The fast fashion market generated over $120 billion last year, and it’s only expected to grow more. However, this comes at a serious cost to the people who actually make the clothing. Merriam-Webster defines fast fashion as “an approach to the design, creation and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers.” Fast fashion is not only easy on the consumer’s wallet but also is manufactured at a fraction of the cost it normally would be.
Fast fashion is most often produced by sweatshops, which are crowded workplaces with illegal working conditions, extremely low pay, and zero benefits. These sweatshops are often run on illegal slavery, human trafficking, and most commonly, child labor. Non-ethical working practices are what allow these corporations to produce clothes much faster and cheaper than any “legal” or “ethical” manufacturer would.
According to Cory Ames, Zara, Uniqlo, H&M, Shein, Urban Outfitters, GAP, Old Navy, and more are all rumored to use sweatshops or other unethical manufacturing techniques to produce their products cheaper and faster than their competitors. Fast fashion is a huge problem that promotes these unethical practices as a way to turn a profit.
Mr. Cendejas said, “Too many companies that use sweatshops refuse to take blame and instead blame it on contractors. The current level of buying fast fashion is unsustainable.”
Therefore, banning fast fashion doesn’t solve the larger problem at hand; instead, banning fast fashion only acts as a mask, making it look like the problem of illegal labor is solved when it is most definitely not.
Yes, fast fashion is unethical and terrible for both the environment and those working in factories. However, if we ever want to achieve change, people either have to stop buying their products or the government must increase regulations. Sadly, the prevalence of sweatshops makes change difficult.
Ethan Dumper ’27 stated, “Fast fashion has a lot of issues, particularly its impact on the environment, and the shady practices behind producing it.”
All of these companies have clever advertisements, cheap products, and fast shipping, appealing to customers and leading to more consumption. The list of countries with unregulated child labor, human trafficking, and illegal slavery is long.
The effects of fast fashion aren’t going anywhere, and simply banning it would neither fully address nor solve the larger problems at hand. Thus, the only way to effectively solve the problems of sweatshops without government intervention would be to stop buying these products, forcing these companies into bankruptcy.
