Fast Fashion vs Slow Fashion
Awareness rose and nowadays more and more people use the expressions “Fast Fashion” and “Slow Fashion”. But do you know what these two concepts stand for and their difference ?
What is Fast Fashion ?
The term Fast Fashion describes clothes inspired by recent style trends from celebrities or famous designers on the runway. That kind of clothes are sold at an affordable price.
The Fast Fashion industry is a big one earning $1.44 trillion annually. It sells to 40 collections per year whereas we all know the textile industry as only 2 collections (spring-summer and autumn-winter). Consequently, that boosts impulse buy and promotes this striking industry.
Fast Fashion clothes are cheap and tends to be bad in terms of quality. In fact, to produce cheap clothes, companies need to outsource production to developing countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia or India for instance.
Unfortunately, what qualify the most this industry is that to produce cheap and low quality products, workers are working in bad conditions. They work 12 hours a day in insanitary buildings that might collapse at every time and are paid more or less 3$.
The workforce is exploited only to achieve fast production and make money.
Moreover, this kind of industry does not care about labour standards, is unethical but also has a big impact on the environment. In fact, chemical and toxic dyes as well as pesticide are chosen to produce products and sell them faster. But these chemical and toxic dyes don’t vanish that way. They are kept in our clothes which are in direct contact with our skin. Some of the materials are even forbidden but still used. As a result, they can provoke cancer, asthma, allergies… The list is long and there is, unfortunately, no control of these substances yet.
What is Slow Fashion ?
Slow Fashion is at the opposite of what Fast Fashion is. In fact, it represents what is ethical, ecological and green for clothing companies. It recognizes the impact of clothing firms on the environment and tends to aware consumer and the world about it. With this way of thinking, workers’ rights are respected. They are well paid and work in safe conditions.
Indeed, the impact on the environment is also reduce as clothes can be made made organic or natural fibres and other sustainable materials.
In a nutshell, it is the way of producing less, reducing the waste and using what is essential. Have less clothes but better ones.
Few little things if you are not yet convinced about Slow Fashion
Textile industry is the second most polluting industry in the world behind oil industry.
It takes 200 gallons of water to make one pair of jeans, the equivalent of 285 showers.
It uses 2720 litres of water to make a t-shirt.
Clothing consumption produces 1.5 tonnes of CO² per year, the equivalent of driving 6 000 cars.
80 billions items of clothing are delivered out of factories annually worldwide.
Every year, a woman buys approximately 30 kg of clothes, whereas she only wears 30% of her wardrobe.
We talked before about how brands outsource their production to developing countries, including India. India’s textile sector is one of the oldest industries in Indian economy that has existed for centuries. Actually, it is an extremely varied industry, with hand-spun and hand woven textile sectors. It is a unique industry because of the accessibility of raw materials thanks to agriculture as well as the ancestral and traditional know-how. It permits India to produce a variety of products and to export it worldwide.
At Green Tailor, we enhance and promote good conditions of work, traditional know-how, in an ethical, organic and ecological manner. Our products are made in close collaboration with our suppliers and workers have fair wages. Our cottons are almost all certified GOTS and linens certified Oekotex. We believe in sustainable and natural fabrics, without chemicals and to a greener textile industry.
Yet, there has still a long way to go to an ethical and transparent fashion in this industry. But rising consumer awareness and choosing collaboration in customer supplier relations are the first step to make the difference and encouraging the change to Slow Fashion.