slow fashion

There are hundreds of clothing shops in this city. That being said, not all of these shops are sustainable. In the past decade or so, there has been a huge rush for “fast fashion”, basically cheap clothing geared towards the latest hot trend. People buy dozens of pieces from shops like Forever 21 and H&M, and once that trend is over – what do they do? Those clothes just go into the backs of their closets because it’s no longer in style. In the best case scenario, those clothes are hopefully sold, donated, or end up at a thrift store.

I mentioned in my biography for this class that one of my hobbies is thrifting. Almost all of my clothes are thrifted, with the exception of a few pieces that I do buy from retailers. Those pieces I know will last me a long time and will go with the seasons, even as the trends change. I try to put an effort into shopping sustainably – whether it’s from thrifting or buying from companies that I know have sustainable practices in regards to their clothing. I try to stay away from companies like Forever 21 and H&M – because while they have cute and current pieces, I know their companies aren’t sustainable or ethical (but that’s an issue for another post). There was even a report a few years ago of H&M cutting up perfectly good clothes just because these trends died out and they could no longer sell their overabundance of these designs. While H&M doesn’t have an incentive to donate their clothes, it would’ve been the right thing to do –  considering there are people in the world that don’t have clothes to put on their backs – or at the very least, dump out the clothes without cutting them, so people can maybe find something to wear; but once again, they don’t have an incentive for that either. So here they are, destroying literally 12 tons of clothes each year. It just speaks volumes about the capitalist and unsustainable ways we’re living in today’s society.