Written by Chandra Wong
Slow fashion is the opposite of fast fashion. It encompasses an awareness and approach to fashion that keeps the processes and required resources at the forefront. It advocates for buying better-quality garments that will last longer.
It also recognizes the value of fair trade through the fair treatment of people, animals, and the environment. Slow fashion and sustainable or ethical fashion are similar with significant overlap, The main difference with slow fashion is that it targets reducing consumption at all stages in production up to and including consumer purchasing.
The term slow fashion was coined by Kate Fletcher at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion. Fletcher saw the need for a slower pace in the fashion industry and the need to repeal the fast fashion movement. In the late 1990s and 2000s, brands like H & M, Zara, and Forever 21 took the fashion industry by storm. With a business model set up to have new merchandise in the store 3 - 4 times per week, the fashion cycle accelerated to an unprecedented pace.
With the cheap clothes based on an extremely short production turn-around time, consumers could buy more clothes more often. The average number of clothing items purchased in the U.S. per capita is about 5 times higher now than it was in the 80’s - the age of the Material Girl. Half of those new purchases are worn three or fewer times.
Trendy clothing is cheaper than ever and cheap clothing is trendier than ever. Fast fashion retailers scour the latest trends and their new designs and can go from a sketch to the rack in as little as three weeks! Fast fashion is about making trendy clothes quick, cheap, and disposable.
Fast fashion may be easy on the consumer’s bank account (and lucrative for the producers), but there are many other costs. As recently as 1990, half of the clothing purchased in the US was made in the US. Now only about 2% is domestically produced.
The rapid production speed in fast fashion is often achieved with sweat-shop labor and child labor producing knock-offs. Labor regulations in other countries can be near non-existent. Self-regulation has been lacking with headline-making tragic stories coming out every few years.
Even with the best of intentions, companies send orders to approved factories overseas that meet labor and safety guidelines, but their orders can then be subcontracted out to unapproved factories. There is a real human cost in fast fashion. Thousands of lives have been lost in fires and building collapses used in fashion production due to lack of regulation. Reporters often find pre-teens working in unapproved factories that are still making products for US brands.
On top of the human cost is the environmental cost. In 2015, textile production created more greenhouse gasses than international flights and maritime shipping combined. It takes over 10,000 liters of water to grow the cotton for one pair of jeans, but synthetics are even worse.
342 million barrels of oil a year are used to produce polyester, nylon, and spandex. Viscose is another fast fashion fabric with a huge environmental impact. About one-third of the viscose in clothes comes from ancient or threatened forests and the process involves a huge amount of waste.
As much as 70% of the harvested wood is dumped or incinerated. Many toxic chemicals are used in the manufacturing, processing, and finishing of textiles, and these chemicals often get dumped in rivers near villages.
Getting rid of unwanted clothing is another huge problem. The average American throws away 80 pounds of clothes a year. Most of the clothes that are donated still end up in the trash in the US or it is sold by the ton to buyers in the developing world. Even there, much of last year’s fashion is filling this year’s landfills. What isn’t thrown out is burned. 87% of the fabric used for clothing ends up incinerated or in a landfill. Buying less means less disposal.
Much of slow fashion comes down to supply chain management. Design, sourcing, manufacturing, and distributing a garment for slow fashion can take nearly two years.
However, the end product is diligently made with more environmentally friendly products and processes, and it was made with better working conditions for employees. Slow fashion takes longer to produce but also slows down consumption. It allows brands to produce long-lasting, timeless garments that the consumer truly loves.
By buying well-made, classic pieces, consumers actually save money over time, fewer natural resources are used in the process, and there is less waste. Garments are kept for a much longer time and therefore stay out of the landfill and incinerators.