Fast fashion regulations?

There has been a lot of talks about what to do with the fashion industry to improve its impact on the global climate. According to consultancy McKinsey’s State of Fashion report, fashion is among the worlds most polluting industries accounting for between 3% and 5% of global carbon emission. This statement has been going on for years and each time we ask ourself “what can we do to improve it?” and each time we come to a stand still. So, what can we really do? France debating wether or not to make fast fashion pay extra tax on the clothes they sell as a way to try and minimise the amount of clothes being sold could be an option. But is this really the best tactic for a world where we are all driven by consumerism, money and staying relevant?

The history of fashion is a story of social growth and wealth. Already in Ancient Greece, Rome and China clothes would represent your social status and how trendy you were, however the trends at this time were slow and would maybe change only once every 100-200 years. In more recent years such as the 1700- and 1800-hundreds clothes could even become a symbol of revolution and going against the stream like in the French Revolution. Today clothes still carry all these markers, however now they are also considered business. It wasn’t until the early 1900-hundreds that clothes started to become an industry like today and considered “big money potential”. The industrial revolution had helped improve the amount and quality of fabric that could be produced and the rise of creative designers such as Coco Chanel, Dior and Schiaparelli wanting to change the narrative of fashion threw the industry for a spin leading us tho where we are today. The evolution of fashion could be considered a linear event but I would instead argue that it is a reflection of where we are in our history meaning that the next step could really be whatever. Designers reflect on their time and surroundings just like other artists creating things inspired but what they see and hear, and collectively they can create movements that shift our perception of how we should tango with fashion. This is not to say that fashion can only change from within just like art doesn’t just change because the artists want it to, sometimes bigger surrounding events leads to shifts and the climate discussions is and can be one of these bigger shifts.

Maybe bills such as the one they are discussing in France is just what we need to spark the change. According to the bill “This evolution of the apparel sector towards ephemeral fashion, combining increased volumes and low prices, is influencing consumer buying habits by creating buying impulses and a constant need for renewal, which is not without environmental, social and economic consequences.” But is it really fair to keep fast fashion as the only villain in this story, shouldn’t we instated consider the entire fashion industry the villain? Or is fashion even the bad guy, maybe it’s the norm of consumerism that we should target? Because without that we wouldn’t be producing that much, right? I believe that there isn’t just one thing creating all the problems, its circular, meaning everything is influenced by one another. Yes consumers push brands to produce because they want more, but they only want more because its the standard of today, and because they see what everyone else have and want that, and because the brands tell them to get more things witch leads to them expecting and wanting more from the brands, so with other words a spiralling circle of doom…

But it is hard to influence an entire group of people by just telling them what to do, so maybe you need to make the change for them to really see change.

Fast fashion brands such as Shein and and Temu, which scale up thier order depending on demand thanks to ultra-flexible supply chains, have argued that they don’t have the same amount of waste compared to more established and traditional brands such as Zara and H&M where they instead rely on predicting peoples preferences for production. These changes to the production cycle can for sure help to decrease the amount of waste a company has but it doesn’t change the waste that the average person has. It for sure is a combined problem having both waste form the factories, brands and the population and I think we need to talk about all the sections and not just one to solve the problem. Improving the way we produce clothes will for sure help with decreasing carbon emissions and waste, just as making the design and production cycle for a brand more effective will decrease waste and carbon emissions, and so we also have to figure out and ask ourselves how to solve the same problem for the people. And once again maybe putting a tax on the clothes will help with people buying less and therefor throwing away less, or we just create a bigger divide between “rich and poor” people, or we instead just push all the problems to the companies instead of facing and solving the real one? We can’t really know.

Last thing, why only target fast fashion. True they are the biggest villain in the fashion industry but the “high luxury” brands aren’t much better. Yes less people but from them as they are much more expensive but they produce multiple collections a year that they then just end up presenting in some exotic place on a catwalk of the cream-della-cream people. Isn’t that just as bad if not even worse? Shouldn’t we talk about that as well? Once again, yes it is the fast fashion companies that have the most waste both from the factories and from people throwing away their stuff faster but it all originates from the big “luxury” brands. The cycle is changing a bit thanks to social media (that’s a whole other topic for itself) but in reality it is them pushing new collections and trends every season and in-between that the fast fashion brands then copy and push to the people. So shouldn’t we keep then accountable as well?

This is a short reflection on the fashion industry from my perspective. There are for sure multiple other things to take into account and discuss but these were my first thoughts when talking and hearing about the problems and solutions.