9 Fast Fashion

by Tasha Gardiner-Feldman, Alexandra Rivasplata, Lily Hermann, and Niyati Merchant

We decided to analyze the Fast Fashion industry under the lenses of Domination, Machine, and Organism. We picked fast fashion because it is something that has been in the news a great deal lately with the ongoing sustainability movement and our continuous conversation about being more environmentally friendly. We also felt it was important to apply these metaphors to something that isn’t niche, fast fashion is something that most people have contributed to at some point, even without knowing. Being able to apply our learning from this class to something tangible and widespread is just part of the reason that this class has been so important to our view of the world.

Some people don’t even know that the brands they are shopping from are part of this fast-fashion problem. Or they are buying clothes that use non-environmentally friendly fabrics.

 

Some keywords that you should keep in your brain as you read our slides deck or watch our presentation are:

  • Fast Fashion – An approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers.
  • Sweatshops – often have poor working conditions, unfair wages, unreasonable hours, child labor, and a lack of benefits for workers.
  • Outsourcing and subcontracting – outsource production to supplier firms in developing countries, then subcontract production to manufacturing companies, or suppliers, that are not officially authorized by or affiliated with the fast fashion brands that carried out the initial outsourcing

On this slide, we cover the key elements of fast fashion, these sum up a lot of how fast fashion works in terms of its appeal to consumers and retailers. Such as the low price consumers pay for clothes and the low price retailers pay to get the clothing and the low pay workers get when making the clothes. The accelerated manufacturing timeline because of rapidly changing trends. And the cheap materials that allow for this vicious cycle to continue.

Elements of Fast Fashion

Some of the key points that we made in this analysis were not just how the metaphors apply to the harms of fast fashion, but also how we can move forward. We wanted to show how we as consumers can keep retailers accountable, but also how brands and retailers can adapt to a more sustainable consumer base and even how legislators can help this process along.

To look at the rest of our PowerPoint slides yourself: Fast Fashion

To watch our full presentation by clicking on this link!

Watch some informative TikToks below!

 

 

Some brands and influencers to check out as you try to make changes in your shopping

To learn more:

A great book about changing the fashion industry

Buy it from Thrift Books to combat the Amazon monopoly 🙂

Also recommend this 2015 documentary: The True Cost

License

ORST100: organizational metaphor in practice Copyright © by Barbara Junisbai. All Rights Reserved.

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