4 minute read
Fast fashion
FAST FASHION & THE DARK SIDE TO YOUR FAVOURITE CLOTHING BRANDS
By Grace Lansbury
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Fast fashion is becoming more and more popular as the demand for garments increases. With social media displaying thousands of images of celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Rihanna and their outfits, which feature designer pieces. They hold a lot of power in influencing consumers.
With that being said, Fendi and Dior is not affordable for the everyday purchaser, which is where fast fashion comes in. Some of the high street’s leading brands are among the big names which reportedly source and create garments through methods using fast fashion.
Although fast fashion is convenient, campaigners say the garments are often poor-quality, constructed from cheap fabrics and the working conditions in the factories are often poor and dangerous for the workers. I chatted to assistant account manager of Kotn, Abby Bamburg about sustainable fashion and the importance of proper working conditions for their workers. Kotn is a ethically focused fashion brand which is based in New York founded by Mackenzie Yeates, Rami Helali and cofounder Benjamin Sehl.
The three friends pride themselves on producing reasonably priced, ethically sourced Egyptian cotton items. “We first set out to make a better T-shirt—and when we did that, we started to see that the status quo of the garment industry really did mean choosing between price, quality, and ethics.”
Kotn started in 2014 and the team quickly began to realise how many inconsistencies and bad practices lie within the fashion industry — and set out to change this. Communication between the brand and the workers is of utmost importance to Kotn. To ensure that the workers are treated fairly, with respect and are not exploited for their labour, they work in close proximity with the supplier. “We work directly with every step of our supply chain, from farm to hanger, to ensure best practices, above fair pay, and ethical treatment along the way,” Bamburg says.
15 MILLION TONNES OF TEXTILE WASTE
Fast fashion has a detrimental effect on the environment. Bamburg explains the damaging effects it has on our planet. “It’s damaging for many reasons: first, it promotes incredible waste, more than 15 million tons of textile waste are generated in the United States each year, an amount that’s doubled over the past 20 years.”
In the next few years we can hope to see more people sporting sustainable clothes not only for the sake of the environment, but for the worker who constructed it.
“Slowly, consumers attitudes towards fast fashion are changing, but the majority of the public still either isn’t informed, doesn’t feel the need to change their buying habits, or can’t afford to do so. There is definitely a switch happening as more and more brands are leading the way into ethical fashion, but the initiative needs to come from the customers for the industry to really change.”
Not only does the environment suffer at the grips of fast fashion, so do the workers, with work-based accidents and deaths being a running theme in factories that produce clothes for some well known major brands. All too often work place safety is missed and the standards are greatly lacking, resulting in people being exploited; over worked and underpaid. (It’s important to note we contacted all of these popular brands and they all declined to comment.)
Bamburg stresses how important employee safety and care is to Kotn. “Our clothing is currently made in Egypt. Working with family-run farms in the Nile Delta, we buy all of our cotton directly from the source, cutting out traditional middlemen.” Kotn is involved with it’s workers in ensuring they are cared for and know exactly who is taking each role. “To keep things in check, we run independent audits of the different facilities we work with, to make sure everyone is being treated fairly and doing what they say they’re doing.”
“We’re on the ground every day to keep a close eye on our partners and their employees—we have a small team that is headquartered out of Cairo, and checks in with each step of the supply chain. A couple of key standards centre around fair and equal pay, equal opportunity, safe working conditions, and reasonable working hours.” I ask Kotn how the company ensures the workers are safe since they are located on the other side of the globe and are not as accessible.
Workers in factories who supply to some leading stores are forced to work “very fast and under extreme pressure”, it is claimed. Phys.org reported “Garment workers often face low wages, poor working conditions, long hours and adverse health effects.”
With so much poor treatment, Kotn is dedicated to ensuring the workers who create its garments are treated properly. Not only does it treat its workers fairly, it also reaches out to assist them.
Bamburg adds: “As some of our partners are entirely family run, like many of our farms. We also create initiatives to help ease their financial burden—last month, for instance, we distributed fertilizers to 150 farmers both to help them with their cash flow, but also to ensure they wouldn’t be using harmful chemicals in their fields just to save on cost.”
EASY OVER ETHICAL?
Lucy and Yak are a Barnsley based independent sustainable brand who also strive to treat their workers with care and respect. The brand started as an accident when travelling in India, and they began making dungarees to help generate a little extra cash and now the brand is thriving. Lucy and Yak work closely with their staff to ensure good practices are kept up. “We personally know our tailors, we have met their families, we spend a lot of time in India with them. We helped Ismail to build a factory, it’s clean, it has aircon (apparently no factories have aircon in India). We pay a living wage and we give great bonuses too. We are more like a family.” Although the brand is small, they work closely with their suppliers and workers “We are more like a family. We have more influence than a lot of small brands because we helped Ismail's factory to grow, we didn’t go to a manufacturer that was already up and running”. If independent brands are able to oversee proper working conditions, it is hoped bigger brands will soon follow suit and provide their employees with better treatment and improved labour conditions.
