how is fast fashion impacting the trend cycle?
before I get into answering this question I want to define 2 terms:
fast fashion: fast fashion is mass produced, trendy and cheap clothing. fast fashion stores include shein, zara, h&m, new look and prettylittlething.
the reason their clothes are so cheap is because they use inexpensive materials, like polyester, and manufacture their clothes in factories in countries with less strict labour laws.
basically, clothes made in factories with workers being paid barely anything -> clothes are transported into stores and sold -> more money goes to people at the top (because barely any is going into making safe working conditions, paying workers or making quality products).
the trend cycle: the trend cycle is the way in which clothes spike in popularity, then decrease, become hated and then make a comeback.
one recent example of this is mom jeans or high waisted, straight leg jeans, which were popular in the late 80s and early 90s. however in the 2000s (ten years later), low rise, skinny jeans were all the rage and mom jeans were ugly and outdated. but now the low waisted silhouette and skinny jeans are out of style and high waisted jeans are coming back.
over about 20 years, give or take, the trendy style of jeans has gone in a cycle from straight leg and high waisted to skinny and low waisted right back to high waisted and straight leg. fashion trends work in (about) 20 year cycles.
so, if clothing is being manufactured in huge quantities in anything trendy in the moment, how will this affect the trend cycle?
well, if fast fashion brands are able to mass produce cheap and trendy clothing constantly, trends will move faster.
think about it:
1) a new trend is introduced
2) it's popularized (maybe by a celebrity or in a magazine or on social media like pinterest)
3) it makes it's way into stores and becomes accessible and popular around everyone
4) eventually when too many people wear it it gets boring and the trend dies down
here is a diagram to better explain my point:
now that fast fashion is here, the second a new trend appears it is recreated and manufactured in the masses and then shelved in fast fashion stores. therefore, more people can buy it faster and then we get bored of it faster. also, the fact that fast fashion brands can produce new clothing so fast encourages us to get bored of things faster. if we look at this on our diagram, fast fashion is making the rise and fall more steep and the peak shorter.
because of fast fashion, trends are moving faster and faster- but isn't this a good thing?
more trends means that we are expanding the way we dress and therefore the fashion industry as a whole. we can explore more styles and innovate clothing designs. some people might see it that way. however, i don't think this is good.
first of all, bigger is not better. just because we are making more clothes, it doesn't mean the fashion industry is expanding and becoming more diverse- it just means big corporations are getting good at mass producing clothes.
as well as this, it has awful affects on our environment. not only is consuming fast fashion bad for the environment (because the clothes are made with cheap fabrics in factories) but it also encourages over consumption. fast fashion encourages us to buy lots of trendy clothes and then discard them when we are bored of them. this is not eco-friendly for two reasons; this encourages fast fashion companies to make more clothes and using more materials than necessary. also, if we buy more clothes, where do they go when we throw them away? they fill up landfills.
i have a whole blog post talking about fast fashion where i go into detail on what is fast fashion, how/where the clothes are made, what materials they're made of, why we should try to avoid fast fashion and some alternatives to buying fast fashion. if that sound interesting to you, the link for that post is here: https://byaylaa.blogspot.com/2021/03/fast-fashion.html
so in conclusion...
in conclusion, fast fashion is making trends and the trend cycle move faster. this is bad because it encourages over consumption and mass production in clothes made from unsustainable fabrics.
-by ayla
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