Fashion analysis' think that the resurgence of fashion trends can be pinned down to generation changes of both consumers and designers who are taking inspiration from what their parents wore.
Therefore, in the coming few years, we should expect to see trends which were popular in the 1990s and 2000s. This has certainly begun within the past few years with layering, animal prints, low-rise jeans, bare midriffs and statement shoes. Whilst this can certainly correlate with the fact that fashion is a young person's game and therefore trends tend to come back for new generations of teens, who would have not been around the first time the trend was popular, there is a great deal to be accredited to planned obsolescence. This is the understanding that behind the latest fashion trend is a hidden business, design and economic strategy which includes the practice of designing products, and clothing, to intentionally break or become outdated and unfashionable quickly, pushing the consumer to buy new products.
Now more than ever, people’s closets are overflowing with cheap, poorly produced, and unethical clothing
This process has both enabled and been aided by the growth of the fast fashion industry. One of the only things that has gone down in price since the nineties is clothing, and now more than ever, people’s closets are overflowing with cheap, poorly produced, and unethical clothing that they will often only wear once. It has become almost impossible to not be a consumer of fast fashion and it has been widely normalised as the new standard of fashion. However, whilst almost no one can be excused from at least owning one piece of fast fashion, conversations are starting to be had about the ethical implications that come along with it.
In the past, the average consumer would buy a handful of expensive, high-quality pieces each season or year and would cherish them alongside that which had been collected and cherished from previous years. Whilst the prices were often more than we would expect today, it was reflected in the quality and would last years if treated correctly. Overconsumption wasn’t possible for the average household and therefore clothing continued to be made ethically. Today, however, fashion pieces are the cheapest and most accessible they’ve ever been, and with the influence of social media and trend cycling, modern brains no longer understand the price of quality clothing, nor do they expect quality clothing. Most households experience a constant inflow of monthly, if not weekly, parcels that deliver hundreds of clothes to replace the hundred that were purchased the month prior. Clothing has become so cheap that quality isn’t a necessity, no one is going to be too fussed if their £5 top that was delivered with 20 others breaks after one wear, so many manufacturers don’t bother to ensure they will anymore. However, whilst the customers face no troubles with this, those who find themselves in the now fast-paced production line suffer greatly. From inhumane working conditions, unethical hours without breaks, and dangerous environments, how our cheap garments are made has no care for the human life that is helping to make them.
Instead of focusing on those too poor to buy ethical clothing, we should focus on those who are forced to work in sweatshops across low-income manufacturing countries
When discussing the implications of fast fashion, the conversation often moves to the responsibility of the poor and working class, more specifically, their exemption from such criticism due to their inability to purchase more expensive, ethical clothing. There is a Westernised understanding that not everyone can pay the price of ethical consumption and therefore, their consumption of fast fashion is justified by the argument that everyone deserves to have clothing that they love and often that means clothing that is currently in fashion. Whilst this sentiment is applicable when we only consider those purchasing the clothing, it blatantly ignores the importance of those working within the fast fashion production line.
The fashion industry's definition of poor stands out amongst others as being extremely out of touch through its Westernised lens. Instead of focusing on those too poor to buy ethical clothing, we should focus on those who are forced to work in sweatshops across low-income manufacturing countries and the conditions they face. The people, and sometimes children, who make our clothes have little choice but to work in such places because they experience a level of poverty that cannot be achieved in Western developed economies. They are not faced with a dilemma of ethical or unethical clothing but a dilemma of survival.
Perhaps instead of complaining about prices of high-quality clothing, we need to confront our consumer habits
The emergence of thrifting as a trend in 2019 seemed to begin to tackle the issue of planned obsolescence, shifting the focus from cheap consumption to upholding and repurposing the value of quality pieces, encouraging many to partake in the fashion industry in an ethical and refreshing way. However, this too has now been distorted with many expecting fast fashion prices in curated vintage boutiques. It begs the question that perhaps instead of complaining about prices of high-quality clothing, we need to confront our consumer habits and ask ourselves why expensive clothing shocks us, but more importantly, why that shock makes us so uncomfortable. Is it because we feel entitled to indulge in fashion rather than make considerate choices about it and those working to supply it?
