For us, clothing is like a second skin that we choose. We communicate who we are through what we wear. What do we actually communicate unconsciously when we wear fast fashion?
Fashion industry – then and now:
About 100 years ago, clothing was still an investment that you could even take to a pawnbroker. About 50 years ago there were four collections: spring, summer, autumn and winter
The big fashion houses have been producing 52(!) collections for around 20 years – something new comes into the store every week. The fashion industry is becoming ever faster. What is actually behind the catchphrase "fast fashion"?
Production conditions:
In the 1960s, about 90% of clothing for the American market was still produced in America. Today it is only about 3% - the remaining 97% is produced in developing countries such as Sri Lanka, Cambodia and China.
The more production is outsourced, the cheaper the clothes we wear become. However, this is not because production costs are falling, but because of the ever-increasing power of the big fashion chains, which simply move elsewhere if a producer cannot match the price.
Textile producers can only keep production prices low under one condition: by hiring their workers under inhumane, insecure conditions at wages well below the poverty line.
Raw materials:
Cotton is the most important raw material for the textile industry. The land where the cotton grows is treated like a giant factory.
Texas is the world's largest cotton producer. 80% of the cotton grown in Texas is genetically modified. The cotton plants are also treated with pesticides and chemical fertilizers to control pests and increase plant growth
This not only affects the soil and the micro-bacteria that live there, but also the people who work the soil. Punjab is one of the largest cotton-growing regions in India. The massive use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers has dramatically increased the number of birth defects and cancers.
piles of rubbish:
In Germany alone, 1 million tons of textile waste are generated every year. This corresponds to almost 5kg of textile waste per capita.
This leads to ever-increasing mountains of rubbish. Most of it is non-biodegradable and sits there for 200 years while toxic gases escape into the atmosphere.
Most of the used clothing collected is transported to developing countries, where clothing is piling up because there is far too much of it. Only a small part of the textile waste is recycled.
Effects of consumption on our psyche:
If all the arguments brought up so far don't work, let's think about what increasing consumption is doing to us.
Advertising often suggests that our problems will be solved by consuming a certain product.
We consume 400% more fashion products than we did 20 years ago. However, the increasing amount of fashion consumed annually does not make us happier - quite the opposite. The more we focus on consumption, the more dissatisfied we become.
In a nutshell, it can be said that fast fashion is harmful to our entire society on various levels:
- The conditions under which most of the fashion we produce are inhumane
- The extraction of the raw materials is harmful to health
- Textile waste causes the mountains of rubbish to keep growing
- The increasing amount of fashion consumed annually makes us dissatisfied
do we really want that?
Fashion has gone from being a commodity to being a consumable. If we don't need something anymore, we just throw it away - because it was so cheap.
Fashion should not be a disposable product!