Quick to Buy, Not to Question: A Look into Fast Fashion

Everyone loves to look, feel and be at their best. For some, this means putting on their favorite worn-out beanie or donning their only pair of khakis. For others, looking their best means turning towards the ever expanding universe of fast fashion. 

In a CNN article from 2023, fast fashion is defined as “A business model that focuses on the production of garments in bulk, and as quickly as possible, in response to current trends.” Several brands adhering to this model have risen in popularity in recent years, including Shein, Temu and Zara, which all market fashionable products for incredibly low prices.

“Fast fashion is a scourge,” Senior Trina Kenyon said. “I’m friends with a historian/historical reenactor and shoemaker who specializes in the 18th century and according to him, back then, everyone had significantly better shoes and clothes. Yeah, they had less, but what they did have was well-made and strong — even plain garments a working class person might wear. Now, I get a t-shirt, and it has holes in it within a year. We’re so obsessed with innovation, trends, shiny new things, that we cycle through what we have faster and faster.”

In addition to the low quality of clothes, fast fashion also takes advantage of migrant workers. 75 hour work weeks, little pay and a lack of proper fire safety precautions plague Nancun Village in South China. These conditions directly violate Chinese labor laws, which strictly state individuals are only allowed to work around 40 hours per week. Shein’s influence in Nancun is so great it has even resulted in the area being nicknamed “Shein Village.”

“The fast fashion industry perpetuates poverty in the other nations they source their sweatshop labor from.” Kenyon said.

However, even though it is a well-known secret fast fashion utilizes unethical labor, individuals still turn to these brands for affordable clothes.In an article describing the relationship between fast fashion brands like Shein and states with higher levels of poverty, researcher Teju Adisa-Fararr said, “Folks with less money are not necessarily aware [or] even thinking about the climate and environmental impacts because they do not have a lot of resources to make other choices.”

“I do not support fast fashion. But the issue with Gen Z is everything is so expensive we cannot afford long lasting, good quality clothing while going to college, having a job and trying to be an adult,” Sophomore Logan Mauck said. “We have no choice but to buy fast fashion.”

Brands like Shein, Zara and Temu market to Gen Z with the promise of low cost ‘shopping hauls’ where influencers show off clothes found on these sites without addressing the abused people who make them. 

“We buy clothes that are going to look good because we are in such a superficial society. Because of that, I think fast fashion is always going to be around,” Mauck said. 

If young consumers do not stop and think about where they are spending their money, Gen Z will become the main enabler of an abusive fashion goliath, born on the backs of vulnerable migrant workers.