By Pamela Vanessa Meixueiro Aguilar

There is no doubt that fashion trends have become more influential than ever before, shaping consumer behavior and encouraging constant purchasing. Social media platforms, influencers, and the fast pace at which these trends change have led to a never-ending cycle of fulfilling consumer wants while continually introducing novelty into products, and fast fashion is taking the lead. 

Fast Fashion and Its Ever-Changing Trends

Fast fashion is a business model based on the rapid and low-cost production of clothing with the goal of replicating current trends and delivering them to consumers as quickly as possible. It is characterized by overconsumption, short-lived garments, and its strong influence on younger demographics.

Social media today is a space where ideas are shared to create, express individuality, and influence others. Every situation is an opportunity to launch a new style or trend that thousands of people will later adopt, and for these groups to follow, big names like SHEIN, Zara, and Uniqlo have to act fast to deliver what the audience wants. This happens in a really short amount of time, varying from six weeks to three months, the life cycle of an ongoing trend.  

Unlike “slow” fashion, which only has two main sale seasons per year, Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. Fast fashion may showcase up to 52 “micro-seasons”, that is, a season per week in the year. This is the reason consumers are constantly encouraged to purchase new clothing to stay relevant in a materialistic world. Garments aren’t long-term pieces anymore; they are temporary items that will be replaced after a few uses because of a new trending style. This massive consumption increases textile waste and pressure on manufacturing systems, material sourcing, and supply chain workers. 

Consumerism

Consumerism is the idea that acquiring material goods and services is essential for the satisfaction and social status of an individual. This concept is now reinforced in every single advertisement. Brands do not just sell products anymore; they sell a sentiment and experience everybody wants to be part of. 

Social media platforms reinforce consumerism by exposing users to personalized advertisements that create a sense of identity. Users are unconsciously drawn to associate shopping with confidence and social acceptance, even with a growing awareness of what fast fashion encompasses. To keep consumer interest, many brands use greenwashing strategies to promote their products as more “clean” and “sustainable” than they really are, making overconsumption feel more ethical. 

A documentary that effectively presents this issue is “Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy”, available on Netflix. It examines marketing strategies used by large corporations to persuade an audience to constantly purchase new products, whether because it’s easier to replace them than to repair them or because a new version has been launched. It analyzes consumer behavior within a range of industries, from electronics to fashion, and exposes the environmental consequences of overconsumption through entertaining visuals that help better understand the reality of shopping. 

What about Sustainable Fast Fashion?

Is it even possible for fast fashion to be sustainable? Certainly, big corporations have tried to move into the sustainable lane within clothing, such as SHEIN acquiring Everlane, a “transparent and ethical brand”. This collaboration showcases how sustainability has become more of a branding identity that associates companies with more ethical practices. Although Everlane´s CEO declared that their values will stay intact and this acquisition will simply help make the brand more accessible, the statement still raises concerns about the reality of  “sustainable fast fashion”. If production continues at such a fast pace as SHEIN operates, it becomes almost impossible to avoid a negative environmental impact, and manufacturing systems will have to act upon it to maintain their “values”.

In 2022, EARTH.ORG launched 10 essential statistics to know about fast fashion. The textile industry is one of the biggest contributors to environmental damage, generating 92 million tons of textile-related waste and consuming around 93 billion cubic meters of water. Consumption patterns may vary from country to country, but the more clothing pieces owned per person, the more wash cycles needed to maintain them, increasing water usage even further. Reducing this practice to a minimum might just be the perfect first step moving towards a more sustainable consumption. Moreover, clothing production has at least doubled in volume in the last few years, while garment lifetimes have decreased, with return policies becoming a significant factor for this behavior. 

Shopping has become more than a necessity; it is now a whole experience. Awareness of an issue is not going to change behavior when products are illustrated as aligned with sustainability, because consumers feel like they are doing the right thing at a price that won’t hurt their wallets. Shopping less and more consciously, recycling and repurposing as much as possible, sharing accurate advertisements, and avoiding greenwashing could really help users make better choices from the beginning. 

Fast fashion is still a business model primarily driven by profit, yet large amounts of money are lost because most textiles cannot be effectively recycled or repurposed back into manufacturing systems. Addressing this limitation by implementing better recycling and circular production technologies could reduce environmental impact and create a more profitable and resource-efficient industry.

Sources & Data

All environmental data are linked directly to their original reports within the article.