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Ethical Fashion vs. Fast Fashion
FASHION
Which Korean Brands Are Eco-Friendly?
All photos of RE;CODE at the 2018 Gwangju Biennale: “This Is Not Just Fashion.” (recode.com)
Written and photographed by Cami Ismanova
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
April 2020
H
ands up if you like to go shopping more than four times per year. Wait, maybe it is even more frequently. Shopping is a form of therapy that draws friends closer and alleviates stress levels. But is it as healthy and relaxing as we think it is? Ladies (and maybe gentlemen), we know that sometimes we can get slightly obsessed with it. How many times do you stand in front of a mirror in a shop, holding a blouse in each hand, feeling unsure which one to choose, when in fact all you went to the store to buy was turmeric powder? Been there, done that! We all want those gorgeous one-pieces even though we have thirteen hanging in the closet. Heels, too, we want to buy but will never wear because, let’s admit it, there is a high chance that our feet might fall off while wearing them. Fast fashion encourages large retailers like Zara and H&M to reduce the time between producing and selling clothing to every four to six weeks, and to invest more and more in visual merchandising, to turn us into brainwashed moths flying directly into the flame. How did this trend of fast fashion even emerge? In 1980, mass-market retailers developed a “quick response” concept based on trends from the catwalk. The main objective was to deliver a designer product to a mass market at a relatively low price in a relatively short time.
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If Fashion Weeks are held four times a year worldwide, then the market-based, quick-response strategy should provide new collections at least 1–2 months later. There are several brands that ride on the wave of fast fashion. I am sure you have heard of or bought from Zara, H&M, Topshop, C&A, and Peacocks. Zara, the Spanish massmarket retailer, is a role model for this continuous seasonal production. Like any other mass-market retailer, Zara’s strategy consists of several crucial aspects: visual merchandising, market timing, cost, and buying cycles. According to research, 75 percent of shopping decisions are made in front of the item in three seconds. This fact proves how successful investments in the visual merchandise of the aforementioned brands are. How big is the market? Well, the revenue in Korea is expected to be $18.8 million in 2020 alone, with the largest segment being women’s apparel. Growth is expected to increase by 2.8 percent annually. A basic rule of economics states that there might be nothing wrong with fast fashion. The more we produce, the more we consume, the better our living standard. Yes, maybe in some alternative reality, it is a totally harmless philosophy. But in our reality, fast fashion has a long list of negatives that include water pollution, the decay of synthetic fabrics, child labor, and poor working conditions in developing countries. As a result, we witness tragic events such as the collapse of the Savar building, a garment factory in Bangladesh, with a death
3/27/2020 2:43:11 PM
