Interesting piece on fast fashion - and something I feel strongly against.
Every year from US alone, 85% of all textiles are discarded which amounts to ~ 11 million tons of textile waste that often ends up in landfills in Africa and South America. These clothes typically made from synthetic materials like polyester and nylon (fossil fuels) hence can take centuries to decompose.
Cheap labours are mostly found in South East Asia and South Asia but given the cost of a clothing (raw material + import + labour) for fast fashion can be as low as 10% of retail price hence wage is devastatingly low.
From a business sense fashion has always been a top down approach from high end consumers but fast fashion exploded among the mid market consumers and started controlling the fashion industry.
Fast fashion business is a $1.7 trillion industry which is why investors still rush into dumping their money. But the damage is detrimental. Clothing stores like Zara and Shein change their fashion style every 2 weeks leading to extreme high wastage.
One way to go about overcoming fast fashion is innovating interchangeable usages. Another way is to explore nature based vegan and clean tech. Plastics like ABS can be recycled. Advancing 3D manufacturing can improve made to order and reduce wastage of inventory
What the fashion industry clearly lacks at large is technology penetration
@nostrich
Every year from US alone, 85% of all textiles are discarded which amounts to ~ 11 million tons of textile waste that often ends up in landfills in Africa and South America. These clothes typically made from synthetic materials like polyester and nylon (fossil fuels) hence can take centuries to decompose.
Cheap labours are mostly found in South East Asia and South Asia but given the cost of a clothing (raw material + import + labour) for fast fashion can be as low as 10% of retail price hence wage is devastatingly low.
From a business sense fashion has always been a top down approach from high end consumers but fast fashion exploded among the mid market consumers and started controlling the fashion industry.
Fast fashion business is a $1.7 trillion industry which is why investors still rush into dumping their money. But the damage is detrimental. Clothing stores like Zara and Shein change their fashion style every 2 weeks leading to extreme high wastage.
One way to go about overcoming fast fashion is innovating interchangeable usages. Another way is to explore nature based vegan and clean tech. Plastics like ABS can be recycled. Advancing 3D manufacturing can improve made to order and reduce wastage of inventory
What the fashion industry clearly lacks at large is technology penetration
@nostrich