In an ironic turn of events, the aptly-named retailer Forever 21 recently announced that it would be closing as many as 178 of its U.S. locations, as well as the majority of its stores in Europe and Asia. Indeed, the fashion behemoth and purveyor of all things polyester and sparkly announced that it had filed for bankruptcy. Considering the rise of e-commerce and the decline of the American mall, such news may come as no surprise. However, before shoppers dive head-first into the sale bins of their local shopping centers, they needn’t worry: Zara and H&M alone raked in approximately $3.9 billion in profits in 2018. These companies, which prioritize the rapid production of trendy but poorly made clothing over sustainability and quality, have had a new term coined in their wake: fast fashion. Or, put simply, the reason you need to stop fretting about reusable straws and start worrying about the darker side of your $10 H&M jeans.
Historically, designers relied on Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter collections; today, brands offer a whopping fifty-two microseasons, keeping customers coming back. And seem to do it almost effortlessly: Topshop manages to add 400 new products to its website weekly; H&M can take a design from the drawing board to the sales floor in just two weeks; Zara sends new shipments of looks to its stores every three days. By keeping their pieces trendy and inexpensive, fast fashion retailers have shoppers hooked: the average American buys sixty-five garments annually. Courtesy of this combination of increased demand and improved technology, Americans have enjoyed falling prices, meaning that they are more willing to cycle through their cheap finds. A report from the consulting firm McKinsey shows that the majority of consumers keep their garments for only half as long as they did a mere fifteen years ago, often throwing out their cheapest pieces after as few as seven wears.
This consumption is a crisis for environmental sustainability: Quantis estimates that the apparel and footwear industries account for approximately 8.1% of all global carbon emissions, while the United Nations Environmental Program reports that fast fashion is responsible for ten percent of carbon emissions worldwide, twenty percent of global wastewater, and, if it keeps with current trends, the use of over one quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. Indeed, fast fashion accounts for more carbon emissions than the airline industry. To put these ideas into context: the production of a lone pair of jeans requires as many as two thousand gallons of water. It doesn’t help that, when washed, the clothing produced by fast fashion brands releases 500,000 tons of microfibers (very fine pieces of synthetic thread which is often made of plastic) into our oceans, rivers, and lakes. There, among other things, they contaminate the seafood we eat; when fish and other aquatic animals consume them, they leak various harmful chemicals into their tissues as they degrade. Finally, once the consumer decides to dispose of the garment, they typically choose to throw it out rather than donating or selling it, with close to 60% of all discarded clothing ending up incinerated or in a landfill before its first birthday).
Just as these garments harm the environment, so too do they harm the workers that produce them. Companies like Zara and Forever 21 outsource production to supplier firms in foreign countries, which arrange for subcontracts with manufacturing companies. Because these companies are not directly affiliated with the company from which the order is initiated, both company and government oversight becomes difficult. To make matters worse, the manufacturers typically receive short-term contracts, which give workers—who are predominantly underpaid women—an incentive not to speak up about any wrongdoing. As such, safety concerns often go unreported: disasters like the 2012 Tazreen Fashions fire that killed 112 workers and the fatal 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory that claimed hundreds of lives were both consequences of lax oversight. In one case, the fire exits were locked and corridors filled with piles of flammable fabric; in the other, the factory’s owners ignored cracks in the foundation, ordering workers to continue coming to work. And even when workers don’t become the victims of such accidents, they face demanding production targets that often lead to extreme overtime, little pay, and an absence of breaks, even for the restroom or water.
So, are you glad that Forever 21 has filed for bankruptcy? Not so fast. The fact of the matter is that retailers are now competing with the rise of e-commerce, which not only faces the same pressure to produce garments rapidly, but to ship them quickly as well. All of this spells bad news for workers’ rights and the environment unless we as consumers cease our needless shopping sprees for cheap products, seek more sustainable options, whether through thrifting or buying higher-quality garments, and begin to think critically about what it is we actually need. If we don’t, our “Forever” will be cut short.
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