How do you know if an item of clothing is fast fashion? There are a few red flags to look out for, proponents of slow fashion say.
Is the thing ultra cheap? If the price is too good to be true, then someone else is paying the cost. That’s usually a low-paid factory worker, or the environment, according to the slow fashion blog, Green Threads.
What is the clothing made from? If it’s made from synthetic fabrics, such as polyester, acrylic and nylon, then it comes from plastic. Unlike natural materials, clothing made from this stuff is fast and cheap to produce.
It’s not great for the environment either.
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Total greenhouse gas emissions from textiles production clocks in at 1.2 billion tons a year – that’s more emissions than all international flights and maritime ships combined, according to an article by management consultants McKinsey & Co headlined What is fast fashion?, published in January.
Synthetic clothing also sheds microplastics into our rivers and oceans every time you wash it.
Another fast fashion screamer is if there is fresh stock every time you visit the shop or website – the looks are literally fast changing.
A constant treadmill of “new collections”, “drops”, “sales” and “new season” items are a dead giveaway that the manufacturer’s primary concern is making and shifting stock as quickly as possible.
To keep pace with this unrelenting hamster wheel of “looks”, you must keep buying, so they can keep making money.
Do you get rid of items of clothing after just a few wears? That’s another sign that you’re buying fast fashion. The pieces fall out of fashion, or they just fall apart.
If the clothing is poorly made, with loose threads or buttons, and is badly fitting, chances are it was made fast, and not designed to last.
Some fast fashion consumers treat low-price garments as almost disposable, discarding them after only seven wears, according to McKinsey & Co.
For every five garments produced, the equivalent of three end up in landfill or are incinerated each year, the management consultancy says.
Many fast fashion items end up on clothing resale websites too.
Trawl second-hand sites such as Vinted and you’ll find millions of Zara, H&M, Shein and Primark items, according to a June 2024 report from Fashion United, a fashion industry business intelligence company.
Some of the items still have the sales tags on – a sign that trends are moving so quickly that consumers don’t even take the opportunity to wear what they bought.
Keep your clothes in use for an extra nine months and it reduces their environmental footprint by 20 to 30 per cent, according to Wrap, an environmental NGO.
Fast fashion is, meanwhile, getting replaced itself by something called “ultra-fast fashion”, according to McKinsey.
As of 2023, the Chinese retailer Shein consistently churns out up to 10,000 new designs per day, according to McKinsey.
Shein’s products, on average, are less expensive than its older counterparts.
Another marker of fast fashion, according to Green Threads, is the sector’s aggressive marketing tactics, used to create a sense of urgency and to encourage impulse purchases
Shein’s average item price is US$14, compared with US$26 at fast fashion retailer H&M and US$34 at Zara, says McKinsey.
In response to an Irish Times query, Shein says it is not a fast fashion company, but has a “customer-driven, on-demand” business model, with a “focus on quality and value”.
It says its “digital supply chain” enables it to quickly adapt what it orders from manufacturers based on customer purchases. This differs from mass production as it reduces inventory waste, it says.
Another marker of fast fashion, according to Green Threads, is the sector’s aggressive marketing tactics, used to create a sense of urgency and to encourage impulse purchases.
In May this year, Ireland’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), along with national consumer authorities in Belgium, France and the Netherlands, and the European Commission, called on Shein to stop practices such as fake discounts, pressure selling tactics, and unclear information regarding consumer rights, which potentially breach EU consumer law.
Shein told The Irish Times it’s working with regulators to demonstrate its commitment to complying with EU laws and that its priority is to ensure consumers can shop “safely and reliably”.
