing the second a new watered down catwalk trend hits stores. Cheap clothing that you will probably wear just once. if we want to be eco friendly and smart about our fashion purchases, we should put our money toward well-made items that are, unlike clothing from Sportsgirl or Bardot, seasonless and trendproof—a classic black blazer, jeans made from organic cotton, or a little black dress that never goes out of style. Sure, they're not the most exciting purchases, but if they last, they'll survive any fashion whims. Recycling of clothing is a great idea but the quality of many fast fashion items makes them less desirable second hand. The quality of the clothing that is coming through recycling plants is on the decline, which makes it harder to reuse. And whilst there are a numerous manufacturers of eco textiles and brands with excellent environmental credentials available, it is consumer behaviour – Your behaviour, Our behaviour - that will need to change in order to reduce the impact of fashion and clothing on the environment. Fashion retailers driven by consumer demand and will change their products and marketing to respond to a change in customer behavior. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 19
  • 20. So make the change from fast fashion to sustainable style. Choose clothes in classic styles that will last more than one season. Store clothes carefully to make them last, keeping shoes and clothes out of the sun will prevent any sun damage or dust and where possible, mend and repair instead of replacing. Obstacles to fast fashion Against such stellar growth it might seem strange to question whether a concept that's so obviously popular and makes fashion accessible to a large number of people could also be killing the industry. But Robin Anson, managing director of Textiles Intelligence, believes there are quite a few things getting in the way of fast fashion. "Everything's getting faster, including fashion," he says. "But fast fashion can't happen without facilitators. While low prices might encourage more purchases, to get low prices you need low labour costs, low raw material costs, and high productivity - but the quality must still be good." Other facilitators are logistics (but the conundrum here is getting from a low-cost source to the consumer quickly); nearby manufacturing (for in-season replenishment); technology tools (to allow the supply chain to communicate, speed sample making etc); and online retailing, which enables consumers to buy online or pre-select so they can make purchases quickly in- store. "If cheap fashion is finished, then fast fashion is too," Anson adds. "One thing that everybody's buying is cotton. The cotton price has doubled this year from $0.50 to $1.0 per pound, and while we don't see any further massive increase in prices, we don't seem them coming down either. "So for the foreseeable future, high cotton prices are here to stay. And as labour costs get lower and supply chains get more efficient, raw material aspect assumes a higher proportion of the final price. "But raw materials are just one component. Other threats to export prices include rising labour costs - not just in China, but also in countries like Bangladesh, and the appreciation of the renminbi." He also suggests climate change could impact on fast fashion, since rising sea levels in cotton and garment producing countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh will affect prices and capacity. And what about a consumer backlash against a throwaway society? "There's pressure to reduce food miles and the same could be said about clothes miles. This could favour nearby sourcing." C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 20
  • 21. Market demand However, for Dr Marc Schumacher, director of retail, franchise and international marketing for German casual wear company Tom Tailor, "fast fashion is not to do with cheap products but with market demand." He told International Apparel Federation (IAF) delegates: "I believe the core competence of a company is marketing, and fast fashion is a demand from the market. Fast fashion means taking a decision later and responding more quickly. Tom Tailor makes casual wear for men, women and children, which it sells in its own 87 stores, as well as various franchise stores and shop-in-shops. The company has 12 collections a year, and by blocking fabric in Asia can get its lead times down to just five weeks, Schumacher said. "The rate of technology advancement means ideas can be exchanged even faster," he added. "Take this to the next level, and as technology gets cheaper and faster then fashion will get faster too." Threat to quality and creativity Shorter lead times and more deliveries "are doing a lot of damage to the design profession," believes Michael Tien, chairman of workwear retailer G2000. "Designers don't have the time any more to be really creative. Fast fashion needs them to be very quick at 'adapt, copy and paste,' not design as an art form. So it's not good for originality." He fears quality is also under threat since "no-one cares about the quality of disposable clothes, and this is not good for the clothing industry as a whole." That said, "making trendy stuff more affordable" does enable consumers to buy more units - and it lets them be more creative in the way they put outfits together. "In Hong Kong, selling more units creates more jobs. Units translate to jobs and employment opportunities in places like China," says Tien. He also agrees that fast fashion is forcing the whole industry to change the way it operates, and that even luxury brands have been forced to follow suit with new ideas and more deliveries. But at the end of the day, Tien contends "different customers have different needs" and not all will be lured by the likes of Zara. In China, for example, there is huge demand for more quality-conscious upmarket brands. "If you can identify these specific needs then you can compete." C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 21
  • 22. H&M and Zara are the pioneers of fast fashion, a retail model built on rapid cycles of mass- produced fashions sold at rock bottom prices. Most clothiers today are scrambling to sell goods cheaper and faster than ever before and to retrain consumers to shop continuously, compulsively, and on-the-spot. Our consumption of clothing has gone through the roof as a result. Americans are now buying 68 garments and 8 pairs of shoes per year on average. Disposable purchases have largely replaced long-term investments. Clothing used to be as personal as it gets—handcrafted, locally made, customized, kept for years. Clothes are now bought on a whim, barely worn, and tossed aside. As supply chains have spread out around the world, our understanding of clothes has been packed off along with our garment trades, and we feel adrift as shoppers—unsure of what to look for and unclear on when we’re getting a good deal for our money. This is partly why we just opt to shop cheap instead. Sewing clothing is very labor intensive, which is why a $10 or $20 price tag on a dress should be raising eyebrows instead of just opening our wallets. Companies like H&M place their orders in a network of factories in countries such as Bangladesh and China, where poverty wages are legal (Bangladeshi garment workers are paid $43 a month) and workers have little choice but to put in the exhausting hours needed to feed the 24/7 fast-fashion machine. Not only does this debase the skill and craftsmanship of sewing, but factories in the United States cannot compete. Between 1990 and 2012, the United States lost half of our garment and textile industries. We now make 2 percent of our clothing here. Trends are now changing constantly, and producing clothes with quality and workmanship have become passé. Large corporate fashion chains have yearly growth demands that are largely at odds with producing well-made products made in an ethical way. It's become increasingly difficult to find quality and timeless pieces at any price point. Consumers are largely left with a landscape of corporate, mass-produced fashion (overpriced designer goods are our other "option"). As anyone who’s bought a $10 dress and put it through the wash knows, many of our purchases are essentially disposable—and we’re now tossing 68 pounds of textiles per capita a year. Our landfills are being filled with toxic, non-biodegradable duds and our charity thrift stores are awash with disintegrating and discolored garments that won't have much of a second life. To feed our clothing addiction, approximately 82 million tons of fiber is now being produced worldwide, largely in countries with very minimal environmental standards. In China, I've traveled through an unimaginable landscape of factories along highways enshrouded in smog and saw dyes dumped in ditches in Bangladesh. The environmental toll of the fashion industry is being taken out on countries most U.S. consumers will never visit and is not reflected in the price tag of a $10 dress. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 22
  • 23. Amazingly, Americans now have closets brimming with clothes and yet we often find ourselves thinking, "I have nothing to wear." This common refrain is the clothing equivalent of eating a high-calorie fast food meal and feeling hungry a half hour later. Just like fast food, fast fashion feeds on our basest urges—thriving on impulsiveness and our sense of scarcity in bad economic times. We need an alternative to fast fashion not only because it undermines the environment, the economy, and human rights, but because it clutters our homes and our minds with stuff we don’t really desire or value. But how do we begin to address the problem? If we shopped a little less (even if we cut our consumption in half, we’d still be buying almost three new garments a month) and instead diverted more of our dollars to locally-made designers and companies who have strong environmental and human rights records, the rest of the industry would be forced to take notice. Fashioningchange.com is a fantastic resource that directs consumers of popular brands like H&M and Forever 21 to ethical alternatives. Consumers could also make a difference by supporting brands that are not simply stylish but also have some semblance of a shelf life. Part of being a responsible fashion consumer is thinking about the entire life cycle of clothing, and owning well-crafted clothes that are more of an investment motivates us to repair, refashion, and maintain them. Good clothing is not unlike a home-cooked meal. It takes a little more thought and planning and costs a little more, but leaves us feeling more satisfied. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 23
  • 24. ADVANTAGES OF FAST FASHION To the Customer Change is GOOD! Fast Fashion helps you try different styles and trends within a short range of time. It helps you change, experiment and revamp your look without having to change your budget much! Fast fashion allows you to be a new you every time you step out to go someplace with your gal pals! They say change is the only constant in life; but I say - change is good. It’s FAST! Being as fast as it is, fast fashion helps you keep up with the here and now. Sometimes we lose interest in something if we get it too late. It happens with everything in life... you wait so long for something to happen, that when it does, it just doesn't mean the same to you. That will never happen if you keep up with fast fashion. Fast fashion gives you instant gratification! well - not instant really; but two weeks is definitely better than having to wait six months! Something New - EVERY TIME! Fast fashion can never become boring, repetitive, plain, old, out-dated... it will continue to make a style statement with every new line, with every new trend, with every product it comes up with. Fast fashion always manages to dazzle the customers and leave them in a daze. It leaves you begging for more! Besides, fast fashion is easy, comfortable and really cool. When was looking all that a problem? To the Retailer Conducive to Growth Being able to successfully establish yourself as a fast fashion retailer requires an exceptionally talented staff, and creative minds beyond which can be imagined. The constant challenge is conducive to growth and can take a retailer to heights that may be envied by other retailers and brands. Being in the fast fashion line acts like something I call a 'constructive pressure'. You are always made to push the limits of your creativity, your talent, and your capacities... and the results can be remarkably profitable. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 24
  • 25. Rapid Profits Fast fashion is all about who gets it first. Early bird gets the worm; so the profits gained through a fast fashion trend are huge and quick! Within the first couple of years too, a fast fashion retailer can show tremendous growth and can take over the market as nobody else has been able to. This acts as one of the major factors of luring people into the fast fashion market or industry. Easy Recovery Recovering from possible losses because of the failure of a particular clothes line or a fashion style launched by a fast fashion retailer is quite easy and early than that of other fashion brands. If fast fashion retailer suffers losses, it can easily and quickly launch a new product that may become twice as much a hit than the previous one was expected to be. The old-school fashion experts prefer to stick to their fashion concepts, being rather swift at pointing out the disadvantages of fast fashion. However, many a fast fashion product will have 'veni'-ed, 'vidi'-ed and 'vici'-ed till the two school of thoughts debate and come to one final answer (or even simply agreed to disagree!) It's all a matter of perspective... as with a lot of concepts, some love it, some don't! But if you are someone who loves trying new things, and experimenting with your look - in short, if you are someone like me, you are gonna quickly develop a liking for fast fashion. Happy Shopping! DISADVANTAGE OF FAST FASHION  It is unsustainable. It has short product life cycle.  The focus largely lies on imitation of original products which misleads the customer. Those who are aware of this replication or who have lack of fashion consciousness wouldn't suffer, but those interested in purchasing original brands are deceived by these fast fashion trends.  The retailers make closest copies of the original which involves reputation risk and using lowest cost labor amounts to labor exploitation making it an ethical issue.  There is also scarcity experienced of qualified personnel in manufacturing garments. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 25
  • 26.  There is a tough competition due to low-cost producers. These retailers use more style, take less time in producing the garment and have rapid delivery.  Another negative aspect of fast fashion is, it stands against costume designing. Both are closely related to each other but costume designing has got hardly any recognition as compared to (fast) fashion designing. It is unsustainable. It has abbreviated artefact activity cycle. The focus abundantly lies on apery of aboriginal articles which misleads the customer. Those who are acquainted of this archetype or who accept abridgement of appearance alertness wouldn't suffer, but those absorbed in purchasing aboriginal brands are bamboozled by these fast appearance trends. The retailers accomplish abutting copies of the aboriginal which involves acceptability accident and application everyman bulk activity amounts to activity corruption authoritative it an ethical issue. There is as well absence accomplished of able cadre in accomplishment garments. There is a boxy antagonism due to bargain producers. These retailers use added style, yield beneath time in bearing the apparel and accept accelerated delivery. Another abrogating aspect of fast appearance is, it stands adjoin apparel designing. Both are carefully accompanying to anniversary added but apparel designing has got hardly any acceptance as compared to (fast) appearance designing. Apart from fast appearance there are added concise appearance trends like appearance fads which endure for appreciably beneath aeon than fast fashion. It al of a sudden becomes accepted and as well disappears quickly. The abstinent appearance trends endure for a ample bulk of time area humans get time to access it. It has greater achievability of getting alternate i.e., it can abandon but can as well return. Accepting such abrogating appearance and a amount of disadvantages, how can fast appearance accept a ablaze future? It appears, retailers accomplish money and the trend disappears. The abstraction of banking advance appears as their capital aim and the action is assertively about this basal principle. It consistently charcoals an acting appearance trend. These are some fast appearance disadvantages that one has to be acquainted of. You can adjudge for yourself, whether to accede it as benign or non-beneficial. I achievement the commodity helped you in accepting a fair abstraction about the facts of fast fashion. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 26
  • 27. To make the situation very clear and to know the advantage and disadvantage of fast fashion to a retailer let’s just take an example of the Spanish brand ZARA. Advantages and disadvantages of zara Fast Fashion, as the name suggests, is contemporary fashion trend that appears in the market at a point and vanishes off within a short period of time and also takes a little time to be produced. But how far is it beneficial? What are advantages and disadvantages that Zara has in comparison to its competitors? The following article deals with these queries and the disadvantages of fast fashion. Advantages of Zara 1. Short Production Time – ZARA can react quickly to recent trends and thus offers more fashionable clothes. Consequently, creates an incentive for the customers to visit the shops more often. 2. More styles – More choice, and more chances for ZARA of hitting it right. 3. Lower quantities – Scarce supply. A customer feels that he/she is going to wear something unique. because it has unique company features in comparison to its competitors – it can react, produce and allocate in their shops a new fashion line for a periodless than 30 days. Zara produces every 2-3 weeks a new fashion line and creates more than 40000 designs per year. In Zara stores, customers can always find new products —but unfortunately for the customers they are in limited supply. For that reason, a customer buys a garment because she knows that if she comes tomorrow that garment won’t be there. Fashion specialists assert that this is the key marketing strategy that distinguishes Zara from its competitors. I as a customer I’ve got the sense of feeling myself exclusive, since only a few items are on display, even though the fact that stores are pretty spacious. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 27
  • 28. People think in the following way when they are shopping in Zara – “This pullover fits me, and there is one on the rack. If I don’t buy it now, I’ll lose my chance.” Zara’s production speed allows it to have such a marketing strategy. An interest fact that I have found recently is that this amazing firm expands extremely fast-almost every day one Zara shop is opened. The above-mentioned business strategy force Zara’s competitors to struggle for the market and to consider their business strategies. In my opinion, Zara is the best place for people who want to wear a for example a jacket for 100 euro that looks like a jacket for 3000 euro. Disadvantages of Zara 1. Zara’s focus largely lies on imitation of original products which misleads the customer. Those who are aware of this replication or who have lack of fashion consciousness do not suffer, but those interested in purchasing original brands are deceived by these fast fashion trends. 2. Another negative aspect of fast fashion is, it stands for inexpensiveness and actually it is not true. According to the first disadvantage I have read many articles in which is stated that Zara is copying but I wasn’t sure till one day I went out shopping and I saw similarities between Zara and Balmain fashion. Obviously Zara’s men collection was inspired by Balmain. It would be rude to say that Zara has stolen the Balmain collection but it definitely deserves punishment. Zara is a firm with enormous budget but probably its 200 designers are not creative enough that’s why they just copy and paste. But they cannot copy normally because when you closely examine a garment from Balmain for 3000 euro jacket all the details are extremely elaborated even the buttons. Also notice that Balman clothes has no folds on the upper part of the sleeves in comparison to the copy of Zara. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 28
  • 29. Second disadvantage that I have found in the web is that in many case studies is stated that Zara fashion is very cheap. For instance, the group members participating in this research argue that is not true, because it is relatively expensive in comparison to competitors like H&M. Two members of the second semester IBMAN group in the Berlin School of Economics and Law-Mr.Kronsbein and Mr.Cregelin have conducted another research in Berlin to gather data about the effectiveness of sales of the above-mentioned firms. The outcome was surprising there were at least twice as much people with H&M bags, as with Zara ones in the same day and hour. Although, there are small group of posh people with higher incomes which prefer to buy Louis Vuitton , Versace and for them Zara is relatively cheap. In my view, Zara isoverpriced because the real price of garment do not exceeds more than 2-10 euro and it is normal to be sold for price between 20 – 30 euro. For that reason, I and the majority of people that were questioned by me prefer to go to H&M because this firm has clothes with relatively high quality and they are sold for lower prices. Although Zara has many disadvantages but it is still one of the biggest retailer of clothes in world and I respect it for that achievement. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 29
  • 30. THE EFFECTS OF FAST FASHION The Environmental Impact of Fast Fashion The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says the clothing and textiles sector in the UK produces around 3.1m tonnes of carbon dioxide, 2m tonnes of waste and 70m tonnes of waste water per year. Whilst this is less than 1% of the total UK CO2 emissions and 2% of waste it is still a huge amount. Whilst everyone has a need and right to dress well, 2.4 billion items of unworn clothing in Britain’s wardrobes and a wear once culture suggest that significant reductions in the environmental impact of the UK Fashion industry could be made is consumers turned away from fast fashion. Over a series of articles, I want to explore the environmental impact of fast fashion and propose some solutions. Today I want to highlight some of the issues to be considered. If Britain keeps throwing away rubbish at its current rates, it will run out of space by 2018. We send 1.5 million tonnes of clothing to Landfill each year, this has increased. This is about 1.5% of the total. Clothing sent to landfill is problematic in a number of ways, many synthetic fabrics do not decompose, the natural fabrics that do produce methane which contributes to global warming. Unless action is taken soon this problem will get worse each year, people bought a third more clothing in 2006 than they did in 2002, whilst consumption may have slowed due to the economic crisis this is The growth in Fashion consumption had led to a huge growth in water consumption by the Fashion industry. The production of clothing uses water in huge quantities, to put this in perspective the UN recommends that people need a minimum of 50 litres of water per day for the most basic needs such as drinking, cooking and sanitation. Compare this to how much water is used in clothing production; One pair of jeans takes around 2000 litres One T-shirt takes around 400 litres With 3 pairs of jeans sold in the UK every second and 2 billion t-shirts sold worldwide each year, it’s clear that a huge amount of water is diverted for clothing production that could be used by the 10% of the world’s population facing chronic water shortages each day. We will ask what are designers doing to reduce the amount of water used in the production of clothing and what can you do as consumers. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 30
  • 31. The huge use of water isn’t the only environmental problem caused by the Fashion industry. Polyester, the most widely used manufactured fibre, is made from petroleum. With the rise in production in the fashion industry, demand for man-made fibres, especially polyester, has nearly doubled in the last 15 years. Its production requires huge amounts of crude oil and releases acidic gasses such as hydrogen chloride into the air and solvents into the waste water. Cotton is the most pesticide intensive crop in the world: these pesticides injure and kill many people every year. It also takes up a large proportion of agricultural land, much of which is needed by local people to grow their own food. These chemicals typically remain in the fabric after finishing, and are released during the lifetime of the garments. These aren’t the only offenders; Nylon manufacture creates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 310 times more potent than carbon dioxide, PVC is highly toxic and even wool can cause workers to be exposed to harmful chemical in the sheep-dip used. Again we will ask what designers can do to reduce the environmental impact of clothing production and what the risk is to your health of chemicals in clothing. The final cost to consider with regards to Fast Fashion is the human costs. China has emerged as the largest exporter of fast fashion, accounting for 30% of world apparel exports. According to figures from the U.S. National Labour Committee, some Chinese workers make as little as 12–18 cents per hour working in poor conditions. And with the fierce global competition that demands ever lower production costs, many emerging economies are aiming to get their share of the world’s apparel markets, even if it means lower wages and poor conditions for workers. What does that mean for the sweatshop worker? The Guardian described the life of a sweatshop worker in an expose of a GAP supplier, 16 hour working days, working for no pay, housed in dirty overcrowded conditions with the risk of beatings if they aren’t seen to work hard of good enough. Did I mention that this worker was 10 years old? It’s no wonder that sweatshop workers have higher suicide rates than the local populations or that factory owners have been installing netting to stop workers at the Foxconn factory jumping to their deaths. Whilst these examples may be extreme, the average wage for sweatshop workers in around 50pence per day ($0.65) and the average working day is 12 hours long, with minimal breaks and 6 days’ work per week. This is the human cost of Fast Fashion. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 31
  • 32. FAST FASHION IS LIKE FAST FOOD it’s cheap, addictive and unsustainable ‘We now buy 40% of all our clothes at value retailers, with just 17% of our clothing budget.’ TNS Worldpanel (2006) Fashion Focus issue 29 A Cambridge University study reports that in 2006, people were buying a third more clothes than they were in 2002 . Brands began competing against each other for market share by introducing more lines per year at lower costs, culminating in a situation where ‘fashion houses now offer up to 18 collections a year’ and the low cost, so called ‘value end’ is ‘booming; doubling in size in just 5 years.‘ This naturally has led to pressure on the supply chain. “Buyers pressure factories to deliver quality products with ever-shorter lead times. Most factories just don’t have the tools and expertise to manage this effectively, so they put the squeeze on the workers. It’s the only margin they have to play with.” (Oxfam report, 2004) The increase in the amount of clothes people consume also has consequences for the environment. Statistics suggest that on average, UK consumers send 30kg of clothing and textiles per capita to landfill each year and that 1.2 million tonnes of clothing went to landfill in 2005 in the UK alone. Some companies have started to address problems associated with fast fashion through training their buyers in responsible buying practices. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 32
  • 33. OPNION OF THE FEW PEOPLE ASSOCIATED WITH THE INDUSTRY Elizabeth Cline Our consumption of clothing is growing at an alarming rate. Most Americans have closets brimming, if not overflowing with clothes. Few of those purchases are made here -- 3% of apparel is produced in the United States, down from about half in 1990. While American factories sit empty, our thirst for cheap imported clothing has kept the cash registers at many stores humming throughout the recession. Fashion's environmental footprint has also mushroomed. There are more than 80 billion garments produced around the world today, and according to a study by the UK's Cambridge University, the industry is creating 70 million tons of waste water as of 2006 in the UK alone. In China, the largest clothing manufacturer in the world, the textile industry is also a major polluter. Last year, I traveled undercover to southern China and saw smog enshrouding a landscape of factories and, more shockingly, hundreds of factory workers wearing cheap, trendy clothes. As China's consumer class grows, already-scarce resources like water and petroleum may soon buckle under all of this shopping. In July, when it came out that the Olympic uniforms were made in China, Americans were outraged, making it clear that we're growing weary of soulless consumption. I believe we're ready for more meaningful wardrobes, and to support our amazing clothing heritage. My mother recently gave me a dress that she wore in high school in the 1960s. It was made by Jonathan Logan, a juniors brand that was considered cheap for its day -- the dress is 100% wool, fully lined, finished with French seams and made in the USA. What's so wonderful about locally made fashion is that it offers designers tight control over their product, has a lower environmental footprint and makes it easier to keep an eye on any labor problems. And according to a Cotton Incorporated Lifestyle Monitor survey, approximately 55% of consumers agree it is "very/somewhat important" that their clothing is made in the U.S. I was recently in Portland, Oregon, and met with the owners of Spooltown and the Portland Garment Factory, two small shops that have opened recently in a city that had very little existing garment industry infrastructure. They were able to build profitable manufacturing businesses from scratch. Just imagine what other Americans cities could do with the right government and consumer support. Major fashion brands also have an obligation to dramatically reduce the amount of water and energy used and waste emitted in making and selling their clothes, as well as to offer consumers more stylish products that are made out of recycled and eco-friendly materials. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 33
  • 34. Nike is creating athletic team uniforms out of recycled PET bottles and has recycled more than 28 million pairs of athletic shoes through their Reuse-a-Shoe program; Eileen Fisher has just released a beautiful line of bluesign-certified silk shirts dyed without hazardous chemicals; and H&M has agreed to stop using toxic and nonbiodegradable perfluorinated compounds, called PFCs, in their outerwear by 2013. These efforts need to be expanded. Clothing designers also need to rethink the materials they're using and how they're sourced. Fortunately, eco-friendly textiles have improved so much in recent years that luxurious eco- friendly fibers like Tencel, Modal and Cupro have far more in common with silk than a hemp sack. Some emerging designers are eschewing new textiles altogether for upcycling, which means taking waste and reclaimed textile material and turning it into a product with higher value. I recently bought a lovely red tunic upcycled from a men's dress shirt produced by a small Brooklyn designer called State. Designer on the rise: Mohapatra's moment According to the Environmental Protection Agency, we are throwing away 68 pounds of textiles per person per year and donating such a staggering volume of clothes that a majority of our donations to charity have to be sold to textile recyclers who then sell more than half of our used clothes overseas, largely to Africa. Retailers like Eileen Fisher and Patagonia are accepting returns of their worn products -- Fisher resells them in her Green Eileen retail store, while Patagonia recycles theirs into new products. Fast-fashion stores need to start these types of recycling programs. Consumers can also take more responsibility by repairing and caring for the clothes they own, trading their duds at clothing swaps and, for the particularly creative, refashioning last year's styles into fresh looks. Now for the million-dollar question: How can you afford this? It all starts by taking an honest look at how you're spending money on clothes. The average American consumer spends $1,700 a year on apparel. Most of us own more clothing than we know what to do with, so I encourage people to first of all buy less clothing and to try to limit trendy, throwaway purchases to only one or two a season. Divert the rest of your clothing budget to clothes that you truly love and are going to wear for several seasons. If just a quarter of our purchases were put toward locally made or eco-friendly fashion and fashion companies with a commitment to sustainability, we could change the face of the industry. I also believe we'd be happier with our clothes. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 34
  • 35. The Wasteful Culture of 'Fast Fashion' Thanks to globalization and cheap labor abroad, companies are now able to inexpensively and quickly churn out trendy garments at low prices. In an age of rampant consumerism, as evidenced by tens of millions of views of YouTube "haul videos" and other media devoted solely to materialism, retail chains such as Forever 21, H&M, and Charlotte Russe have proliferated at an alarming rate over the last decade. "Fast Fashion," as the movement is known, has paved the way for outright disposable fashion. It's not uncommon for shoppers to don items once or twice before discarding them. Sometimes, it's not even a choice because the garments are so poorly made that they fall apart after a single wearing. "The specificity of the fashion business is that it is subject to trends," says Andrew A. King, professor of business administration at the Tuck School of Business, who has researched the fashion industry. "As such it brings suppliers to seasonally offer consumers new alternatives to stimulate their purchases. Fast fashion poses a threat since its logic is based on copying the designs of high-end producers and quickly diffusing them—sometimes even before the high- end goods, which are based on a complicated and high quality supply chain, are distributed. As such, it mines the overall investment in style by design departments of high end producers." Research by the American Apparel and Footwear associations tends to back this up. They report that Americans annually purchase an average of eight pairs of shoes and 68 pieces of clothing. Meanwhile, secondhand clothes molder. According to Elizabeth Cline's book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, a New York based Salvation Army only sells approximately 11,000 items of the five tons of clothing which is processed daily. Unfortunately, I expect this trend to get worse before it gets better. As upscale brands such Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, and Prada report flagging sales growth in the luxury market, shoppers will flee to lower end stores to indulge their buying addictions. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 35
  • 36. This culture is a problem because it often exploits low-wage workers in other countries, feeds an industry of counterfeits, and is environmentally unsustainable. Moreover, the movement is not limited to the apparel industry. Our landfills are packed with disposable products such as razors, drinking cups, and even furniture. Single-use goods are nothing new. Nor is planned obsolescence, which has existed for decades. But this movement is becoming more disturbing as the trend accelerates. New electronic gadgets are constantly launched, but we haven't figured out how to recycle all of the old components nor handle the hazardous chemicals in their cores. We need to shift back to a time when longevity and craftsmanship are valued. Harding-Lane's CEO Stephen Gifford agrees and commits his company to promoting eco-friendly materials and sustainable manufacturing of baseball caps with needlepoint stitching. His inspiration springs from watching more and more garbage wash up on the New England beaches he loved as a child. He says his company, Harding-Lane, "prides itself on producing high- quality products whose proceeds allow for us to explore the ways in which we can live a more environmentally responsible life." His company Web site offers visitors the story behind the product and links to some of his favorite companies and organizations that are also doing their part to educate consumers and protect the environment. It's a good start, though it's doubtful such a counter movement will have the same momentum as the culture which necessitated its birth. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 36
  • 37. PLANS TO REDUCE THE FAST FASHION TREND The plan aims to make fashion more environmentally sound and ethical The government has launched a campaign to tackle the environmental impact of a "fast fashion" culture. About two million tonnes of clothing end up in landfill every year. More than 300 retailers, producers and designers are part of the "sustainable clothing action plan", launched at the start of London Fashion Week. Ministers say customers should be sure clothing is made, sold and disposed of "without damaging the environment or using poor labour practices". The initiative outlines commitments to make fashion more sustainable throughout its lifecycle: from design and manufacture to retail and disposal. It hopes to draw attention to the environmental impact of cheap, throwaway clothes, which have become hugely popular on the High Street but are adding to the UK's landfill. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says the clothing and textiles sector in the UK produces around 3.1m tonnes of carbon dioxide, 2m tonnes of waste and 70m tonnes of waste water per year. Gases such as CO2, emitted by fossil fuel burning, and methane, released from landfill sites, are widely believed to be contributing to global warming. As part of the action plan: Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury's have pledged to increase their ranges of Fairtrade and organic clothing, and support fabrics which can be recycled more easily Tesco is banning cotton from countries known to use child labour Charities such as Oxfam and the Salvation Army will open more sustainable clothing boutiques featuring high quality second-hand clothing and new designs made from recycled garments The Centre for Sustainable Fashion at the London College of Fashion will be resourced to provide practical support to the clothing sector The Fairtrade Foundation will aim for at least 10% of cotton clothing in the UK to be Fairtrade material by 2012.The Minister for Sustainability, Lord Hunt, announced the plan at the launch of the sixth season of estethica, the world's leading showcase of ethical designer fashion, at London Fashion Week. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 37
  • 38. He said climate change was a bigger problem than the economy, and the clothing industry was "responsible for lots and lots of greenhouse gas emissions". Launching the action plan, he said: "It's going to be great for the fashion industry, great for the climate and for anyone who's in the supply industry in developing countries to those working in retail. "We believe customers want sustainable clothing and we want to give them as much as possible." Complex challenges Jane Milne, business environment director of the British Retail Consortium, said retailers should be "applauded, not criticised, for providing customers with affordable clothing, particularly during these tough economic times". "They're raising standards for overseas workers, offering clothes made from organic and Fairtrade cotton and encouraging the re-use and recycling of unwanted clothes," she added. The challenge is to reduce the amount of damage we are doing now, while a revised, sustainable model of consumption is created Malcolm Ball, ASBCI chairman Fast fashion from UK to Uganda The ASBCI, the forum for clothing and textiles, said the industry was "very cognisant" of the environmental issues it faced and "highly motivated" to find solutions. Chairman Malcolm Ball said the challenges facing the industry and the consumer were "complex". Taking cotton as an example, he said organic cotton was highly desirable but represented only a fraction of world production, adding that growing it "requires vast amounts of the most precious resource on earth - water". "There are many voices who argue the current Western model of fast and cheap fashion is totally unsustainable in the medium to long term," he said. "The challenge is to reduce the amount of damage we are doing now, while a revised, sustainable model of consumption is created." Cheap, throwaway clothes are adding to the UK's landfill Allana McAspurn, of ethical fashion campaign body Made-By, said change would be gradual: "It's about continuous improvement - a step-by-step approach. "We've created a situation where we've got really cheap clothes and that's not going too re- addressed overnight." C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 38
  • 39. IF WE LOOK IN THE CASE OF AMERICA Amazingly, Americans now have closets brimming with clothes and yet we often find ourselves thinking, "I have nothing to wear." This common refrain is the clothing equivalent of eating a high-calorie fast food meal and feeling hungry a half hour later. Just like fast food, fast fashion feeds on our basest urges—thriving on impulsiveness and our sense of scarcity in bad economic times. We need an alternative to fast fashion not only because it undermines the environment, the economy, and human rights, but because it clutters our homes and our minds with stuff we don’t really desire or value. But how do we begin to address the problem? If we shopped a little less (even if we cut our consumption in half, we’d still be buying almost three new garments a month) and instead diverted more of our dollars to locally-made designers and companies who have strong environmental and human rights records, the rest of the industry would be forced to take notice. Fashioningchange.com is a fantastic resource that directs consumers of popular brands like H&M and Forever 21 to ethical alternatives. Consumers could also make a difference by supporting brands that are not simply stylish but also have some semblance of a shelf life. Part of being a responsible fashion consumer is thinking about the entire life cycle of clothing, and owning well-crafted clothes that are more of an investment motivates us to repair, refashion, and maintain them. Good clothing is not unlike a home-cooked meal. It takes a little more thought and planning and costs a little more, but leaves us feeling more satisfied. Cheap fashion has fundamentally changed the way most Americans dress. We buy a new garment a week on average and make regular pilgrimages to outlet malls, cheap chains like Forever 21, and the sales racks of department stores and off-priced retailers like TJ Maxx. Retailers are producing clothes at enormous volumes in order to drive prices down and profits up, and they've turned clothing into a disposable good. But what are we doing with all these cheap clothes? And more importantly, what are they doing to us, our society, our environment, and our economic well-being? In Overdressed, Cline (a former fast-fashion junkie herself) sets out to uncover the true nature of the cheap fashion juggernaut, tracing the rise of budget clothing chains, the death of middle-market and independent retailers, and the roots of our obsession with deals and steals. She travels to cheap-chic factories in China and Bangladesh and looks at the impact (both here and abroad) of America's drastic increase in imports. She even explores how the pressures of cheap have forced retailers to drastically reduce detail and craftsmanship; making the clothes we wear more and more uniform, basic, and low quality. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 39
  • 40. Cline shows how consumers can break the buy-and-toss cycle by supporting innovative and stylish sustainable designers and retailers, returning to custom clothing, refashioning clothes throughout their lifetime, and mending and even making clothes themselves. Overdressed will inspire you to vote with your dollars and find a path back to being well dressed and feeling good about what you wear. Fashion can do a lot for the public personas of politicians’ wives. Jackie Kennedy’s iconic pillbox hats, boxy crew cardigans and bouffant hairstyle inspired women around the world to imitate her glamorous look. Today’s political spouses still sport Jackie O.–level bling; take, say, the $2,000 Sophie The allet sundress Michelle Obama wore on her Hawaiian vacation or Ann Romney’s $990 Reed Krakoff bird-print blouse worn in a recent television interview. But in the wake of the Great Recession, style hawkers have been quick to point out the more affordable items those women are donning too. Thriftier threads can make high-rolling politicos and their wives seem more relatable. Kate Middleton’s first postnuptial outing with Prince William, in a $90 cornflower blue shift from Spanish retailer Zara, endeared her to Middle England. In the U.S., Michelle Obama’s Today show appearance in an H&M polka-dot ditty had a similar effect. But the rise of bercheap apparel chains like Zara, H&M and Uniqlo, which are popularly called fast-fashion retailers for their ability to churn out modish styles at record speed, also carries big costs for U.S. apparel makers and the environment. In recent years, cut-rate European and Japanese clothiers have raked in more customers and bigger profits than traditional U.S. apparel companies like Gap and American Eagle Outfitters by mass- producing lower-quality digs that keep pace with runway styles. That’s led more shoppers to cast aside hefty chunks of their wardrobes as fresh looks come up, which leads to more waste. The fashion frenzy has picked up speed since the financial crisis, as traditional U.S. clothiers try to win back trend seekers on a budget from more-agile competitors. Slow goers like Gap and Macy’s are swapping out big orders of staples like T-shirts for smaller, more frequent batches of hot knickknacks like handbags and hair bobbles. But with wages rising in China, the fast-fashion model–which relies on higher sales volumes and slimmer profit margins– could hurt American clothing companies and jobs, since they rely more on Chinese manufacturers. Unlike with European brands that can source quickly from nearby locations like Turkey and Romania, suppliers closer to U.S. apparel makers tend to be more expensive. There’s a trend in fashion that could clash with a First Lady’s persona. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 40
  • 41. A CASE STUDY SHOWING THE SITUTION IN THE USA TAKEN FROM THE BOOKSEVEN PAIRS OF $7 SHOES In the summer of 2009, I found myself standing in front of a rack of shoes at Kmart in Astor Place in Manhattan. This particular location is inside of the former annex to Wanamaker’s, one of those regal mid-century department stores that sold fine goods of all varieties, including high-end fashions direct from Paris. Today, Wanamaker’s is gone. Today, Wanamaker’s is a Kmart. The rack itself stretched up above my head, and the shoes—canvas slip-ons made of nothing more than a rubber sole glued to a sheath of cotton—hung down like fruit from a tree. In my mind, these shoes might as well have grown there on that metal tree. They had no origins, no story. They just magically appeared. And to my unbelievable fortune, they had been marked down from $15 to $7 a pair. My synapses starting fringe, my pulse quickened, and before my thinking brain could kick in, I was standing at the cash register with my bright red plastic shopping basket brimming with seven pairs of plucked slip-ons. I cleared the store out of my size. My arms ached as I carried my haul in two parachute-sized bags back to the subway. Those shoes looked like a cross-section of the earth’s crust within a few weeks—the thin rubber soles cleaving and separating from the flimsy canvas tops. Before I could wear them all out, I got tired of them and the style changed, so I’ve got two pairs left taking up space in my closet. The average price of clothing has plummeted in recent decades. And cheap clothes have undergone a total image overhaul, where they no longer imply some inherent compromise in style and quality. Bud- get fashion is seen as chic, practical, and democratic, and our conversations are dotted with wow-inducing stories of clothing “steals.” At a birthday party last year, a college friend thrust a ruffed, canary yellow pleather bag in my face. “Five dollars!” she boasted. Another friend messaged me online recently to exclaim: “I just paid $10 for a $50 dress! $30 for a $60 one!” Fashion magazines, tabloids, and morn- ing talk shows now routinely run stories on how to land fashion deals. For a decade, I only bought cheap fashion, and the vast majority of it was from just four budget-fashion retailers that seemed to appear out of nowhere about ten years ago: H&M, Old Navy, Forever 21, and Target. I owned a few items from off-price stores Ross and T.J. Maxx, as well as a buzzy basics chain called UNIQLO and the Spanish retailer Zara. H&M, Zara, and Forever 21, known as fast-fashion retailers, are experts in constantly stocking new trends and know exactly how to hook consumers into shopping more regularly. But these aren’t the only retailers moving away from the seasonal cycle of selling and moving toward luring shoppers into their stores on a continual basis. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 41
  • 42. There are some regional differences in the cheap fashion available to people. Maybe your preference is for discounted name brands at the outlet mall or T.J. Maxx or for regional fast fashion stores like Cato, Charlotte Russe, Rainbow, and Rue 21. Maybe you shop at department store chains like Kohl’s or at pure discounters like Wal-Mart or even Dollar Store. But these retailers are all running on the same high volume, low-priced fashion formula that has squeezed the life out of the rest of the industry, forcing independent department stores to con- Solid ate, middle-market manufacturers to shutter, and independent retailers to either go high- end or go home. Budget fashion has now remade the entire apparel industry in its image. And it has profoundly changed the way we think of clothing. We tell ourselves we can’t afford higher prices. We’re in the midst of a recession. Health care costs are out of control. And have you seen gas prices? But many consumers are just hooked on a cheap fashion treadmill—we’ve quickly grown accustomed to paying less and get- ting more. My sister will pay $400 a month to drive a nice car, but don’t try to charge her or me more than that $40 for a dress. I’ve seen guys in my local coffee shop working on $1,800 Apple laptops and wearing $10 Wal-Mart shoes. Americans spend more money on eating out in restaurants every year than they do on clothes. It’s not that we can’t pay more money for fashion; we just don’t see any reason to. As any economist will tell you, cheaper prices stimulate consumption, and the current low rate of fashion has spurred a shopping free- for-all, where we are buying and hoarding roughly twenty billion garments per year as a nation.1 we’re running out of oil and water. Icebergs are melting. We’ve permanently altered our climate. China, where most of our clothes are now produced and where the population is gaining a taste for fashion, is in environmental crisis and on track to gobble up more fibre and fashion-related resources than we do. The problems created by the fashion industry in the West are quickly being matched and multiplied in other parts of the world. Buying so much clothing, and treating it as if it is disposable, is putting a huge added weight on the environment and is simply unsustainable. Here’s an incredible fact—I paid less than $30 per item on average for each piece of clothing in my closet. Most of my shoes cost less than $15 a pop. That clothes can be had for so little money is historically unclothes can be had for so little money is historically unprecedented. Clothes have almost always been expensive, hard to come by, and highly valued; they have been used as alternate currency in many societies. Well into the twentieth century, clothes were pricey and precious enough that they were mended and cared for and reimagined countless times, and most people had a few outfits that they wore until they wore them out. How things have changed. We’ve gone from making good use of the clothes we own to C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 42
  • 43. buying things we’ll never or barely wear. We are caught in a cycle of consumption and waste that is unsettling at best and I think unsatisfying at its core. When I started writing this book, I got all my clothes out of storage and piled them up in my living room. I cleaned out the closets in my bedroom and hall, pulled out the bins from underneath my bed, and dragged up three trash bags and two oversized plastic containers from my basement. I made a mountain of it, and then sorted it all, making lists of the brand name or designer, the country of origin, the fabric, and, if I could remember, the year I bought it and how much I paid. It took me almost a week to go through it all. My roommate helped me bring the clothes up from the basement and commented, dryly, “I find owning so much clothing overwhelming.” It was such a simple statement, but she said it as if I’d done it on purpose. Each of those purchases seemed almost inconsequential in the moment, a deal here, a deal there. But just like a few extra calories here and there result in an expanding waistline, my closet and my life were consumed with cheap fashion. Here’s the damage: I owned sixty-one tops, sixty T-shirts, thirty- four tank tops, twenty-one skirts, twenty sweaters, fifteen cardigans and hooded sweatshirts, thirteen pairs of jeans, twenty-four dresses, twenty pairs of shoes, eighteen belts, fourteen pairs of shorts, fourteen jackets, twelve bras, eleven pairs of tights, five blazers, four long- sleeved shirts, three pairs of workout pants, two pairs of dress pants, two pairs of pyjama pants, and one vest. Socks and underwear not- Withstanding, I owned 354 pieces of clothing. Americans buy an average of sixty-four items of clothing a year, a little more than one piece of clothing per week.2 It might not seem all that extreme, until you see it all piled up in your living room. My wardrobe is what the average American produces in a little over five years, precisely the amount of time I lived in my apartment. My 300-plus-piece clothing collection made me almost exactly an average American consumer. Another humbling fact about my wardrobe: I owned more clothing than I did anything else, and probably knew the least about it of any- thing I buy. I checked the labels on my eggs, but not on my T-shirts. I didn’t know the significance of fbers like polyester, nylon, or elastin, which so much of our clothing is now made of. I knew nothing about garment construction, nor could I recognize quality. And I was certainly no fashionista with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the designers where all these trends were coming from, although I some- times wish I looked as put together as those girls. I have friends who were surprised I was writing a book about clothes. You? They’d say, scanning my outfit for some missing sign of great style. But one need not have the sharpest fashion acumen or know a single thing about clothes to accumulate massive amounts of them. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 43
  • 44. I always hear in the news that we’re going to shop our way out of the current recession. It’s hard to believe when you consider what’s happened to the domestic garment industry, once an important segment of America’s manufacturing base. The United States now makes 3 per cent of the clothing its consumers purchase, down from about 50 per cent in 1990. We have chosen low-priced clothes made in other countries, and the loss of our garment trades has contributed to a de- cline in domestic wages, the loss of the middle class, and the problem of unemployment, especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. It would now take tremendous investment and training to get our garment industry back in shape to compete with other countries, particularly China, where a staggering 41 per cent of our clothes are now made. I travelled to the factories there and was astonished at not only the sophistication of their factories but by how the American consumer lifestyle is spreading there as well. Many books about fashion begin with an argument for why we should take fashion seriously. I’m going to take a different approach and say that fashion largely deserves its bad reputation. It’s now a powerful, trillion-dollar global industry that has too much influence over our pocketbooks, self-image, and storage spaces. It behaves with embarrassingly little regard for the environment or human rights. It changes the rules of what we’re supposed to wear constantly, and we seem to have lost our sense of self along with changing trends. We oscillate through countless colors, prints, and silhouettes each year. Most of the time we are buying the same basic item of clothing—tank tops and sweaters in the latest color, simple blouses with some added embellishment, jeans in a new fit—over and over again, just tweaked slightly with the season’s latest must-have feature. Designer or brand name clothing has become a proxy for quality and style. We travel sixty miles round trip on average and pay the at- tending gas and tolls to get deep discounts on brand names at outlet malls.3 Some of us stand in line at Target or H&M or Macy’s, overnight in some cases, to be the first to grab shoddy facsimiles of clothing by luxury fashion designers like Versace and Missoni. We’ve completely lost our gauge of whether or not the material garment we’re buying is worth our money. The fashion industry has largely been split into ultra-high-end and low-end clothing and consumers have been divided into warring camps of deal-hunters and prestige shoppers, with little in between. And with “good” clothes now outrageously priced, shopping cheap is more of a non-choice than we recognize. Fashion should be flexible and responsive. Instead, global chains are trying to take the risk out of fashion by selling the same carefully orchestrated trends, which are repeated on the racks of virtually every retailer, making our store-bought looks feel homogenous and generic. A half-century of competition based on low price has also forced the fashion industry to cut corners on quality, construction, and detail, leaving most of us wearing very basic and crudely slapped together clothes. Just two decades ago, the garment industry wasn’t nearly so consolidated. Our choices weren’t nearly so narrow and controlled and focused on the bottom line. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 44
  • 45. Fashion is obsolescence. Fashion is change. The fact that thousands of affordable variations on the hot, new look can go from design concept to a store rack in a matter of weeks or a couple of months is, if nothing else, a modern marvel—as designs have to be drawn and transmitted, fabric has to be ordered, and the garment has to be sewn by human beings before being typically shipped around the world to a retail outlet. It could be argued that the fashion industry has mastered what it is designed to do—sell affordable versions of new styles. Because of low prices, chasing trends is now a mass activity, accessible to anyone with a few bucks to spare. Trends are exhausted faster, giving the fashion industry yet another opportunity to come up with something else for us to buy and wear. This cycle is speeding up, and more trends than ever now exist at any given moment. In Brooklyn, I watch them spread before my eyes. One week, I spotted a handful of people wearing sailor- inspired blue-and-white striped shirts. Two months later, virtually one in every five people seemed to be wearing the fad. In recent months, I’ve seen the same thing happen with high- waisted shorts, jumpsuits, midriffs, combat boots, and floral print dresses. Fashion is publicly expressed. Everyone can see who’s out of step. And keeping up with the latest styles now demands that we shop constantly. T.J. Maxx recently ran a commercial featuring a fashion stu- dent named Lindsay, who chirps, “I never wear the same thing twice.” T.J. Maxx would have us believe cash-strapped college students should buy a new piece of clothing for every single day of the year. Similarly, many celebrities are never photographed wearing the same thing twice. Today’s trendsetters seem to be the people who change their outfits the most often. Here we are, having arrived in a so-called fashion democracy, where everyone can afford to be stylish and follow trends. How does it feel? I started writing this book because chasing trends with one eye on the price tag didn’t get me any closer to liking my clothes. My wardrobe ultimately left me feeling slavish and passive. I definitely wasn’t any closer to being well dressed. I was devoting too much time and way too much space in my house to a habit I knew shamefully little about. Why would someone who knows nothing about clothes own so much clothing? People crave connections to their stuff, and I was missing that connection. Our fashion choices do have social outcomes and meanings, and I had to dig deep to find them. Supply chains are spread out all over the world, few of them in the United States. We’re completely in the dark about what fashion has cost the environment and American jobs. These costs certainly aren’t on price tags, dropping lower and lower every year. I went in search of the rest of the story of our clothes. Most of our lives are spent in clothing. It’s a basic need, but more than that, clothing and style are a huge and integral part of our every- day lives. Clothes are an essential part of the economy and easily the second largest consumer sector, behind food.4 Dressing sharp, dressing up, and caring about what we wear existed long before the fashion industry, and these values can exist outside of it as well. Surely our closets can be defined by something other than price-gouging designers, discounted brand names, or the cheap trends that follow them both. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 45
  • 46. Clothes could have more meaning and longevity if we think less about owning the latest or cheapest thing and develop more of a relationship with the things we wear. Building a wardrobe over time, saving up and investing in fewer well-made pieces, obsessing over the perfect hem, luxuriating in fabrics, and patching up and altering our clothes have become old- fashioned habits. But they’re also deeply satisfying antidotes to the empty uniformity of cheap. If more of us picked up the lost art of sewing or reconnected with the seamstresses and tailors in our communities, we could all be our own fashion designers and constantly reinvent, personalize, and perfect the things we own. I haven’t just looked to the past for clues on how to dress going forward. Thanks to advancing technology, more progressive garment production models, and the development of environmentally friendly textiles, it’s now entirely possible to design clothing responsibly with- out sacrificing style. In fact, I found that ethical designers, without the pressures of having to satisfy corporate shareholders or consistently dazzle with high- profle runway shows, are not only working with some of the most interesting and amazing-feeling fabrics on the market, they are some of the most innovative designers in the industry right now. In the days after I lugged that parachute-sized bag of slip-ons down Second Avenue, shamefaced, I started thinking about how I shopped growing up. It was the mid-nineties, not so long ago, and the global clothing giants had taken their hold. But clothes were still expensive enough that buying them was a semiannual treat. In middle school, my friends and I would share new clothes to make our wardrobes seem bigger. But I more often shopped in thrift stores because they were affordable and full of unexpected treasures. I loved scrounging through Salvation Army looking for T-shirts that I could cut up or pants that I could shred and restyle. My mom also had a sewing ma- chine when I was little, and a few times I remember going to a seam- stress to have our clothes taken in or out. I didn’t have much to go on, other than these little hints that cloth- ing used to foster relationships and stay with us through life. We were once stewards of the clothes we owned. The promise of a different way of doing things, of actually liking and understanding clothes, and the embarrassment of lugging a supersized bag of shoes on the subway were enough to set me on a journey. In the process, I found out how exactly cheap fashion took over, met the people who have escaped the tyranny of trends, and ultimately curbed my own dead- end cravings for low-cost clothes. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 46
  • 47. SURVEY QUESTIONEAR NAME: SEX: AGE: OCCUPATION: 1. Do you like fashionable products? YES/NO (If NO directly move to question 7) 2. Are you always updated about the latest trend? YES/NO 3. How often do you change your wardrobe? Every month Every 2 month Every 3 month Every 6 month 4. How much do you spend while you go for shopping? Rs. 3000 Rs. 5000 Rs. 10,000 Rs. 20,000 C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 47
  • 48. 5. What brands do you mostly prefer? Mango Zara Hugo boss Chanel H & M Ralph Lauren Jimmy choo 6. Are you aware of the new collection launched every season? YES/NO 7. Given a choice what would you pick? 1 Pair of Chanel denim or 1 pair of denim and tee from Zara 8. What’s your top priority when you go buy clothes? Style Comfort Fashion Looks 9. How many times do you go for shopping or buying new clothes? Every 2nd week Every month Every 3 months Mention if any other……………….. 10. Do you prefer high-end fashion or FAD? C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 48
  • 49. SURVEY ANALYSIS 1.DO you like fashionable products YES no 4% 96% 2.Are you always updated about the latest trend? yes no 21% 79% C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 49
  • 50. 3.how often do you change your wardrobe? every month erery 2 month every 3 month every 6 month 23% 18% 21% 38% 4. What brand do you prefer? Mango Zara H & M Chanel Hugo boss Jimmy Choo Ralph Lauren 6% 9% 12% 20% 9% 13% 31% 5. How much do you spend while shopping? amount Rs. 3000 amount Rs. 5000 amount Rs.10000 amount Rs.20000 4% 23% 34% 39% C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 50
  • 51. 6.Are you aware of the new collection launched every season? yes no 30% 70% 7. Given a choice what would you pick? 1 pair of Chanel denim 1 denim & 1 tee from ZARA 32% 68% 8. what's your top priority when you buy new clothes? style comfort fashion looks 27% 18% 19% 36% C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 51
  • 52. 9. how often do you go for buying new clothes? every 2nd week every month every 3 month others 13% 14% 27% 46% 10. Do you prefer high end fashion , FAD or both? high end fashion FAD both 29% 39% 32% C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 52
  • 53. INFERENCE AND SUGGESTION Fast fashion is now a rising trend in the global fashion market, the youth today are so aware of the changing trend and fashion that they don’t care whether it’s a FAD or high end fashion in order to maintain their style and looks. Nothing can be better if people get fashion in much less price than before. The survey conducted by me in the campus and online tells that people have lot of money to spend on shopping and buying fashion. They change their wardrobe very frequently which show which shows that the fashion today have become fast and people are always looking for best deal in term of money. People are not bothered about the brand name and quality at all; they are just looking for more and more trendy clothes which they are getting in every 2 weeks’ time and in a much cheaper price. The phrase very correctly describes the situation “fast fashion is like fast food.” If we see the current scenario due to this fast fashion which is available very cheaply there are lot of wastage and it also has an adverse effect on the environment. Thought a lot steps are being taken to slow down this trend all over the world but looking at the top retailer in the world like ZARA and H & M the way they are expanding their business it is really a very hard task to even slow down the process which is FAST FASHION CHEAP FASHION. Interestingly the survey shows a very nice result that people still prefer high end branded fashionable product but their buying habit tells a completely different story. In my survey I mostly targeted youth and tried to know how and what they think when it comes to fashion, FAD and high end fashion. Though this trend of fast fashion is tickling up from the youth to the older generation gradually but the result shows the older generation still prefer high fashion branded clothes over the on-going fast fashion cheap fashion. Fast fashion cheap fashion with all its merits and demerits is fast moving on-going trend which is very difficult to slow it down with the big retailer involved in the business and expanding it very fast all over the world it is there to stay. C o l l o q u i u m P a p e r Page 53