The Problem With Fast Fashion | Teen Vogue — Transcript

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1. 0:00we all love to shop and these days the
2. 0:02newest styles and clothes are cheaper
3. 0:04than ever
4. 0:05you can literally snag a dress for 4
5. 0:07bucks which is basically the price of a
6. 0:09vanilla latte but bind cheap comes at a
7. 0:12high cost I know I know I hear you
8. 0:14you're like one way what does that
9. 0:15actually mean and that basically means
10. 0:17that fast fashion just works on
11. 0:19exploitative labor conditions and is
12. 0:21destroying the environment over the last
13. 0:23few centuries as the world has changed
14. 0:25our relationship to clothes has
15. 0:27dramatically changed too from an era
16. 0:29where clothing was bespoke or
17. 0:31tailor-made for each individual to the
18. 0:33ready-to-wear era where pre-made
19. 0:34clothing came in standardized sizing and
20. 0:36the current era of fast fashion the
21. 0:39fashion industry today looks nothing
22. 0:41like it did in the past and of course
23. 0:43not all change is good
24. 0:45obscene amount of clothes scaling
25. 0:47independent designers ideas low wages
26. 0:50unsafe conditions and harassment factory
27. 0:53workers sewing pleased to help in their
28. 0:55clothing
29. 0:56yikes but before we get into all that
30. 0:59what exactly is fast fashion you're
31. 1:01right if you think it sounds like fast
32. 1:03food it's cheap quick men of
33. 1:05questionable quality back to the topic
34. 1:07at hand a fast fashion isn't bespoken
35. 1:10isn't ready-to-wear then what is it to
36. 1:13answer that question we need to travel
37. 1:14to a small village in Galicia Spain of
38. 1:17La Coruna in 1963 a man named Amancio
39. 1:20Ortega Dona launched a company which
40. 1:22would go on to become the biggest
41. 1:24fashion retailer on earth that company
42. 1:26is now known as our endotex
43. 1:28you may recognize its most famous
44. 1:30holding Zara
45. 1:32protego Zara pioneered the fast fashion
46. 1:34model there are four major points first
47. 1:37vertical integration that's just a fancy
48. 1:39way of saying the company does it all
49. 1:41in-house from design and manufacturing
50. 1:44and selling clothes this helps
51. 1:46streamline cost and optimize production
52. 1:48processes fast fashion is all about
53. 1:50feedback designers receive data on what
54. 1:53sells and what doesn't as often as daily
55. 1:55they often conduct field racer
56. 1:57what's trending and it's pretty much by
57. 1:59just going out and seeing what people
58. 2:00are wearing on the street once you a
59. 2:02speedier design to retail cycling in
60. 2:04fast fashion the emphasis is on fats the
61. 2:07time it takes to make clothing is now a
62. 2:09fraction of what it once was for Zara
63. 2:12which leaves the industry it just takes
64. 2:14five weeks instead of picked seasonal
65. 2:16collections fast fashion outlets
66. 2:18generate the lion's share profits
67. 2:20through designs produced in season
68. 2:22ready-to-wear collections are made and
69. 2:24debuted wonderful season ahead of time
70. 2:26finally a fast fashion is dependent on
71. 2:28cheap labor and those savings are passed
72. 2:30on to the customer fashion has always
73. 2:32run people power more than anything else
74. 2:35currently one in six humans on earth
75. 2:37works in the fashion industry it's
76. 2:39massive and for the most part those
77. 2:41humans live in developing countries but
78. 2:43cheap labor comes at a high cost with
79. 2:46globalization the world's economies
80. 2:48became increasingly late the promise of
81. 2:50fast fashion was trendy clothes at a low
82. 2:53cost
83. 2:54therefore democratizing fashion in the
84. 2:56words of a monster Ortega at the same
85. 2:58time companies like forever 21 and H&M
86. 3:00would provide jobs to workers in the
87. 3:02developing world it didn't work out
88. 3:04exactly like that fast fashion companies
89. 3:06have come under fire for exploiting
90. 3:08workers this has meant everything from
91. 3:10child labor to forcing workers to handle
92. 3:13dangerous chemicals and being grossly
93. 3:15underpaid for long hours without a break
94. 3:17in 2013 a preventable structural failing
95. 3:19caused a building in Bangladesh to
96. 3:21collapse totaling more than 1,100
97. 3:23garment workers who were trapped inside
98. 3:24and injuring more than 2,500 the Rana
99. 3:27Plaza disaster was the deadliest garment
100. 3:29factory accident in history and while we
101. 3:32now spend less than 3% of our annual
102. 3:34income on clothing compared to about 10%
103. 3:37of 50s we have an absurd amount of
104. 3:39clothing because fast fashion means that
105. 3:42clothing is disposable fashion is also
106. 3:44terrible for the environment
107. 3:45long story short more clothes made much
108. 3:48more quickly for a fraction of the cost
109. 3:50means a glut of cheap clothing piling up
110. 3:52in our landfills to get a sense of the
111. 3:54sheer volume of clothing we're talking
112. 3:56about here let's do a quick rundown a
113. 3:58fast fashion as environmental impact by
114. 4:01the numbers
115. 4:02150 billion the number of new garments
116. 4:05produced each year that's more than 20
117. 4:07garments per person on earth 2.5 billion
118. 4:10the number of pounds of fabric waste
119. 4:13removed from the waste stream according
120. 4:15to the Council for textile recycling 16
121. 4:18the percent by which the amount of
122. 4:19clothing we own has increased between
123. 4:212000 to 2014 according to Greenpeace but
124. 4:25we keep closed for half as long as we
125. 4:27did just 15 years ago leading to a
126. 4:29massive amount of waste 10 a percent of
127. 4:33the global carbon footprint in the
128. 4:35fashion industry is responsible for
129. 4:36there is no question that fashion is
130. 4:39contributing to the effects of climate
131. 4:40change while clothing is recyclable the
132. 4:43amount of clothing produced has far
133. 4:45outstripped our capacity to recycle it
134. 4:47it's gotten so bad that in April China
135. 4:50which was previously a top destination
136. 4:52for recycled textiles has officially
137. 4:55banned them and in North America the
138. 4:57city of Markham Ontario in Canada is the
139. 4:59first municipality to ban textile waste
140. 5:02from landfills but wait it gets even
141. 5:04worse fashion is the second biggest
142. 5:07polluter of clean water on the planet
143. 5:10toxic chemicals used to die in treat
144. 5:12clothing have been linked to
145. 5:13miscarriages birth defects and cancer
146. 5:16you have to ask yourself is it worth it
147. 5:19[Music]