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Scrolling through TikTok as a young adult in her 20’s or a bored teenager looking for a trendier wardrobe:for every video about how to upcycle your clothing, there seem to be two targeted ads for ultra-fast fashion brands like Boohoo or Fashion Nova. For every post about the wastewater created by clothing production, there are two influencers posting videos of their latest hauls from Shein.
These companies and many others upcoming in the market are known as ultra-fast fashion, the term is pretty simple; it refers to the speed at which they add new items to their stock; Fast fashion offers relatively cheaper prices and tempts many consumers, mainly young adults who are warped into gen z’s influences and cultures, from one picture on a phone to a growing chain of demand that brands have no choice but to meet quickly , however, this quickly turns into a loop of low profit margins that are met with high production costs that not only harm the profitability of the business but affect the internal atmosphere of the business as well.
Brands like Shein take advantage of their online platform,with clothes selling from the range of only $8 to $30 which in normal stores, is half the kind of price ranges other fast fashion giants counteract with but SHEIN takes it up a level.
From low paid and exploited workers to the cheap quality of fabrics available at expectedly lower prices and leftover inventory which unfortunately comes at a cost, this is still overlooked as the business’s primary priority becomes focused on responding to ever-changing consumer tastes as quickly as possible, to secure a place in the market before other brands are able to respond to that change,
China’s manufacturing ultra-fast-fashion companies have for so long favored this technique and it’s no doubt that the rise of fast fashion is intertwined with social media and celebrity/influencer culture.
But you may wonder, in a generation of ethical-minded and environmentally conscious millennials, how is the market still booming? The answer is simple.
“So you have this very addictive algorithm, influencers and young women.”, as quoted by Researcher and Author, Maxine Bedat, and taking an obvious example:
Let’s just talk about this addictive algorithm going something like a celebrity posting a photo wearing a new outfit, and their followers immediately desiring for it, so fast fashion brands rush to be the first to provide it. Fast fashion brands often target young people - so called Gen Zs -, who have been brought up amongst social media and influencer culture. In fact, a recent survey found that almost 75% of 18-24 year olds believe influencers can be held somewhat accountable for the rise in disposable fashion. After all, who doesn’t love a good deal?
Normally, fast fashion stores take up to a month to get an item from factory to store, but SHEIN takes as little as a week, it marginalizes the many insecurities of teenagers across the globe and uses it as their precise main marketing strategy, don’t believe it? #SHEINhaul which is a group of young girls posting shopping hauls from SHEIN has over 17B views.
Evaluating on the surface, you can picture factories producing new lines with only a couple months notice with the production environment being haphazard meaning thousands of people bundled with twice as much clothes in literally one single unit of that factory, you can only imagine the amount of employment being unpredictable and insecure,
Offering such low costs on these products is grim enough, and it’s no shock when the approximate revenue our leading brand of this industry, SHEIN, brings in is a whopping $321.5M every year, with the 10 billion sales that are only sparking up on charts on a daily basis, when microscoping on these facts, the majority of the percentage of these sales come from the US, a growing hub for unsustained fashion,
So where does this lead us to our fight for sustainable production in industries across the world?
well, the garment industry is hugely unregulated with 8-10% of gas emissions owing to fast fashion brands, 100 millions tons of these clothing ending up in landfills being disposable increasing social costs and there’s absolutely no evidence if SHEIN is doing anything to eliminate these hazardous chemicals present in their manufacturing or any other brand on that matter is…
Does this mean the industry requires government intervention?
First of all, let’s just look at the employees, it’s not that they are being forced or mistreated into this phenomenon, but people working at such fast fashion labels are found to not be present in the social welfare system which leave them with absolutely no civil rights or guarantees of pay and to remain constantly competitive in the industry, to lower costs to meet the demand of cheaper, faster clothing, wages remain low as well,
But before we blame gen z culture and customers of such retailers,
Is it possible that more than just the usual attraction, people will draw attention to such appeal on deals because it’s genuinely only what they can afford?
This primarily applies to students, with student loans, and really low credit scores at the top, clothing not being the utmost basic necessity but still a priority and fits the description with what not only SHEIN but brands like Primark or even GAP can provide,
However, this consumerist behavior doesn’t aim to stop anytime soon, and with more and more celebrities endorsing such products, it only shapes the minds of more and more younger consumers to turn to such stores.
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