When’s the last time you’ve bought a shirt only to stop wearing it within a year, if not a few months?

What is fast fashion?

The Oxford dictionary defines fast fashion as ‘inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to latest trends.’. Fast fashion stores fill the malls around you, and understandably so – the items they sell are relatively cheap, fitting with current trends, and regularly updated. This trend rises with today’s focus on disposable clothing – when’s the last time you’ve bought a shirt only to stop wearing it within a year? Especially amongst young people, individuals feel pressured to wear something different every time they go out, thus leading to a spiral of buying more items to fit their closet even if the items they currently own aren’t particularly torn. Retailers such as Zara, H&M, and more are providing this type of ‘disposable fashion’ service. The fast fashion industry, while beneficial at a glance for its ability to produce cheap clothing, is overall incredibly harmful for both the overall fight against climate change and the people involved while creating. 

The Environmental Effects

While there’s no official research on the true extent of how bad fast fashion is for the environment, current research surrounding the matter agrees on the same answer: it’s really bad.

Climate change is a rapid and real issue that needs to be dealt with. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced a report claiming that under the better-than-current case scenario of achieving only 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, sea levels will rise, there will be a sea-ice free arctic once every 100 years (in comparison, a 2 degrees Celsius rise in temperature will produce a sea-ice-free arctic once every ten years), and 70-90% of coral reefs will decline. These aren’t the only effects of the warming environment. Think of the quickly depleting river Nile, the deaths of marine life in the beautiful Red Sea, and the worsening dust storms along countries near the Sahara. More can be said about the causes of climate change, but the fashion industry is a giant perpetrator of this catastrophe. 

While there’s no official research on the true extent of how bad fast fashion is for the environment, current research surrounding the matter agrees on the same answer: it’s really bad. Fast fashion brands tend to use toxic chemicals and synthetic fabrics to produce fast, cheap clothing. In 2015 alone, about 50 million tons of polyester were produced. Polyester production alone is expected to emit about 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide– a greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere by 2030. While some brands are attempting to include more sustainable practices and resources, the planet’s resources are still being pushed to their breaking points if production remains at the fast pace that it is currently moving at. It takes 80 years for clothes to break down in landfills – and at the rate fast fashion brands produce and consumers buy, there’s a giant amount of waste being produced that is not going to be breaking down even this century. This is not even including the carbon effects of moving products around the world. There are 44 Zara stores in Saudi Arabia alone, let alone counting the other fast fashion brands popular in the Middle East in other countries. 

The Human Labor Effects

Not only are companies hiring children, they’re providing workers with horrible working conditions, low salaries, and taking the profits of this labor for themselves. 

         Moving from the environmental effects, the human labor effects of fast fashion are incredibly harmful. ‘Sweatshop labor’ used by many different brands has been a violation of basic human rights for years. Because clothes need to be produced at such a fast rate and moved from the place of production to the stores at this same rate (especially since a trademark of fast fashion is the need to buy more and to buy now), the workers hired in this process are being taken advantage of while CEOs and management sectors reap all the benefits. Sweatshop workers may work up to one hundred hours a week in poor air quality and extreme heat.  Children are being involved in the process of making the products being sold at the other end. And, to add to this, workers are being subjected to inhumane conditions. The Rana Plaza factory collapse has been mentioned in many conversations about fast fashion – and for good reason; approximately 1,000 individuals died due to negligence from factory supervisors when the building collapsed. Foreign companies specifically set their factories in poorer countries so that they may subject workers to poorer conditions. Not only are companies hiring children, they’re providing workers with horrible working conditions, low salaries, and taking the profits of this labor for themselves. 

         An argument around this often finds itself shaped around asking: if conditions are so horrible, wouldn’t workers leave or ask for better compensation? This drives us to the wage-setting curve in economics. As unemployment increases, companies are more able to set lower wages to pay their workers, thus increasing their profits.

 Companies, of course, take advantage of countries with high unemployment rates and little labor protection programs. As more people become employed in this economy, the theory should guide factories to raise their wages, but this has not been a linear path by any means. In an op-ed in the New York Times, Christopher Blattman and Stefan Dercon recommend social welfare systems and safety nets to help give people a more even ground to bargain for their rights. The reason people stay in these jobs is the reason anyone stays in any job they dislike: a stable income. While workers may receive the benefits of a stable salary, they carry the risks of factories collapsing, the pains of working through extreme heat, and the torment of, in the end, receiving minimal wages for their hours of hard work. Social insurance systems would prove helpful in decreasing the risks involved with sweatshop labor. 

Current Efforts in the Middle East

Middle Eastern initiatives and activists are waking up to the dangers of the fashion industry. More than ever, brands marketing sustainable practices are popping up. Regional brands are looking at sustainable methods more than ever, and designers are taking this time to contribute to the movement. One Lebanese designer and human rights activist, Roni Helou, used discarded fabrics for a show that took part in a landfill to highlight the immense waste by the industry. Most importantly, as consumers become more aware of the harms of fast fashion, companies and designers begin to respond by producing what the people want. This goes to the fundamental basics in economics: if people continue to demand less of non-fair-trade, non-sustainable brands, these brands will have to face their problems or leave the market. 

However, amongst most people, discussions of fast fashion remain heavily amongst the elite and the privileged - those who can afford to spend the money needed to continuously purchase these items in the first place. In the majority of the Arab world, only a few can even access the luxury that is the imported fast fashion trends of the West.

Fast fashion is a harmful industry, with many negative effects other than just harming the environment and taking advantage of its workers. However, as awareness grows surrounding the issues of this industry and the problems it produces, hope for change continues to grow and better practices loom forward. While industries continue to profit from the harmful practices they undertake, it is important for those with the privilege to choose to continue choosing options that are more conscientious of the state of the world.

Citations and sources for further reading:

“Bangladesh Factory Collapse Toll Passes 1,000.” BBC News, BBC, 10 May 2013, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-22476774.

Blattman, Christopher, and Stefan Dercon. “Everything We Knew About Sweatshops Was Wrong.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 Apr. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/opinion/do-sweatshops-lift-workers-out-of-poverty.html.

Chua, Jasmin Malik. “Why Is It So Hard for Clothing Manufacturers to Pay a Living Wage?” Vox, Vox, 27 Feb. 2018, www.vox.com/2018/2/27/17016704/living-wage-clothing-factories.

Media, ATTIRE. “The Economics of Fast Fashion.” Attire, Attire | Conscious Fashion, Events & Resources, 18 Sept. 2019, www.attiremedia.com/discover-all/economic-drivers-of-fast-fashion.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Sustainability in the Textile Industry. Springer Singapore, 2018.

Nguyen, Terry. “Fast Fashion, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 3 Feb. 2020, www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/3/21080364/fast-fashion-h-and-m-zara.

O'Connell, Liam. “Number of Zara Stores in the Middle East and Africa 2020, by Country.” Statista, 20 May 2020, www.statista.com/statistics/674502/number-of-zara-stores-in-the-middle-east-and-africa-by-country/.

Person. “How Arab Fashion Is Waking up to Sustainability.” Arab News, Arabnews, 22 Nov. 2019, www.arabnews.com/node/1588041/lifestyle.

Person. “Roni Helou Brings Sustainable Fashion to Fashion Forward Dubai.” Arab News, Arabnews, 31 Oct. 2019, www.arabnews.com/node/1576966/lifestyle.

“Seven Things You Should Know About the IPCC 1.5°C Special Report and Its Policy Implications.” Climate Change and Law Collection, doi:10.1163/9789004322714_cclc_2018-0094-017.

“The Economy.” The Economy, Coreecon, July 2017. https://core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/09.html#figure-9-18g

“The Problem with Fast Fashion.” BWSS, 27 Aug. 2019, www.bwss.org/fastfashion/.

The World Counts, www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty/slavery-and-sweatshops/sweatshop-workers-conditions.