By Deetya Sasikumar
Whether you’ve been to the mall, or shopped online, you may have noticed a strange pattern. Clothes from your favorite brands have become more affordable, and extremely low quality.
A comparison: Today’s Clothing vs. Vintage Clothing
The organization, ‘More Perfect Union’ ran a comparison between big brand clothing from the 90’s and today. 2 main issues they wanted to address were the decreasing longevity of clothing today, and the lowering pricing in clothes. They found out today, the average American buys 68 new peices of clothing. In 1980, it was only 12. Another interesting detail is Americans in the 80’s spent 7% of their annual earnings on clothing, while today we only spend 3%. You’re probably wondering— how do we buy 5 times more clothes and spend half as less? A commercial from Abercrombie and Fitch in the 80’s shows why clothes were much more expensive. It advertises the high-quality wool the sweaters from their fall collection are made of, and even shows where the wool is from. Remember how the commerical was advertising their fall commerical? Brands used to rarely come out with new designs, as they had a spring summer collection, and a winter fall collection. Clothes were much higher quality because the risk of a season failing a brand would ensure thorough care and thoughtfulness in every piece, as over 9 months was spent creating designs for the next year’s collection.
The Rise of Fast Fashion
During the late 1900’s, even though clothing was expensive, it was an investment that would last decades, and keeping up with trends was only something the rich had to worry about. The New York Times created the term ‘Fast Fashion’ after reviewing the first US store of ZARA during 1989. Zara executives told the magazine that it only took 15 days to make a design a reality, and how they strive to fit into the trends. Remember earlier I stated it used to take companies 9 months to create the perfect designs? ZARA sped up the process by using something called Greige Goods, Instead of manufacturing overseas, they had a technologically- advanced factory in Spain using robots to cut and dye products that were quickly produced into the next design. ZARA would make smaller orders and send them to nearby locations, hear feedback, and then increased production of some goods while decreasing the production of others. The risk of creating clothing was gone, and clothes began to sell quickly, as they could make trendy clothing quickly.
How Fast Fashion Impacts Us Today
Today, we are accustomed to the idea of low quality clothes, and easily accesable purchasing thanks to the internet and social media. Social media has made fashion trends cycle through faster, which forces influencers to purchase more, which then puts pressure on us. Today, the epitome of fast fashion is SHEIN. Its the biggest fashion retailer in the world, and “Forget fast fashion, SHEIN is instant fashion” as put by More Perfect Union. Zara takes 15 days to get a new line of clothing out, SHEIN can do it in 3. The overproduction of goods doesn’t just affect consumers, it affects workers all over the world. A 2021 investigation by Public Eye showed that factories that supply SHEIN are crowded and unsafe, and the employees usually work over 75 hours a week. Overall, fast fashion is a big industry that is negatively impacting our both our perception of quality and our view of clothing today. It is an issue our country needs to fight against, and something that needs to be ended quickly.
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