literally I'm tired 🥱 imagine how much a brand would stand out simply from selling guaranteed quality & craftsmanship at accessible prices, like I'm not even saying cheap prices but not thousands of pounds either
I tried shopping second hand for a year. From home decor and furniture to clothing. The only exception was underwear and socks. What can I say? For me the discussion about fast fashion and luxury is essentially over. I don't want to shop retail anymore. There's so much crap in this world already, that there's no need to produce another item for at least 10 years. We should go back to taking care of what we already have instead of chasing the countless trends on social media. There's no such thing as sustainable fashion, either. It's all based on greed and chasing the trends that die as fast as they're born.
literally this, I find myself not wanting to shop at all despite loving fashion and feeling like my wardrobe is lacking. even secondhand stuff feels like a minefield because of the overpowering polyester usage!
Hmmm, but shouldn't shopping be a chore to at least some extend? It originates from the idea of enriching your life with things that are important for survival, or in modern terms, life. If shopping does not feel at least a little bit like a chore while doing so you are probably on the verge of indulging in unnecessary spending. That being said, obviously consuming stuff that isn't non-negotiable-important for everyday life, let's say chocolate, is fun and super important to a degree. But I would definitely argue that shopping needs to be viewed as a chore first to really dissect our behavior and if we actually need something or just mindlessly buy because we got marketed too enough times. If the first question's answer is yes, there is still plenty of space to make it fun and select things that are unique and expressive to your "self".
At this point, we need to be holding human behavior and consumer consumption also responsible. Because it doesn’t matter if a brand makes $500 high quality wool sweaters that have wonderful supply chains and don’t have many seasons. If someone wants to try to buy 10 of them for a trend, they can make that brand become fast fashion. It’s the chicken or the egg convo. Yes, brands started going cheap and using polyester and other plastics but people also started demanding clothes faster and cheaper and more trendy. If there wasn’t a demand for this trash, brands wouldn’t be producing it. People need to stop demanding and buying this trash if they want it to end. Brands continue to produce these things because people continue to buy them. Simple. And before people say Temu and SHEIN are for lower income people who need cheaper alternatives, no. People who can afford to buy cheap shit over and over again that disintegrates after one wash are typically not the poorest of us all…
I so agree. A brand's first objective is to be lucrative and if they find a business model that works they'll stick to it. We might have the fashion industry we deserve.
"It’s the chicken or the egg convo" 100% - I think brands do such an amazing job at literally shoving stuff in our face and subtly marketing at us that it's hard to ignore, but we CAN ignore it if we try. taking away our money is one of many good ways to make a point!
Just because a brand uses natural materials doesn’t mean they’re better than brands that use polyester. What dyes did they use? What pesticides did they use to produce something like cotton? These chemicals can affect your skin as well as the water supply once you wash those items.
literally this, it's all so complicated and why I don't trust the marketing around high-grade poly either. it's a red flag to me when brands throw around these terms without going into what their process are / info specific to them!
all fashion is basically fast now, there is no moral consumption in this stage of capitalism -- but that's exactly why individual choices matter. calling out those brands are definitely still needed. yet we can still make fast fashion less fast, by buying for quality, buying a lot less, and caring for our stuff. then it doesn't really matter which brand we're buying from (since its all the same shit storm anyway) it comes down to making each little choice better on our conscious
I read Dana Thomas' "Deluxe: When Luxury Lost It's Luster" when I first started getting interested in fashion years ago and even though it was published in 2007 and it's been a while since I've re-read it, she was completely right raising the flag on how the "growth at the expense of quality" approach of high-end conglomerates like LVMH already having a serious negative impact on their output. I was shopping at a thrift store looking for jeans and the quality of a pair of Lee jeans vs. a pair of from a denim luxury brand was WILD. The denim luxury jeans cost easily twice the Lee pair despite them having a 60/40 synthetic to cotton fabric ratio (compared to the 95% cotton of the Lee) and much thinner thread for stitching. Even if you ignore the ethics (which obviously you shouldn't) and the quality, the creative output is also extremely terrible. They might have been kind of tacky, but there was at least some visual interest to those ubiquitous multicolored Louis Vuitton Speedy bags. I see those canvas Dior totes everywhere and they're just so boring and lazy.
poor working conditions doesn't mean a company is fast fashion. You can provide great working conditions, but if you cycle through fashion items multiple times in one season or seasons then you are fast fashion. On the other hand, a company could have poor pay and working conditions but bring out a limited range of items two times a year (technically, that may not count as fast fashion). Typically and traditionally fast fashion revolved around how many clothing and accessory ranges a brand came out with on a seasonal basis. This also did include somewhat the conversations around materials used too
Simple suggestion: it's not called "Fast Fashion" anymore. Just call them Shit Clothes. "Fast" is good. "Fashion" is attractive. Don't give it that credit. Don't let them hide behind vagueness.
Luxury brands, for example,Michael Kors , often do a high end , and low end production of the same designs specifically to sell at retailers like TJMax. The cheap batch will have less expensive hardware and will cut fabric from reams to maximize use instead of cutting it the same direction to reduce fraying. They are trying to capitalize both markets and failing.
literally, and their concession products (perfume, makeup, small items like purses) are another way of trying to dip into another spending category - but it's the same issues as the rest 🥴
I remember Bliss Foster making a great essay about what "high quality" really means, and I think it ties in a lot with the fast fashion debate. Basically, quality isn’t something you can measure with a checklist-it’s more about the passion behind the craft. If a wool sweater is made by people who genuinely love making sweaters, they’ll use wool from well-cared-for sheep, spun by people who love their work, and assembled by others who actually care about what they’re doing. And if the people running the brand are in it because they want to bring their creative visions to life, they’d also want to respect and fairly pay their workers. In a world where objects are made because people love making them, from sketch to finishing, fast fashion holds no place. Obviously this is an extremely idealized view on capitalism. People who make sweaters because they want to get rich and don't care about ethics won't die out. For every passionate artisan there will be 10 H&M executive rooms. I honestly think this is a little bit where we as the consumers hold responsibility. If we see the objects of our every day use with a similar amount of passion and love, hold value to them that spans over years, let it be our fridge, shoes, bedframes or sweaters, we will demand that same passion for the craft from its makers. One could bring up the counter argument of what if a person holds that intense value to a SHEIN sweater that is made out of acrylic by a child in a dark cave. To that I would answer, so be it. Then we can consider that sweater to be of beautiful quality and value - But that could never happen. No person ever would come to adore the smell of acid in the air or the skin rashes they get. A world in which we value every object we're privileged enough to possess with long lasting passion holds no place for fast fashion!
I think in this day and age, handmade clothing of any kind is the ultimate luxury. I just finished crocheting myself a sweater, and it's easily the most luxurious feeling garment I've ever owned, purely because I know the craftsmanship and time I put into it and how I made it fit just right. Whether it's something you make yourself or a custom piece you ordered from a craftsperson, that's real luxury. Whenever I try to go shopping, even at the thrift store, its impossible to ignore just how low quality everything is. In the womens sections especially. My local thrift store has so much shein and other hyper-fast fashion pieces that I've literally seen falling apart on the hangers.
All clothing with seams or sewing of any kind is handmade, as a person must be present to operate a sewing machine. There are no automated sewing lines. Knitting can be done by machines. The fast-fashion part is not that the items are not handmade, but that the people making these items are rushed and required to sew low-quality items by the factories where they work. I think "homemade" is a better term, as it specifies not being made by a large company in a factory instead of implying that poorly managed factory workers are not "handmaking" the clothing at their jobs.
My take: agree with your suggestion that we should do away with brands being fast fashion. The industry at large has adopted and is engaging in fast fashion behaviour, including many “luxury brands” that were well known for their craftsmanship. So many luxury brands are relying on “sweatshops” in Italy where they pay their suppliers and manufacturing contractors so little that the only way to meet their requests is engaging in exploitation.
loved this video, i really admire your ability to think of these topics and think about defining terms like fast fashion in a new way by yourself :) also happy holidays 🎄
the only reasons i buy fast fashion are price and size inclusivity, but now luxury is made of polyester yet still costs 1000x the price and will never be in my size.
Have you read this year's Fashion Accountability Report? Ironically, despite having an abyssmal score of 37/150, H&M Group was the highest rated among the 52 companies analyzed. Meanwhile, traditionally "high fashion" houses such as Chanel and LVMH scored 5 and 13, respectively. Poor practices have expanded to every sector of the industry to the point that it's definitely murkied the waters.
Katie, wishing you speedy recovery from cold! And peaceful festive/holidays time :) Ah, 'fast fashion'...For me, sort of whole world becomes 'fast' lately, with people truly expecting things coming their way fast and ready, without need to put some work in. There seems to be a real decline of individuality when it comes to fashion/what are we wearing and luxury (or so called) fashion space does not hold itself above that trend. I'm not very social, but I like to observe people and when I see clones fallen for trends & looking the same iteration of one another (especially being in groups), I can't help but cringe inwardly. Yeah, I understand (at least I try!) trends and need to belong through them, but I wish there was easier/more accessible way to escape this, even from just purely visual standpoint. People just start looking the same for me sometimes, even by face works (since we now have face trends it seems, based on celebrities who often claim no work lol) and not mentioning clothes, and it's a bit scary, sometimes concerning. *disclaimer for the who will come with 'why do you care what ppl wear and if they wear the same things?' - well, because I live in a society and can have an opinion on this?
yes! can definitely see this in the personal style discourse that's taken over TikTok this year (bc I'm working on a podcast where I go into this it's at the front of my mind lol) - the bag charm trend in particular feels like a great case study I wonder if the decline in individuality is directly linked to the loneliness epidemic, people are finding community and connection by conforming to the same trends?
@@katierobinson I do think socials play big part in this whole losing individuality in terms of 'personal style'/how we look. Influencers can often now make or break a piece into something proverbial 'everyone and their mother' wants to have, hence the desire and popularity. In my opinion people also want to belong more than stand out, at least that's my observation lately - but what's pretty ironic in that is sometimes people truly think they DO stand out while wearing the same uniforms I've seen on others (at least judging from their captions). I guess an outsider like me maybe understands fashion/society dynamics differently from so-called 'fashion girls' and they consider themselves an elite & special by wearing same things, bags, shoes, hair and whatever is marketed as trendy.
I think what people don't understand about fast fashion is that it's basically every brand we have grown up with and know about. If they sell it in a mall it's almost guaranteed to be fast fashion. Every brand outsources labor to make things cheaper to produce. They use cheap fabrics and dyes. You want to know why women's clothes don't have pockets? It's because it's cheaper to just not bother. I think a good related video is Abby Cox's one titled something like how athliesure killed fashion. She really highlights how the practices that exemplify fast fashion started in the 70s and have only strengthened.
I also think that for some reason we think the opposite of fast fashion is luxury, which isn't true. The opposite of fast fashion is slow fashion and luxury houses could fall into either category.
The working class has little to no disposable income, so I won't blame them for using fast fashion since it's their only option besides drifting. They could of course still make better decisions while buying fast fashion like choosing clothes without plastic content if possible. But I think the million dollar question is - how to make sustainable and eco-friendly fashion desirable for the middle class. There actually are options to buy clothes and shoes for roughly the same amount of money but most middle class won't do it. For example buying new midrange Nike trainers costs about the same as buying trainers made of plant leathers. Why aren't people buying those? Is it because of brand loyalty, celebrity endorsements or both? Why aren't eco-friendly and sustainable products still as 'cool' for majority of the population?
By the way, the lack of celebrity/Hollywood endorsements for eco-friendly and sustainable companies is striking and shows that they have absolutely zero actual care for our environment except perhaps a few individuals. A lot of talk but no actual actions behind them.
@@carlerykI mean maybe but a lot of celebrity endorsements are paid for. It makes complete sense that a small sustainable brand aren't paying celebrities to talk about them.
@@glitterberserker1029 That's exactly my point - they are not ready to advertise these companies for less money or for free for the right cause. They don't care about microplastics, forever chemicals, underpaid or slave labour behind these products etc. The vast majority of celebrity companies aren't sustainable or eco-friendly either although they have the money and influence to do better.
i think as fashion enthusiasts, theres an important difference to be made between the designer aspect and the fashion business aspect. e.g u can admire, say, Miuccia Prada from Miu Miu because of the meaning of some of her designs and still think Miu Miu has become quite commercial lately and is likely not only Miuccia's responsability but a whole shareholder and business side of it, the consumer's expectations (we are all used to trends now) that got something to do with it.
For me fast fashion are brands with very fast trend cycles and overproduction, however we also need a term for all the unethical brands that often also produce shoddy quality. In my opinion, the only true luxury brand is one where ethical production goes hand in hand with the highest quality regarding materials, construction and craftsmanship.
I think of it as sustainable brands (those that make to order or in limited quantities, know their supply chain inside and out, use only high quality natural materials) vs conventional brands (fast fashion, mid tier, high street, luxury). Now I just mostly shop secondhand 🤷🏻♀️ 11:43
i think it's not wrong to think that everything is fast fashion nowadays. i think all we cand do is to buy less and wear it for a long time. i think i mostly able to do that bc i work from home. perhaps I'm more fast fashion-y with my pajamas. but still it would be worn for years. also i have the same experience with the comment from the Philippines. international fast fashion brand is expensive for a lot of people here in Indonesia, so it's aspirational to buy them and people tend to think that it has better quality than local brands, when it's probably just the same or even worse.
Currently working on a sustainable clothing brand, our first garment, and it’s is hilariously difficult to source 100% natural fabrics. The entire industry and supply chains are so accustomed to synthetic materials and blends that my request for 100% natural materials is seemingly difficult to comprehend. My sourcing team is based in North Africa, Portugal, and China. Manufacturing in China since we’re working with flax linen. The natural materials are also multitudes more expensive compared to synthetic materials. Would be happy to share more, it’s just wild to see how difficult it is…
I think it’s difficult to totally commit to not buying traditional fast fashion as the buying power of younger generations may be less, and being totally aware of the ethics and practices in the back of our minds is useful, but again if the buying power isn’t there there’s no other solution! Personally, I started shopping less, selling and or donating items I no longer use, and when buying reading the description/label of the items to see what materials have been use and try and stick to more sustainable ones. At the end of the day, I think it’s up to us to call out bad practices and hopefully brands will eventually catch on and commit to better practices, materials, ideally. But ofc money talks and in their perspective profit is what’s important. Individually, I do what I can but it’s good to see the discussion is taking shape more and more!
I've never thought "mid-tier" brands or even sports brands such as Adidas valued better working conditions than fast fashion brands. A lot of them also had their clothes produced in factories like Rana Plaza, just like the fast fashion brands. For me personally the most important aspect when it comes to sustainability is the impact a brand's clothing production has on the environment (making garments necessitates a lot of water for example and everything that people get rid off usually ends up in landfills) so therefore I just try to avoid brands that churn out huge amounts of items every season.
100%, but I also don't think they're the brands people picture with fast fashion - like we know they're not sustainable and engage in the same practices but they just don't have the same public awareness as Zara, H&M etc which is interesting!!
@katierobinson that's true but also: brands like h&m and Zara don't even have that public perception anymore, as some of your commenters have explained, they have gotten quite expensive in some places and on the other hand super fast fashion with even worse quality for less money have taken over. Side note: I would be super interested to learn how their business model actually works - I read Shein only starts producing an item once there is enough demand for the prototype on the website, and temu actually sells stuff from local Chinese vendors? I'm sure that can't be right..
Re: around 16:25 if a strong brand identity is used as a benchmark for luxury, then you could argue that Hot Topic brands are luxury. Not trying to nitpick, that was just my first thought
Would love if you did a few more videos on sustainable brands you love who use quality materials I’m making the switch now that I have a little more disposable income and im having a hard time finding good brands
At the end of the day luxury is just something hard to attain. Usually because of its price. It also should be something in relatively high demand that can sustain that hard to attain price for long. Whether that demand exists because of high quality or hype or status symbol is not relevant for the luxury definition.
To expand a little on why the "luxury means quality" narrative makes defining luxury impossible. I think it is a natural desire to want to have quality as part of the definition of luxury. But quality is an ambiguous term in and of itself. It has a websters dictionary definition, but that definition is not helpful when you are trying to determine if something is "high quality" in real life. You need much more knowledge and experience than just a definition to know that something is "high quality". Meanwhile most of us know that something is high quality after we have owned it for a long time. It's this kind of innate experiential feeling that then drives us to say "oh this thing is really high quality". And then if it was an expensive item we can also add that this is probably what "luxury" feels like. But if it was a cheap item we go the other way and use the narrative "oh it's better quality than all those luxury items". Even if we never tested out other luxury items in those categories, we just want to believe that narrative because it feels like we made a good choice. So this is why I think luxury first and foremost is about how hard something is to attain. And then quality doesn't need to play a part in that definition. If something is low quality but still sought after at a high price, it probably means it is driven by the status symbol. Usually that can't be sustained long enough. So we can try and use "short term luxury" and "long term luxury" as kind of fun distinctions lol
when i was watching was also thinking about how online shopping makes it hard to know what the quality will be when so much of it for me is the feel of the fabric. polyester is not all bad! its all about the way it wears and its just impossible to know if you cant touch it and try it on
Sigh, fast fashion existed in the 1870s with quickly made clothing using shoddy materials and slave labor. Luxury fashion uses quality fabrics pays their workers a living wage and has well cut and finished seams. Sustainable fashion uses all natural materials, and whether it is made by fast fashion clothing mills or well paid workers in healthy workplaces is up for investigation. The USA has lost a number of quality clothing mills that paid workers a living wage with pensons on retirement, all because people wanted cheap fast made clothing that they didn't have to pay attention to cleaning and maintaining.
While COS and Arket are part of H&M group, the quality is incomparable with H&M or Inditex brands for example. I’d say about 90% of my wardrobe is from COS and Arket and a lot of their pieces have been in my wardrobe for more than 5 years now. I have a pair of jeans from COS that are 8 years old now and safe to say they’re still holding up even though I do gardening and house chores in them. COS and Arket pieces are made to last. I also find that a lot of their styles have been selling for years and these two brands are less likely to follow the current trends as they’re selling more basics and wardrobe staples. Sure they adapt the colour options to current trends but I don’t see them selling super trendy stuff. So, I am not saying they’re not part of fast fashion, just find their stuff made of good quality materials hence I don’t have the need to buy new clothes every week or every month.
Apologies if you've already done a video on this but it's 25 years since Naomi Klein published No Logo. She drew attention to the fact that expensive brands like Nike were using sweatshops and raised so much awareness and then it was like everyone just kinda....forgot? Calling myself out on this as well, I read it when I was a teenager but then (late 2000s) I went to university, I had very little disposable income but wanted to buy clothes, and Primark happened. You could buy a pair of ballet flats for £3 (I guess the only possible consolation is that surprisingly I got loads of wear out of them). Then I'm sure at some point there was a big thing about Primark using sweatshop labour and then again, everyone kinda....forgot? Feels like there might be some sort of psychological fashion cycle here?
I think there's another solution. Stop calling it fast fashion and start calling it "exploitative fashion". No debates over "well TECHNICALLY this was supposed to refer to those cheap brands that churn out clothing..." - just call them all, cheap mid or luxury, what they are. Fashion brands that exploit workers and the environment. Exploitative fashion.
love this!!! someone else wrote a substack or spoke in an article about a similar idea of calling it "forever fashion" since that better articles how a lot of these polyester clothes will last in landfill, rather than something that disappears fast once we're done with it. language is so important!
We have to vote with our dollars (if we can) and change the language and make things more transparent if we want to change how the industry is going. This also means w need to reduce consumption and as clothes don't last or have the same quality as they used to. I am uninspired by the lot of what I see. And the things I love I love I just want to keep wearing them.
i have to disagree way too much with the focus on polyester, mainly because the alternatives are not really good either, cotton has a history of environmental and labor abuses (american slavery, british imperialism in egypt and india, the disappearance of the aral sea) and wool has a significantly worse carbon footprint (while the estimated CO2 per kilo varies greatly by source, generally wool seems to range from slightly less than 2x the CO2 amount to over 8x the amount of CO2)
completely agree there's no perfect material out there and even natural materials have their downsides! for me polyester really is the worst option tho, not only for its origins in oil but for potential health risks and how cheap and uncomfy it feels on my skin. the graph I included showed how poly is becoming the main material in fashion which does suggest that even if other materials aren't perfect poly is having the most impact just by volume produced.
I think people are equating fast fashion with price. For example, they think clothes from Shein are fast fashion and bad quality because it is cheap and comes from china. but, they are happy to buy the same/similar clothing at more expensive prices on Amazon that is still made in china. They think there is an implied higher cost to manufacture if the sale tag has a higher price, when in reality it is usually just a higher profit margin.
Fast fashion lane? It’s all about supply chain, so they’re just another branch of the fast fashion chain. Maybe they hook in toward the end, maybe they hook in at the beginning and unhook at the end, but if they’re in the fast fashion lane then they’re contributing to the problems and not the solutions.
I think it would have been good to stick with the original definition of fast fashion, the one that referred to their quick production, and then use further descriptors when needed. In general, I wish we started to use relevant adjectives instead of terms that are changing as we speak (literally). We can call a brand luxury and also add low quality, overpriced and exploitative, and all of those can simultaneously be true.
i don't want to be mean, but honestly some brands are really asking for it. like that influencer who said her brand isn't fast fashion. i think she only said that because it has become a somewhat derogatory term in the fashion world (people didn't use to be ashamed of wearing zara 10 years ago for example) and she obv doesn't want to be associated with that. that's why i am staying away from these civil terms that need a clearer definition and i just choose violence instead and call shitty brands, well, shitty brands. that way no influencer can tell me "wELL, mY bRaNd DoeSn'T fALL uNdeR tHe dEsCriPtioN oF tHis TeRm". if i call it a shitty brand, they can't simply start bringing up -- the bare minimum of it all -- normal working conditions. they will have to take a deeper approach to convince me that they aren't a shitty brand. p.s. im obv being sarcastic here, there is no cyberbullying on my menu!
I personally ditched the "fast fashion" label and divided all fashion brands up by "highly ethical", "somewhat ethical", and "not even trying". I look for a transparent supply chain, oversight from accredited bodies, lack of polyester, green credentials etc. and go from there!
Mmm I don’t like how this all devolves into Purity politics. I also think that fast fashion aka overproduction of cheap clothes, trend cycling, poor quality and stealing of designs from luxury should not be conflated with poor working conditions/unsustainable practices. While yes, Gap and H&M and Zara do have those problems, which large brand doesn’t?? It’s not an either/or, it’s “this and also”. You cannot be sustainable fast fashion, but you can be mid-tier and sustainable or you can be luxury and running sweatshops - there are various configurations of those criteria in existence, and conflating them all into essentially Being Evil makes the conversation a slop.
I really miss when fashion houses and brands put actually effort into their clothing. Like nothing truly stands out anymore.
literally I'm tired 🥱 imagine how much a brand would stand out simply from selling guaranteed quality & craftsmanship at accessible prices, like I'm not even saying cheap prices but not thousands of pounds either
@katierobinson
Right!? Like maybe it's just me but profit driven companies long term are highly detrimental to the planet.
yes!!!
Especially high end brands and designer ones. They know that " I -want-to- impress " generation are addicted to logos and not to quality.
@@joannasliwa8147 Exactly. It's mad depressing.
I tried shopping second hand for a year. From home decor and furniture to clothing. The only exception was underwear and socks. What can I say? For me the discussion about fast fashion and luxury is essentially over. I don't want to shop retail anymore. There's so much crap in this world already, that there's no need to produce another item for at least 10 years. We should go back to taking care of what we already have instead of chasing the countless trends on social media. There's no such thing as sustainable fashion, either. It's all based on greed and chasing the trends that die as fast as they're born.
literally this, I find myself not wanting to shop at all despite loving fashion and feeling like my wardrobe is lacking. even secondhand stuff feels like a minefield because of the overpowering polyester usage!
Shopping feels like a chore now and nothing lasts. I am always dissatisfied!
I feel the exact same 😮💨 it's a full time job trying to find something affordable and good quality lol
Hmmm, but shouldn't shopping be a chore to at least some extend? It originates from the idea of enriching your life with things that are important for survival, or in modern terms, life. If shopping does not feel at least a little bit like a chore while doing so you are probably on the verge of indulging in unnecessary spending.
That being said, obviously consuming stuff that isn't non-negotiable-important for everyday life, let's say chocolate, is fun and super important to a degree. But I would definitely argue that shopping needs to be viewed as a chore first to really dissect our behavior and if we actually need something or just mindlessly buy because we got marketed too enough times. If the first question's answer is yes, there is still plenty of space to make it fun and select things that are unique and expressive to your "self".
At this point, we need to be holding human behavior and consumer consumption also responsible. Because it doesn’t matter if a brand makes $500 high quality wool sweaters that have wonderful supply chains and don’t have many seasons. If someone wants to try to buy 10 of them for a trend, they can make that brand become fast fashion. It’s the chicken or the egg convo. Yes, brands started going cheap and using polyester and other plastics but people also started demanding clothes faster and cheaper and more trendy. If there wasn’t a demand for this trash, brands wouldn’t be producing it. People need to stop demanding and buying this trash if they want it to end. Brands continue to produce these things because people continue to buy them. Simple. And before people say Temu and SHEIN are for lower income people who need cheaper alternatives, no. People who can afford to buy cheap shit over and over again that disintegrates after one wash are typically not the poorest of us all…
I so agree. A brand's first objective is to be lucrative and if they find a business model that works they'll stick to it. We might have the fashion industry we deserve.
"It’s the chicken or the egg convo" 100% - I think brands do such an amazing job at literally shoving stuff in our face and subtly marketing at us that it's hard to ignore, but we CAN ignore it if we try. taking away our money is one of many good ways to make a point!
Just because a brand uses natural materials doesn’t mean they’re better than brands that use polyester. What dyes did they use? What pesticides did they use to produce something like cotton? These chemicals can affect your skin as well as the water supply once you wash those items.
literally this, it's all so complicated and why I don't trust the marketing around high-grade poly either. it's a red flag to me when brands throw around these terms without going into what their process are / info specific to them!
all fashion is basically fast now, there is no moral consumption in this stage of capitalism -- but that's exactly why individual choices matter. calling out those brands are definitely still needed. yet we can still make fast fashion less fast, by buying for quality, buying a lot less, and caring for our stuff. then it doesn't really matter which brand we're buying from (since its all the same shit storm anyway) it comes down to making each little choice better on our conscious
I read Dana Thomas' "Deluxe: When Luxury Lost It's Luster" when I first started getting interested in fashion years ago and even though it was published in 2007 and it's been a while since I've re-read it, she was completely right raising the flag on how the "growth at the expense of quality" approach of high-end conglomerates like LVMH already having a serious negative impact on their output. I was shopping at a thrift store looking for jeans and the quality of a pair of Lee jeans vs. a pair of from a denim luxury brand was WILD. The denim luxury jeans cost easily twice the Lee pair despite them having a 60/40 synthetic to cotton fabric ratio (compared to the 95% cotton of the Lee) and much thinner thread for stitching. Even if you ignore the ethics (which obviously you shouldn't) and the quality, the creative output is also extremely terrible. They might have been kind of tacky, but there was at least some visual interest to those ubiquitous multicolored Louis Vuitton Speedy bags. I see those canvas Dior totes everywhere and they're just so boring and lazy.
this sounds like the perfect book rec for me 😳
@@katierobinsonI read it recently, and almost everything she discusses still rings true.
poor working conditions doesn't mean a company is fast fashion. You can provide great working conditions, but if you cycle through fashion items multiple times in one season or seasons then you are fast fashion. On the other hand, a company could have poor pay and working conditions but bring out a limited range of items two times a year (technically, that may not count as fast fashion). Typically and traditionally fast fashion revolved around how many clothing and accessory ranges a brand came out with on a seasonal basis. This also did include somewhat the conversations around materials used too
Yes! Reformation is considered an ethical company but even the owner herself called her brand a fast fashion company.
literally this, I think the label fast fashion has just lost all meaning now 😭 great points!!
Simple suggestion: it's not called "Fast Fashion" anymore. Just call them Shit Clothes.
"Fast" is good. "Fashion" is attractive. Don't give it that credit. Don't let them hide behind vagueness.
Luxury brands, for example,Michael Kors , often do a high end , and low end production of the same designs specifically to sell at retailers like TJMax. The cheap batch will have less expensive hardware and will cut fabric from reams to maximize use instead of cutting it the same direction to reduce fraying. They are trying to capitalize both markets and failing.
literally, and their concession products (perfume, makeup, small items like purses) are another way of trying to dip into another spending category - but it's the same issues as the rest 🥴
I remember Bliss Foster making a great essay about what "high quality" really means, and I think it ties in a lot with the fast fashion debate.
Basically, quality isn’t something you can measure with a checklist-it’s more about the passion behind the craft. If a wool sweater is made by people who genuinely love making sweaters, they’ll use wool from well-cared-for sheep, spun by people who love their work, and assembled by others who actually care about what they’re doing. And if the people running the brand are in it because they want to bring their creative visions to life, they’d also want to respect and fairly pay their workers.
In a world where objects are made because people love making them, from sketch to finishing, fast fashion holds no place.
Obviously this is an extremely idealized view on capitalism. People who make sweaters because they want to get rich and don't care about ethics won't die out. For every passionate artisan there will be 10 H&M executive rooms. I honestly think this is a little bit where we as the consumers hold responsibility.
If we see the objects of our every day use with a similar amount of passion and love, hold value to them that spans over years, let it be our fridge, shoes, bedframes or sweaters, we will demand that same passion for the craft from its makers.
One could bring up the counter argument of what if a person holds that intense value to a SHEIN sweater that is made out of acrylic by a child in a dark cave. To that I would answer, so be it. Then we can consider that sweater to be of beautiful quality and value - But that could never happen. No person ever would come to adore the smell of acid in the air or the skin rashes they get.
A world in which we value every object we're privileged enough to possess with long lasting passion holds no place for fast fashion!
Beautifully put. I loved that Bliss Foster video, too.
I think in this day and age, handmade clothing of any kind is the ultimate luxury. I just finished crocheting myself a sweater, and it's easily the most luxurious feeling garment I've ever owned, purely because I know the craftsmanship and time I put into it and how I made it fit just right. Whether it's something you make yourself or a custom piece you ordered from a craftsperson, that's real luxury.
Whenever I try to go shopping, even at the thrift store, its impossible to ignore just how low quality everything is. In the womens sections especially. My local thrift store has so much shein and other hyper-fast fashion pieces that I've literally seen falling apart on the hangers.
All clothing with seams or sewing of any kind is handmade, as a person must be present to operate a sewing machine. There are no automated sewing lines. Knitting can be done by machines. The fast-fashion part is not that the items are not handmade, but that the people making these items are rushed and required to sew low-quality items by the factories where they work. I think "homemade" is a better term, as it specifies not being made by a large company in a factory instead of implying that poorly managed factory workers are not "handmaking" the clothing at their jobs.
My take: agree with your suggestion that we should do away with brands being fast fashion. The industry at large has adopted and is engaging in fast fashion behaviour, including many “luxury brands” that were well known for their craftsmanship. So many luxury brands are relying on “sweatshops” in Italy where they pay their suppliers and manufacturing contractors so little that the only way to meet their requests is engaging in exploitation.
in complete agreement 🤝
loved this video, i really admire your ability to think of these topics and think about defining terms like fast fashion in a new way by yourself :) also happy holidays 🎄
the only reasons i buy fast fashion are price and size inclusivity, but now luxury is made of polyester yet still costs 1000x the price and will never be in my size.
Have you read this year's Fashion Accountability Report? Ironically, despite having an abyssmal score of 37/150, H&M Group was the highest rated among the 52 companies analyzed. Meanwhile, traditionally "high fashion" houses such as Chanel and LVMH scored 5 and 13, respectively. Poor practices have expanded to every sector of the industry to the point that it's definitely murkied the waters.
Katie, wishing you speedy recovery from cold! And peaceful festive/holidays time :)
Ah, 'fast fashion'...For me, sort of whole world becomes 'fast' lately, with people truly expecting things coming their way fast and ready, without need to put some work in. There seems to be a real decline of individuality when it comes to fashion/what are we wearing and luxury (or so called) fashion space does not hold itself above that trend. I'm not very social, but I like to observe people and when I see clones fallen for trends & looking the same iteration of one another (especially being in groups), I can't help but cringe inwardly. Yeah, I understand (at least I try!) trends and need to belong through them, but I wish there was easier/more accessible way to escape this, even from just purely visual standpoint.
People just start looking the same for me sometimes, even by face works (since we now have face trends it seems, based on celebrities who often claim no work lol) and not mentioning clothes, and it's a bit scary, sometimes concerning.
*disclaimer for the who will come with 'why do you care what ppl wear and if they wear the same things?' - well, because I live in a society and can have an opinion on this?
yes! can definitely see this in the personal style discourse that's taken over TikTok this year (bc I'm working on a podcast where I go into this it's at the front of my mind lol) - the bag charm trend in particular feels like a great case study
I wonder if the decline in individuality is directly linked to the loneliness epidemic, people are finding community and connection by conforming to the same trends?
@@katierobinson I do think socials play big part in this whole losing individuality in terms of 'personal style'/how we look. Influencers can often now make or break a piece into something proverbial 'everyone and their mother' wants to have, hence the desire and popularity.
In my opinion people also want to belong more than stand out, at least that's my observation lately - but what's pretty ironic in that is sometimes people truly think they DO stand out while wearing the same uniforms I've seen on others (at least judging from their captions). I guess an outsider like me maybe understands fashion/society dynamics differently from so-called 'fashion girls' and they consider themselves an elite & special by wearing same things, bags, shoes, hair and whatever is marketed as trendy.
I think what people don't understand about fast fashion is that it's basically every brand we have grown up with and know about. If they sell it in a mall it's almost guaranteed to be fast fashion. Every brand outsources labor to make things cheaper to produce. They use cheap fabrics and dyes. You want to know why women's clothes don't have pockets? It's because it's cheaper to just not bother.
I think a good related video is Abby Cox's one titled something like how athliesure killed fashion. She really highlights how the practices that exemplify fast fashion started in the 70s and have only strengthened.
I also think that for some reason we think the opposite of fast fashion is luxury, which isn't true. The opposite of fast fashion is slow fashion and luxury houses could fall into either category.
literally this is such a good point, luxury has somehow marketed themselves as being the opposite of fast fashion without anything to back it up 😭
The working class has little to no disposable income, so I won't blame them for using fast fashion since it's their only option besides drifting. They could of course still make better decisions while buying fast fashion like choosing clothes without plastic content if possible. But I think the million dollar question is - how to make sustainable and eco-friendly fashion desirable for the middle class. There actually are options to buy clothes and shoes for roughly the same amount of money but most middle class won't do it. For example buying new midrange Nike trainers costs about the same as buying trainers made of plant leathers. Why aren't people buying those? Is it because of brand loyalty, celebrity endorsements or both? Why aren't eco-friendly and sustainable products still as 'cool' for majority of the population?
By the way, the lack of celebrity/Hollywood endorsements for eco-friendly and sustainable companies is striking and shows that they have absolutely zero actual care for our environment except perhaps a few individuals. A lot of talk but no actual actions behind them.
@@carlerykI mean maybe but a lot of celebrity endorsements are paid for. It makes complete sense that a small sustainable brand aren't paying celebrities to talk about them.
@@glitterberserker1029 That's exactly my point - they are not ready to advertise these companies for less money or for free for the right cause. They don't care about microplastics, forever chemicals, underpaid or slave labour behind these products etc. The vast majority of celebrity companies aren't sustainable or eco-friendly either although they have the money and influence to do better.
i think as fashion enthusiasts, theres an important difference to be made between the designer aspect and the fashion business aspect.
e.g u can admire, say, Miuccia Prada from Miu Miu because of the meaning of some of her designs and still think Miu Miu has become quite commercial lately and is likely not only Miuccia's responsability but a whole shareholder and business side of it, the consumer's expectations (we are all used to trends now) that got something to do with it.
For me fast fashion are brands with very fast trend cycles and overproduction, however we also need a term for all the unethical brands that often also produce shoddy quality. In my opinion, the only true luxury brand is one where ethical production goes hand in hand with the highest quality regarding materials, construction and craftsmanship.
I like the idea of having a new term that encompasses bad quality and bad ethics!
I think of it as sustainable brands (those that make to order or in limited quantities, know their supply chain inside and out, use only high quality natural materials) vs conventional brands (fast fashion, mid tier, high street, luxury). Now I just mostly shop secondhand 🤷🏻♀️ 11:43
i think it's not wrong to think that everything is fast fashion nowadays. i think all we cand do is to buy less and wear it for a long time. i think i mostly able to do that bc i work from home. perhaps I'm more fast fashion-y with my pajamas. but still it would be worn for years.
also i have the same experience with the comment from the Philippines. international fast fashion brand is expensive for a lot of people here in Indonesia, so it's aspirational to buy them and people tend to think that it has better quality than local brands, when it's probably just the same or even worse.
What are some brand that are sustainable???
Currently working on a sustainable clothing brand, our first garment, and it’s is hilariously difficult to source 100% natural fabrics. The entire industry and supply chains are so accustomed to synthetic materials and blends that my request for 100% natural materials is seemingly difficult to comprehend. My sourcing team is based in North Africa, Portugal, and China. Manufacturing in China since we’re working with flax linen. The natural materials are also multitudes more expensive compared to synthetic materials. Would be happy to share more, it’s just wild to see how difficult it is…
I think it’s difficult to totally commit to not buying traditional fast fashion as the buying power of younger generations may be less, and being totally aware of the ethics and practices in the back of our minds is useful, but again if the buying power isn’t there there’s no other solution! Personally, I started shopping less, selling and or donating items I no longer use, and when buying reading the description/label of the items to see what materials have been use and try and stick to more sustainable ones. At the end of the day, I think it’s up to us to call out bad practices and hopefully brands will eventually catch on and commit to better practices, materials, ideally. But ofc money talks and in their perspective profit is what’s important. Individually, I do what I can but it’s good to see the discussion is taking shape more and more!
I've never thought "mid-tier" brands or even sports brands such as Adidas valued better working conditions than fast fashion brands. A lot of them also had their clothes produced in factories like Rana Plaza, just like the fast fashion brands.
For me personally the most important aspect when it comes to sustainability is the impact a brand's clothing production has on the environment (making garments necessitates a lot of water for example and everything that people get rid off usually ends up in landfills) so therefore I just try to avoid brands that churn out huge amounts of items every season.
100%, but I also don't think they're the brands people picture with fast fashion - like we know they're not sustainable and engage in the same practices but they just don't have the same public awareness as Zara, H&M etc which is interesting!!
@katierobinson that's true but also: brands like h&m and Zara don't even have that public perception anymore, as some of your commenters have explained, they have gotten quite expensive in some places and on the other hand super fast fashion with even worse quality for less money have taken over.
Side note: I would be super interested to learn how their business model actually works - I read Shein only starts producing an item once there is enough demand for the prototype on the website, and temu actually sells stuff from local Chinese vendors? I'm sure that can't be right..
Off topic, but my bird on the finch app has your EXACT sweater
Re: around 16:25 if a strong brand identity is used as a benchmark for luxury, then you could argue that Hot Topic brands are luxury. Not trying to nitpick, that was just my first thought
literally hard agree, a lot of brands outside luxury have this!
Would love if you did a few more videos on sustainable brands you love who use quality materials I’m making the switch now that I have a little more disposable income and im having a hard time finding good brands
At the end of the day luxury is just something hard to attain. Usually because of its price. It also should be something in relatively high demand that can sustain that hard to attain price for long. Whether that demand exists because of high quality or hype or status symbol is not relevant for the luxury definition.
To expand a little on why the "luxury means quality" narrative makes defining luxury impossible. I think it is a natural desire to want to have quality as part of the definition of luxury. But quality is an ambiguous term in and of itself. It has a websters dictionary definition, but that definition is not helpful when you are trying to determine if something is "high quality" in real life. You need much more knowledge and experience than just a definition to know that something is "high quality". Meanwhile most of us know that something is high quality after we have owned it for a long time. It's this kind of innate experiential feeling that then drives us to say "oh this thing is really high quality". And then if it was an expensive item we can also add that this is probably what "luxury" feels like. But if it was a cheap item we go the other way and use the narrative "oh it's better quality than all those luxury items". Even if we never tested out other luxury items in those categories, we just want to believe that narrative because it feels like we made a good choice. So this is why I think luxury first and foremost is about how hard something is to attain. And then quality doesn't need to play a part in that definition. If something is low quality but still sought after at a high price, it probably means it is driven by the status symbol. Usually that can't be sustained long enough. So we can try and use "short term luxury" and "long term luxury" as kind of fun distinctions lol
when i was watching was also thinking about how online shopping makes it hard to know what the quality will be when so much of it for me is the feel of the fabric. polyester is not all bad! its all about the way it wears and its just impossible to know if you cant touch it and try it on
Its interesting to watch old shows like golden girls and designing women and hear how polyesther gets disparaved.
nice to know that hating polyester is nothing new 💀 if only fashion would listen lol
Sigh, fast fashion existed in the 1870s with quickly made clothing using shoddy materials and slave labor. Luxury fashion uses quality fabrics pays their workers a living wage and has well cut and finished seams. Sustainable fashion uses all natural materials, and whether it is made by fast fashion clothing mills or well paid workers in healthy workplaces is up for investigation. The USA has lost a number of quality clothing mills that paid workers a living wage with pensons on retirement, all because people wanted cheap fast made clothing that they didn't have to pay attention to cleaning and maintaining.
While COS and Arket are part of H&M group, the quality is incomparable with H&M or Inditex brands for example. I’d say about 90% of my wardrobe is from COS and Arket and a lot of their pieces have been in my wardrobe for more than 5 years now. I have a pair of jeans from COS that are 8 years old now and safe to say they’re still holding up even though I do gardening and house chores in them. COS and Arket pieces are made to last. I also find that a lot of their styles have been selling for years and these two brands are less likely to follow the current trends as they’re selling more basics and wardrobe staples. Sure they adapt the colour options to current trends but I don’t see them selling super trendy stuff. So, I am not saying they’re not part of fast fashion, just find their stuff made of good quality materials hence I don’t have the need to buy new clothes every week or every month.
Apologies if you've already done a video on this but it's 25 years since Naomi Klein published No Logo. She drew attention to the fact that expensive brands like Nike were using sweatshops and raised so much awareness and then it was like everyone just kinda....forgot? Calling myself out on this as well, I read it when I was a teenager but then (late 2000s) I went to university, I had very little disposable income but wanted to buy clothes, and Primark happened. You could buy a pair of ballet flats for £3 (I guess the only possible consolation is that surprisingly I got loads of wear out of them). Then I'm sure at some point there was a big thing about Primark using sweatshop labour and then again, everyone kinda....forgot? Feels like there might be some sort of psychological fashion cycle here?
Cognitive dissonance maybe?
I think there's another solution. Stop calling it fast fashion and start calling it "exploitative fashion". No debates over "well TECHNICALLY this was supposed to refer to those cheap brands that churn out clothing..." - just call them all, cheap mid or luxury, what they are. Fashion brands that exploit workers and the environment.
Exploitative fashion.
love this!!!
someone else wrote a substack or spoke in an article about a similar idea of calling it "forever fashion" since that better articles how a lot of these polyester clothes will last in landfill, rather than something that disappears fast once we're done with it. language is so important!
People could try to be more specific on branding of fast fashions...not all affordable brands make cheap quality clothing. What do you define as cheap quality? Because I do recall taking a textiles class at IADT in 2011 and we used to actually test fabric swatches to water resistance, absorbance, & flame retardance. I recall a classmate discussing how gap and Aeropostale had a bad year in manufacturing when their basic tshirts would rip and get holy after on wash. These were supposedly Jersey cotton tees. Now mind you that's are Mall brands. While people want to give heat on polyester as a synthetic and heavy pollutant... I don't think we should simply rely on this video alone. She is too technical. Independent designers can gain insight from videos like this but we are usually in a whole other category. Typically for my resources so have been known to upcycle previously modern vintage fast fashion pieces from 2014 and prior. Aside from that when I construct I like using natural fibers and synthetics alike. I think designers need to be more specific on what being sustainable really means. Sustainable for me as a designer is something that you can recycle over and over and over again and not necessarily have to destroy , pollute, or contaminate others or self in the process of making or wearing. The majority of the world is tempted to settle for fast fashion brands because of the strain of the cost of living. People disposable or discretionary income the way they used too and these fast fashion brands are producing far too much per production order. FOMO marketing....black Friday deals ... The seasons do change too fast. The East is pushing every trend on America and Europe, and they as consumers are eating the GMO carrot .I should do a thrift store sell where everything is a $1.00 and put a marketing sign that says this : All clothing goods here are from the era prior to the Fast Fashion Beast dominated. The quality will allow up to 500 washes with out literally falling apart. Buy here ! It's worth it and you won't feel cheated! Luxury fashion for me is producing a minimal amount of unique goods that are not mass manufactured and even if I were to create a line for all people I wouldnt go on over kill for the greed of the profit. I would probably break it down for women's carrying 16 different sizes in 3 different color or print variations with literally 12 looks. Then I would only set the cost sheet to manufacture at an approximation of 40,000 pieces considering . I would also make sure that the durability plus life time quality of the fabric was guaranteed much like brands were in the 80's and 90's.
Bye! Have a lovely day too.
© " Lady Lyria's Fashion Consulting. 12/23/2024. All Rights Reserved.
We have to vote with our dollars (if we can) and change the language and make things more transparent if we want to change how the industry is going. This also means w need to reduce consumption and as clothes don't last or have the same quality as they used to. I am uninspired by the lot of what I see. And the things I love I love I just want to keep wearing them.
i have to disagree way too much with the focus on polyester, mainly because the alternatives are not really good either, cotton has a history of environmental and labor abuses (american slavery, british imperialism in egypt and india, the disappearance of the aral sea) and wool has a significantly worse carbon footprint (while the estimated CO2 per kilo varies greatly by source, generally wool seems to range from slightly less than 2x the CO2 amount to over 8x the amount of CO2)
completely agree there's no perfect material out there and even natural materials have their downsides! for me polyester really is the worst option tho, not only for its origins in oil but for potential health risks and how cheap and uncomfy it feels on my skin. the graph I included showed how poly is becoming the main material in fashion which does suggest that even if other materials aren't perfect poly is having the most impact just by volume produced.
I think people are equating fast fashion with price. For example, they think clothes from Shein are fast fashion and bad quality because it is cheap and comes from china. but, they are happy to buy the same/similar clothing at more expensive prices on Amazon that is still made in china. They think there is an implied higher cost to manufacture if the sale tag has a higher price, when in reality it is usually just a higher profit margin.
Fast fashion lane? It’s all about supply chain, so they’re just another branch of the fast fashion chain. Maybe they hook in toward the end, maybe they hook in at the beginning and unhook at the end, but if they’re in the fast fashion lane then they’re contributing to the problems and not the solutions.
I think it would have been good to stick with the original definition of fast fashion, the one that referred to their quick production, and then use further descriptors when needed.
In general, I wish we started to use relevant adjectives instead of terms that are changing as we speak (literally). We can call a brand luxury and also add low quality, overpriced and exploitative, and all of those can simultaneously be true.
i don't want to be mean, but honestly some brands are really asking for it. like that influencer who said her brand isn't fast fashion. i think she only said that because it has become a somewhat derogatory term in the fashion world (people didn't use to be ashamed of wearing zara 10 years ago for example) and she obv doesn't want to be associated with that. that's why i am staying away from these civil terms that need a clearer definition and i just choose violence instead and call shitty brands, well, shitty brands. that way no influencer can tell me "wELL, mY bRaNd DoeSn'T fALL uNdeR tHe dEsCriPtioN oF tHis TeRm". if i call it a shitty brand, they can't simply start bringing up -- the bare minimum of it all -- normal working conditions. they will have to take a deeper approach to convince me that they aren't a shitty brand.
p.s. im obv being sarcastic here, there is no cyberbullying on my menu!
I just want to get something that won't disolve or get super pilly if i dry it once
Influencer brands selling $200 polyester coats absolutely are cheap.
I personally ditched the "fast fashion" label and divided all fashion brands up by "highly ethical", "somewhat ethical", and "not even trying".
I look for a transparent supply chain, oversight from accredited bodies, lack of polyester, green credentials etc. and go from there!
Mmm I don’t like how this all devolves into Purity politics. I also think that fast fashion aka overproduction of cheap clothes, trend cycling, poor quality and stealing of designs from luxury should not be conflated with poor working conditions/unsustainable practices. While yes, Gap and H&M and Zara do have those problems, which large brand doesn’t?? It’s not an either/or, it’s “this and also”. You cannot be sustainable fast fashion, but you can be mid-tier and sustainable or you can be luxury and running sweatshops - there are various configurations of those criteria in existence, and conflating them all into essentially Being Evil makes the conversation a slop.