We all live on a planet where the environment and atmosphere are being destroyed by one of the most intelligent beings living on it. By making better choices, we can change that and begin making a positive impact on our world. The key to a better world and a better future lies in each of our hands. We have to break away from the factory mill of societal brainwashing and really take a look at what we’re doing.
I am an aspiring designer. I love fashion and beauty, among many other things. The creative freedom, glamor, and influence are what sparked my interest in the industry. Fashion is exciting and people gravitate towards that. That’s probably why it’s one of the biggest industries in the world. In 2015 it was reported to be a 1.2 trillion-dollar global industry, according to the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee.
Keeping Up With Fast Fashion
In recent decades our desire for stuff has grown. We’ve been buying more things and are still trying to keep up with “The Joneses”. Clothing has become a representation of our status in life and it’s causing more and more people to fall into the trap, which is fast fashion. Early on in the fashion industry, there were only 4 seasons. People bought quality clothing and wore them only until they no longer fit or were presentable. We now have about 52 fashion seasons. Fast fashion was designed to make you feel off the trend, almost every week. Companies work with marketers to make consumers buy a lot, as fast as possible. This causes a rippling of negative effects in the fashion industry.
To keep up with the demands of fast fashion companies resort to cheap labor and cheap materials. Resulting in a low-quality garment that won’t last long. The garments usually get thrown away and end up in a landfill or the ocean. There have even been reports of large retail companies slashing and cutting out-of-season clothing and throwing them out on the curb. They destroy the clothes so no one would be able to resell or wear them. Unfortunately, that’s just the tip of the unsustainable iceberg.
Laborers who make this cheap clothing work in extremely unethical conditions, sometimes only to be paid $1 – $3 a day. It’s believed that the mass suicide that’s been happening in India since the mid-’90s, is due to cotton farmers going into debt from buying genetically modified cotton seeds, to try to keep up with fiber demands. This epidemic has claimed over 250,000 lives. This irresponsible production and carelessness for human rights and our planet make this an extremely unsustainable industry.
As a creator, my decisions hold a heavyweight on the transformation of this hopefully soon to be a sustainable fashion industry. As a consumer, the responsibility is just as great because you get to choose who stays in business. The way we change things is by demanding better, becoming more knowledgeable and using our money for good. Brands and companies will follow suit. We as a whole have to come together and speak up for the men and women in sweatshops, working 10-hour shifts with no breaks, for a measly 1 dollar a day. The only way things will change is if we ALL make better buying choices. We can change the world, but to do that we have to realize that every single one of us matters, every single dollar counts.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
– Albert Einstein
By: Eden Cabiness
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