THE EXORBITANT PRICE OF CHEAP CLOTHES: FAST FASHION’S HUMANITARIAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS

Albert Wang, first published in Harvard International Review, 2022

Thick, black smoke pumped into the bleak sky. Cramped workplaces pervaded

by pungent miasma of chemicals. A pair of jeans for sale at 20 dollars on

Amazon. We seldom associate the first two scenes to the third; however,

responsible for 10% of global CO2 emission and 1.4 million work-related injuries

per year, the fashion industry’s acceleration and expansion is bringing pressing

yet commonly ignored repercussions.

Today, the fashion industry operates primarily through an unsustainable yet

lucrative business model named “fast fashion,” which attracts consumers with

frequent novelty in the form of low-priced, trend-led products. It entices

customers into buying mass-produced replicas of catwalk trends and haute

couture designs at bargain prices, often inducing them to buy more than what’s

necessary. Thus, fast fashion heavily relies on cheap manufacturing, recurring

consumption, and short-lived garment use. Fashion brands and factories are

fighting to secure the cheapest labor, while customers are throwing away “old”

clothes at an increasing rate. Consequently, the fast fashion model has brought

concerning, if not devastating, humanitarian and environmental consequences.

Fast Fashion’s Expansion

With its remunerative fast fashion model, the fashion industry has experienced

tremendous growth over the last two decades. Since the start of this millennium,

when the fast-fashion phenomena started, clothing sales have doubled, rising to

200 billion units per year. Although the drastic increase in the production and

consumption of fashion products is accompanied by a considerable amount of

population growth, the expansion of the fashion industry is largely fueled by the

fast fashion model. Offering timely and trendy fashion designs, fashion retailers instill a sense of urgency when customers are hesitating to purchase new clothes, thereby encouraging the consumption of fashion products. In accordance with the more frequent apparel consumption in the fast fashion model, the per capita production of textile fibers has grown from 9.4 kilograms in 2000 to 14 kilograms in 2020.

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This rapid expansion in fashion production and consumption, in turn, drives

the price of clothes down. In the EU and the UK, for example, the per capita

expenditure on clothing and footwear has decreased from approximately 12%

to 5% of total annual expenditure between 2009 and 2020, despite an increase

in garment products owned. The low price of clothes perpetuates and further

amplifies customers’ habit of buying more fashion items and wearing each

item less frequently, facilitating the fast fashion model. In 2020, 62 million

tonnes of textile products are sold. This number is projected to reach 102

million tonnes by 2030. The entire fast-fashion industry, similarly, is projected

to jump to $133.43 billion by 2026 from $99.23 billion in 2022. This speedy

development and expansion of fast fashion is essentially fostered by a

detrimental cycle in which the increase in apparel production decreases the

price of clothes, resulting in further increases in apparel consumption and

decreases in price. With a growing consumer base, the fashion industry has a

thriving prospect, leading to questions about its unsustainable practices.

Chasing the Cheapest Needle

Because the fast fashion model attracts consumers with affordable, trendy

clothes, securing inexpensive sources of production is crucial for fashion

conglomerates to maintain and maximize their profit. To minimize the cost of

labor, retailers have been “chasing the cheapest needle around the world,”

namely shifting textile production to developing countries such as Sri Lanka,

where workers demand lower wages. These countries often have very limited

trade union representation and government protection of workers’ rights.

Hence, in practice, there is no effective mechanism that obligates fashion

retailers to ensure that workers work under decent conditions where most clothing production is located.

On a global scale, the fashion industry has high carbon footprints.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that 10% of global CO2 emission is to be attributed to the textile industry. Many procedures in apparel production, including fiber extraction and garment fabrication, demand high energy use, resulting in greenhouse gas emissions.

Albeit largely inevitable, these aforementioned environmental consequences of apparel production have been substantially escalated by the fast fashion model, as it is dependent on mass production and consumption. While the lifetimes of clothes rarely exceed four years, less than 1% of total textile production is recycled. This leaves a large amount of discarded textile to be incinerated or landfilled, stressing the urgent need to decelerate the fast fashion model.

The Road Ahead

Despite its negative concomitants, the flourishing of fast fashion has brought significant opportunities for transforming the fashion industry. Commensurate with the extensive consequences of fast fashion, stakeholders and policymakers have become increasingly aware of the issues surrounding textile production.

In response to the collapse of the shoddily constructed Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Bangladesh, which took the lives of 1138 workers, employees and activists have exerted immense pressure on fashion suppliers to improve the conditions of workers, and yielded meaningful results. The EU, seeking to put a halt on fast fashion, required clothes sold in Europe to be longer-lasting. The expansion of fast fashion provoked the race for the cheapest needle and led to environmental devastation, which, in turn, invoked the advocacy of workers' rights and environmental policies. Supported by workers, customers, and legislators, efforts to put the brakes on fast fashion are guiding us to a more sustainable future.