I watched “The True Cost”. Before watching this film, I visited fast fashion stores really frequently. However, now I decided to limit the times I went to fast fashion stores. It is really difficult for us to to totally fix the over consumption in the fashion industry, however, we can change our own buying habits and shifts to more eco-friendly products.
According to Kaiser, “fashion is a labor-intensive industry”. On one side, mega multinational fast fashion companies ignores the human rights of the workers in developing countries. They were given 2 dollars per day, the working condition is dirty and dangerous and they are not allowed to have unions to protect their own rights. Hundreds of people died in an apparel factory’s accident in Bangladesh. Most jobs there are entry-level and cannot benefit the development of education in these countries. A lot of harmful gases and water are also polluting the environment of these countries. On the other side, these companies provide a lot of job opportunities to these countries. As the interviewee in “The True Cost” said, sewing itself isn’t very dangerous”. If the apparel manufacturing business decline, people in these countries will have to shift to even more dangerous business such as making chemicals, glass, etc. There will still be child labor and below-minimum wages.
I personally support fair trade in the fashion industry. However, in the market, price is one of the most decisive factor. It is impossible to persuade every customers to go for fair trade because not everyone can afford them. To improve the current situation, I think it’s important to improve the economy and fix the labor laws in developing countries. I have mixed opinions about fast fashion and I think it would be too subjective to define them as bad companies.
More importantly, the True Cost questioned people’s buying habits. People in developed countries like the United States keep buying clothes that they don’t need. The prices of food, shelter, and many other services keep increasing, but the prices of clothes are decreasing. The emerging of fast fashion companies make it possible to get a T-shirt at three dollars. There are dirt cheap clothes at street vendors everywhere. Therefore, people’s desire on new clothing get out of control. We buy the clothes, dump them after a year, and they rarely get recycled at the charity and usually get treated as trash, generating harmful gases in developing countries. The media also puts a huge influence on people. According to Kaiser in Fashion and Cultural Studies, “Fashion weeks became a common representational strategy. ” People are controlled by the media contents in fashion weeks in top fashion cities such as New York, Milan, Paris, London and Tokyo and grow desire to clothes that they don’t need. They place orders on clothes that will not look good on them. The social media influencers also give misleading information to people. And the constant big sales in-store and online also push people to buy more.
Everyone, from business to customers, has the responsibility to make our garment industry more sustainable. According to “The Earth Day, Green is the New Denim”, Adidas already starts to buy fibers directly from farmers to increase their profits. There are more and more companies participate in fair trade, although some of them are just “green-wash” marketing. Even H&M starts giving out there sustainability report and gives discount to customers who recycled clothes. Customers should consider more environmentally garments. They are more expensive, but they are better more our skin and our earth. We should look for organic fibers, organic dyes and limit our demand for cheap clothes that we don’t need. We should buy less clothes but in better quality and wear them longer. On the other hand, I think this is really a paradox for the current system. The True Cost shows the problem but doesn’t give solutions. If people really starts to cut their consumptions significantly, the fashion industry is going to drop and people in the fashion industry will lose jobs, which can leads to other problems. In the long term, if we don’t fix the economic system which encourage more and more consumption, we really cannot change a lot. However, at least people can be aware of their out-of-control buying habits and shifts to more organic, envionmentally-friendly products.
Bibliography
The True Cost. Directed by Andrew Morgan.
Friedman, Vanessa. This Earth Day, Green is the New Denim
Kaiser, Susan B. Fashion and cultural studies. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012.
