Lifestyle

BY SELA VALIGNOTA

Editor and Co-Podcast Manager

For many teenagers and young adults, buying from big brands like Forever 21, Shein and Zara is the cheapest and most accessible way to acquire stylish clothing. These types of stores run their businesses around fast fashion, where they rapidly produce inexpensive clothing that corresponds with the latest trends. For a high school student, choosing a store that is inexpensive and convenient can be what makes it most appealing. Junior Mikalah Seward is a frequent shopper of fast fashion brands and likes them for their affordability and wide selection of options. “I shop at [fast fashion stores] a lot and get most of my clothes from there,” Seward said. “I like that they’re cheaper and that I can always find what I’m looking for because of its diversity. I think that fast fashion makes it easy to change your style and have your own uniqueness.” These stores move at a pace fast enough to consistently keep up with what’s in style, while also providing their products at a cheap price. Being able to access trendy and affordable clothes is not only accommodating for unemployed high school students, but also for other people who don’t have the advantage of buying higher-priced clothing. However, the result of such low prices is a high amount of people buying these lower-quality products in excessive amounts and treating them as disposable. Additionally, these low prices are made possible by unethically treated workers creating these clothes in mass environmentally-damaging production facilities. Today, fashion trends come and go extremely quickly. Most trends become outdated and irrelevant in less than a year. In 2021, popular style trends consisting of patterns of colorful and funky flowers and distorted shapes began surfacing. However, like most trends, those styles became outdated and irrelevant in less than a year. The quick pace of what is in and out of fashion only encourages consumers to buy from fast fashion brands. With mass production of certain trends being sold and then quickly tossed aside due to irrelevance, the waste starts to pile up. In an article from the Princeton Student Climate Initiative called The Impact of Fast Fashion on the Environment, contributor Ngan Le writes about the environmental effects of fast fashion. “Whether it is simply growing out of the clothes or that the clothes are no longer in style, a significant proportion of the population opts to throw away their clothes instead of donating them,” Le said. “57% of all discarded clothing ends up in landfills; the landfills start to pile up, then the trash is moved to an area to be incinerated.”

Though it isn’t only fast fashion brand buyers who contribute to this problem, shopping from stores that mass produce low-quality clothing can encourage consumers to dispose of them more easily compared to other brands. Science teacher Amanda Dekker has not only heard of the build-up of discarded clothing in landfills but also recognizes how a lot of it may not decompose.

“[Clothing from fast fashion brands] is considered disposable because the material is known to fall apart. This creates a whole [new type of waste] that is being added and creates more garbage that’s impacting the environment,” Dekker said. “While cotton is going to break down and degrade pretty quickly, some of the synthetic fabrics will not.”

Shein is one of the biggest fast fashion companies and is known by most high school students due to its cheap prices and online accessibility. While it is known for its convenience and inexpensiveness, Shein also holds a reputation for its excessive production rates compared to other brands, as well as its unethical labor practices.

Brightly, a website dedicated to raising awareness on sustainable living with everyday products, featured an article by Kyler Fuller called The Truth About Shein: How Sustainable and Ethical is the Fast Fashion Brand? The article describes incidents where Shein customers received questionable packaging, bringing attention to the unethical practices that many clothing brands are involved in.

“In June 2022, videos went viral on social media claiming that Shein employees were hiding messages in the clothes they produced. One such tag allegedly had ‘need your help’ written within the care instructions,” Fuller wrote. “A recent report found fast fashion retailer Fashion Nova — one of Shein’s competitors — was using underpaid labor in Los Angeles factories as recently as 2019, despite wage laws. Some sewers were paid as little as $2.77 an hour, far below the minimum wage.”

Shein isn’t the only clothing brand that is involved with questionable labor practices. Many major brands are associated with this type of operation, especially fast fashion brands.

“Fast fashion is notorious for using sweatshops — which subject workers to horrible conditions and long hours for meager pay — as well as child labor,” Fuller said.

While these actions are extreme, many consumers still purchase from these brands due to their inexpensive and accessible products. Understandably, those who either aren’t able or don’t want to shop at pricey, slow-fashioned brands are compelled to buy from places that are most convenient to them. However, fast fashion isn’t the only source of cheap and stylish clothing; an alternative to consuming from big brands is thrifting from second-hand stores.

Senior Isabella Fleshman was previously an over-consumer, meaning she’d buy excessive amounts of nonessential clothes. Now, Fleshman not only buys and upcycles from thrift stores but prioritizes her needs over her wants.

“I also go thrifting because I sew. I usually look to see if something catches my eye and if I could make it into something new that I could wear,” Fleshman said. “I used to be a big over-consumer when shopping, but now I try to only get things I need, like when it’s the season or if I’m going on a trip. I like to thrift most of my clothes because it’s inexpensive.”

Not only is thrifting cost-effective, but it is also a sustainable way of buying clothes. Rather than buying large amounts of processed articles of clothing, donating to and shopping from second-hand stores can cut down on buildup in landfills and slow the support of unethical labor practices.

Recycling clothing can not only discourage fast manufacturing processes but also slow down the rapid changing of trends. From re-wearing vintage clothing to purchasing unique finds, thrift stores have a lot to offer that is both ethical and fashionable.

“I think that thrifting is a great way to get unique pieces, and that’s why I like it a lot. I like following trends but I don’t like having the same stuff, and thrifting gives you the opportunity to create your own style,“ Fleshman said.

While fast fashion is an accessible way of shopping, the drawbacks range from environmental damage to extreme unethical production. Other alternatives, like minimizing the amount of clothes you buy and supporting local second-hand stores, can go a long way, both morally and aesthetically.