FAST FASHION: FAST DEATH OR FAST PROFIT?
The fast fashion model is a “streamlined system involving rapid design,
production, distribution, and marketing” (Cohen 2011).
It allows the consumer to get more fashion content and product differentiation at
a low price.
The defining feature of fast fashion is that it does not have a certain look; it feeds
off existing trends and is thus endlessly changing.
Fast fashion retailers lead-times are sometimes made public; Zara can design,
produce, and deliver a new garment in two weeks; Forever 21 six weeks, and
H&M eight weeks (Cline 2012; 99).
Key words in Fast Fashion
- Cheap
It democratizes fashion with low price, stimulating consumption to grow
faster and products flow quicker
- Cater
It shortens products’ shelf time, encouraging repeat visits
- Dominance
It combines quick response production capabilities with enhanced product
design capabilities, capturing latest trends and exploit minimal production
lead times
What makes the consumers to choose fast fashion brands instead of other garments brands?
http://hb.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1312256/FULLTEXT01
At present on the average, a person buys 60 percent more clothing items and uses half of the time
compared to 15 years ago. These changing consumption behaviors are generating a huge amount of
textile waste (Leblance, 2018).
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/textile-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878122
Cheap clothes come with severe environmental consequences
Fast fashion market value forecast worldwide in 2009 and 2019, with a forecast
for 2029 (in billion U.S. dollars)*
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1008241/fast-fashion-market-value-forecast-
worldwide/
Competitive pressures are becoming higher and global demand continues to ask for new collections rapidly.
Changing collections about every three weeks has induced consumers to act with a new behavior called “see
now—buy now”.
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/sustainability-12-02809.pdf
Trends in the Fashion Industry. The Perception ofSustainability and Circular Economy:A Gender/Generation
Quantitative Approach
Of the more than 100 billion items of clothing produced each year, some 20% go unsold.
Segments of the apparel industry are slowly moving to more principled practices.
Zara and H&M have launched capsule collections made with sustainable materials. And H&M has
pledged only to source organic, recycled or sustainable cotton by 2020 and to be “climate positive” by
2040.
But consumers will play the key role in demanding change. We can start by reading clothing labels and
considering where and how items are made before buying them. For what we already own, we can wash
less, repair more, toss less and consider resale. We can give our wardrobes a longer life—and be far less
casual, as an ethical matter, about our clothes.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-high-price-of-fast-fashion-11567096637
Approximately 85 % of the clothing Americans consume, nearly 3.8 billion pounds annually, is sent to
landfills as solid waste, amounting to nearly 80 pounds per American per year
https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7
If a piece of clothing costs you $19.99, that means the person who made it was paid 19 cents
breakthroughs in fiber-recycling technology, cruelty-free lab-grown materials, hyperlocal manufacturing,
or alternative retail platforms such as resale and rental, which can sate the Instagram generation’s
desire for novelty without piling on fashion’s negative impacts
https://www.vox.com/2019/9/12/20860620/fast-fashion-zara-hm-forever-21-boohoo-environment-cost
https://katadata.co.id/ariayudhistira/infografik/5e9a4c494f4f2/kontroversi-di-balik-industri-fast-fashion
https://www.bwss.org/fastfashion/
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/style-thats-sustainable-a-new-fast-
fashion-formula
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/survey-consumer-sentiment-on-sustainability-in-fashion
https://mena.yougov.com/en/news/2019/07/01/uae-residents-open-sustainable-fashion-price-still/
Cohen, A. M. (2011). Fast fashion: Tale of two markets. The Futurist, 45(5), 12
Cline, E. L. (2012). Overdressed: The shockingly high cost of cheap fashion.
Penguin.
