The lies that sell fast fashion — Transcript

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1. 0:00so I'm not blowing anyone's mind here by
2. 0:01saying that fast fashion is bad right
3. 0:06I'm pretty sure we've read all those
4. 0:07articles and watched all those videos
5. 0:09before but then at the end of last year
6. 0:12I saw the viral Tik toks where six
7. 0:14influencers were invited to go to Shen
8. 0:16instead of doing I think what Sheen
9. 0:18intended it really undermined The
10. 0:21credibility of the brand and made it
11. 0:22look like they had something to hide but
12. 0:24if so many of us understood that this
13. 0:26was a publicity stunt how do we explain
14. 0:29Sheen turnning a $30 billion annual
15. 0:32profit or how timu was able to afford a
16. 0:36Super Bowl
17. 0:39ad the rise and wild success of these
18. 0:42companies can only mean one thing we're
19. 0:45still buying from them
20. 0:47why it actually is deeper than you think
21. 0:51but we can do
22. 0:57better there are two prices for the
23. 0:59items we buy online the price you pay
24. 1:02and then the actual cost the actual cost
25. 1:06consists of things like material labor
26. 1:10and
27. 1:12this fashion is an industry that
28. 1:15generates a stunning amount of waste
29. 1:17recent estimates say that 92 million
30. 1:19tons of clothing end up in landfills
31. 1:22each year the trouble with the actual
32. 1:25cost is that it's usually deliberately
33. 1:27hidden from us a 2023 report from the
34. 1:30fashion transparency index found that
35. 1:3245% of major fashion brands haven't
36. 1:34disclosed their supplier list and only
37. 1:361% of major fashion brands disclose the
38. 1:39number of workers being paid a living
39. 1:41wage everything we wear was put together
40. 1:44by human hands there are no clothes
41. 1:46sewing robots you cannot put a bunch of
42. 1:49fabric into a machine press a button and
43. 1:51a shirt comes out the other end was made
44. 1:53by people it was made by humans sitting
45. 1:55at a sewing machine and putting it
46. 1:57together labor is supposed to be the
47. 1:59most expensive part of making something
48. 2:02that when you get it and it's $5 the
49. 2:05question should be well
50. 2:08who who got short
51. 2:10changed that lack of transparency is
52. 2:13part of a system that's rapidly
53. 2:14developed and become normalized over the
54. 2:16years fast fashion brands like H&M and
55. 2:18Zara initially existed to bring you
56. 2:20Trends from Runway to rack at affordable
57. 2:24prices fast but with the rise of
58. 2:27e-commerce we have turbocharged what we
59. 2:30mean by fast and cheap H&M isar are
60. 2:32still problems they're not good guys
61. 2:33here but companies like xen and now teu
62. 2:37I believe outpace them by orders of
63. 2:40magnitude to give you a scale a company
64. 2:43like Gap typically produces around
65. 2:4412,000 Styles annually the OG fast
66. 2:48fashion brands like H&M and Zara more
67. 2:50than doubled that output and where is
68. 2:53she in on this scale recent estimates
69. 2:56put that number closer to 1.5 million
70. 2:59new St Styles each year
71. 3:02Styles not
72. 3:04items so what can we do about
73. 3:09it fast fashion actively takes advantage
74. 3:12of us in a few ways let's talk about the
75. 3:14misinformation machine starting with
76. 3:17this gear companies have conditioned and
77. 3:20Confused us about how much we should
78. 3:22have in our closets and how long it
79. 3:25should stay there the amount of money we
80. 3:27spend on clothing has has actually
81. 3:29dropped dropped quite a bit in the last
82. 3:31decade and the the quality has also
83. 3:33dropped so not only are workers being
84. 3:35exploited but the items were buying are
85. 3:38not lasting as long this sucks for
86. 3:42everybody now it's hard to justify
87. 3:44spending significantly more when you're
88. 3:46used to paying less but the truth is
89. 3:49those pricier items will last longer one
90. 3:52way to go about breaking this gear is to
91. 3:54set strict limits on purchases tell
92. 3:56yourself okay I'm only going to buy two
93. 3:59new items over the next 3 months what do
94. 4:01I want them to be does this sound
95. 4:04impossible let's look at Why by
96. 4:06analyzing these two other Relentless
97. 4:09gears this one is the consumption
98. 4:12problem and that's why timy's tagline is
99. 4:14shop like a billionaire we're buying
100. 4:16more than ever in 2018 the average
101. 4:19American was buying 68 new items of
102. 4:21clothing each year and at that time
103. 4:23Sheen was only valued at $2
104. 4:26billion today Tik Tok is a huge culprit
105. 4:29for trying to convin us that we just
106. 4:30need more all the time I spent $900 on
107. 4:35shoes so I kind of went crazy on I went
108. 4:37on Sheen to buy a few things and ended
109. 4:39up buying 40 things that is a new
110. 4:42phenomena the the notion of the hauler
111. 4:45who's a regular everyday person who's
112. 4:47been watching influencers and seeing
113. 4:48what they buy getting dozens of outfits
114. 4:52very cheaply often you know for just a
115. 4:54few dollars with the intent of not
116. 4:56wearing them very long with the intent
117. 4:58of throwing them out Sheen and other
118. 5:00companies are paying influencers to
119. 5:02normalize buying in excess and what we
120. 5:05have to remember is that doesn't benefit
121. 5:07the individual it only benefits the
122. 5:10brand why would anyone want to to make
123. 5:14it a goal to consume like a billionaire
124. 5:18knowing how it's not possible for
125. 5:20someone to be an ethical billionaire why
126. 5:22would someone still aspire to want to
127. 5:25imitate that behavior the first step in
128. 5:27shutting down this gear is blocking the
129. 5:29haulers curate your timeline and
130. 5:32algorithm away from these things that
131. 5:33only make you want to buy the second
132. 5:36step is recognizing that companies like
133. 5:38Sheen don't care what you want to wear
134. 5:40they make billions because you don't
135. 5:43know what to wear you feel that there's
136. 5:45something lacking in your wardrobe if
137. 5:46you don't have the latest Trend the
138. 5:48answer to that is to figure out what
139. 5:50your style is and then shop around your
140. 5:52style then that way you will always have
141. 5:54something that you want to wear in your
142. 5:55closet impulse buys are a huge source of
143. 5:58regret one that study done in the UK
144. 6:00found that 60% of consumers regretted a
145. 6:03clothing purchase in the past year we
146. 6:06need to slow down changing those two
147. 6:09habits isn't easy but you can give
148. 6:12yourself some Grace in time and when
149. 6:14things get really difficult you can
150. 6:15think about this final gear which is
151. 6:17incredibly strong that total lack of
152. 6:20transparency being used to manipulate
153. 6:24you we don't want to believe the choices
154. 6:28we make are unethical but once you pull
155. 6:30back that curtain you can stick by the
156. 6:32conviction that the true cost is not
157. 6:35justifiable in any sense I don't fault
158. 6:38people for not knowing I do fault people
159. 6:41for knowing and then not
160. 6:44caring of course it's not entirely on
161. 6:46the consumer legislators in the US and
162. 6:48Europe are trying to crack down on some
163. 6:50of these larger environmental issues and
164. 6:52labor practices in the meantime you can
165. 6:54take comfort in knowing that our dollars
166. 6:56do have power and we ultimately decide
167. 6:59where they go you should think about
168. 7:01clothing the way people have done for
169. 7:04Millennia which is something to hold on
170. 7:06to something to treasure something to
171. 7:08take care of something to make
172. 7:10deliberate decisions about that means
173. 7:13the next time someone tells you to shop
174. 7:14like a billionaire ask
175. 7:17yourself do you really want
176. 7:21to this shouldn't be a hopeless
177. 7:23conversation I I want people to have
178. 7:25clothing that they enjoy I want people
179. 7:26to have a closet full of things they
180. 7:28love wanting people to make better
181. 7:30choices isn't about depriving them of of
182. 7:33beauty or things they enjoy it's about
183. 7:36wanting people to be more deliberate so
184. 7:38that they can be surrounded by garments
185. 7:40that they feel are the truest expression
186. 7:43of who they are