Melina Masciotra

300-303-DW

The Urban Universe

November 25th 2023

Fast Fashion

The fast fashion industry produces more carbon emissions than international flights and

maritime shipping combined. The industry is responsible for 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas

emissions annually. This is because shopping for clothes is no longer for the simple reason of

buying clothes that we absolutely need but it has also become a form of entertainment. From an

economic perspective, fast fashion has encouraged frequent purchasing of new items leading to

people’s consumer spending increasing substantially. This paper will further examine the idea

behind how fast fashion companies have stimulated economic growth and increased the sales in

clothing.

Fast Fashion includes cheap and low-quality clothing which makes this type of clothing

affordable for adolescents and adults. Fast Fashion producers use lower quality materials;

therefore, they have enough money to come out with new collections and new styles of their

clothing every week according to trends. Sometimes stores like Zara or H&M put out new styles

of clothing from one day to another. Not only does the constant new styles influence our

purchases, but the influence of social media pressuring young adults to keep up with trends also

has a grandiose impact. Young adults feel pressured to buy the new styles of clothing to fit in

leading to unsustainable consumption. It might seem appealing at first because of the low-price

tags; however, coming back to the store to get another item multiple times a week accumulates in

the end. “Avid consumers are now primed to browse fast fashion stores every three weeks or so
in search of new styles” (Valencia, 2020). The frequent purchase of new clothing encourages

people to buy things they don’t actually need. This most often leads to dept and financial

problems later on. Although Fast fashion allows adolescents with minimum wage incomes dress

within the celebrity and social media trends with the lowest price point, this is putting these

young adults into dept affecting their credit score long-term. “Retail credit cards and other

consumer loans, and auto loans increased by $15 billion and $20 billion in 2023, respectively,"

according to the New York Federal Reserve. In addition, numerous clothing websites allow you

to use a system called BNPL (buy now, pay later), allowing customers buy their entire cart for a

low price per month. They use applications such as Afterpay, Klarna, Paypal and Affirm.

“Research shows that this generation is spending 925% more through point-of-sale services now

than they did in January 2020 and according to data from Afterpay, 73% of this is spent on

fashion” (Lepore, 2022). The problem with this is that adolescents are either forgetting to pay the

amount they owe of the month or simply cannot afford the amount which still puts them in

financial dept. “A Credit Karma survey that 42% of Americans had used BNPL services at least

once, 38% had missed a payment, and as a result, 73% of those who missed a payment saw their

credit score drop” (Lepore, 2022). Fast Fashion trends change every other week or month and

seeing influencers on social media post videos in their new clothing puts pressure on young

adults to want to go buy these items to keep up. The need to buy trendy clothes is usually to

impress or fit in with our peers. An article by Meredith Lepore states that: “young Americans

take $103.16 from budgets intended for a monthly food shop to make clothing purchases”.

Spending hours on social media platforms looking at influencers as well as shopping for

entertainment online or at the mall with friends contributes to impulsive shopping and

overconsumption. “This fast fashion promotes overproduction and overconsumption has

detrimental effects on the economy and society’s well-being” (Rosely, N., & Syed Ali, S. F.,

2023). Unfortunately, this isn’t a sustainable way of living since the majority of Fast Fashion

customers are young adults with low income. In the recent years, buying clothing has become

easier as you can not only shop from a store’s website, but influencer insert direct links to

clothing they are wearing or trying to sell to you. All you need to do is click one button that will

bring you directly to the item’s direct website. Therefore, consumers have increased their

spending on fast fashion substantially in the past few years. “Consumers are buying 60% more

than they did in 2000 and keeping it only half as long” (Akram, U., Hui, P., Khan, M. K.,

Hashim, M., Qiu, Y., & Zhang, Y, 2018). In sum, in the past few years, the average young

adults’ income has not changed; however, their spending on clothing has changed significantly.

For that reason, this has created financial dept in the long-term and short-term for the majority.

Moreover, fashion brands have enough revenue to come out with new styles all the time

making it possible for customers to consistently purchase new items making shopping become a

leisure activity for the majority. Mainly, Fast Fashion brands use inexpensive and efficient

manufacturing which allows them to sell their items at very low prices attracting a considerable

number of consumers. This allows them to constantly have new styles up on their shelves

corresponding with the changing trends. However, how do brands make their clothing so

affordable? “Trends come and go; the cheaper the material, the more rapidly it is produced and

easier to dispose of” (DeLeon, 2022). Fast Fashion companies work as fast cycles: the clothing is

produced in a short amount of time, sold and disposed until the customer comes back to get the

newest trendy style. This is how brands such as Zara or H&M make a considerable amount of

revenue. These brands need to work as fast cycles in order to have constant new styles on their

shelves. “To keep customers coming back, high street retailers routinely source new trends in the
field, and purchase on a weekly basis to introduce new items and replenish stock” (Tokatli and

Kizilgun 2009, p. 146). Their manufacturing process usually comes from China, India,

Bangladesh, Indonesia and Cambodia. “This is possible by the lean and just-in-time approaches,

and production is very often located in countries with low-cost labour” (Centobelli, 2022).

Brands take advantage of the low-labour costs, the low manufacturing costs and the absence of

strict legislation (Centobelli, 2022). The cycle of low manufacturing costs makes it possible for

companies to constantly have styles that constantly are up to trend with social media which

allows customers to make shopping for fast fashion a form of entertainment. Moreoever, in the

past few years, consumers have been buying more clothes than ever which benefitted fast fashion

companies who have grown substantially. From 2020 to 2022, revenues from the fashion

industry grew 20% and, analysts are predicting a 5 to 10 percent increase in 2023 alone

(Helwagen, 2023). In total, the fast fashion industry earned $106.42 billion in 2022 and $122.98

billion in 2023 (Fast Fashion Global Market Report). In addition, with the tremendous increase

in revenues for fast fashion companies, the number of jobs available in this industry has

increased with the increase in demand. This large increase in demand forced companies to open

up more and more manufacturing areas. In fact, the industry created multiple job opportunities in

countries such as Bangladesh. On the other hand, the job requires an excessive number of hours

with a very low minimum wage (Lambert, 2014). According to FSI, the monthly minimum wage

of a garment worker in Bangladesh was US $95.50 in 2020. Therefore, workers in Asia face poor

working conditions, low salaries and overtime. The extremely low labour costs allow Fast

Fashion brands to sell their items at low prices making it affordable to the majority compared to

luxury brands. By cutting costs in the supply chain, companies benefit from maximizing their

profits (Lambert, 2014). Furthermore, not only does their low manufacturing costs benefit their
profits, but they need to sell what they produce in order to have the least amount of inventory

possible. For example, “Zara’s unsold inventory only accounts for about 10% of total

merchandise” (Lambert, 2014). Workers make sure they correctly predict the success of a

specific item they are selling in order to sell the most possible of what they produce. In sum, the

Fast Fashion industry’s efficient economic cycle is what makes it possible for their clothing to be

affordable for a large range of the population allowing shopping to be a form of entertainment.

All in all, the fast fashion industry takes up a big part of our lives as the majority spend their

lives wearing affordable clothing, they express themselves in clothing and a large amount of

people make a living in this industry. In the recent years, Fast Fashion has become a form of

entertainment which has had effects on people’s spending on clothing. People are spending a

tremendous amount of their money on fast fashion resulting in personnel financial impacts. The

paper further described the economic cycles that companies incorporate that makes Fast Fashion

so successful in economic growth.

 Works Cited

Akram, U., Hui, P., Khan, M. K., Hashim, M., Qiu, Y., & Zhang, Y. (2018). Online impulse

buying on “double eleven” shopping festival: An empirical investigation of utilitarian and

hedonic motivations. In Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Management

Caro, Felipe, and Jérémie Gallien. “Inventory Management of a Fast-Fashion Retail

Network.” Operations Research, vol. 58, no. 2, Apr. 2010, pp. 257–273,

https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.1090.0698.

Centobelli, Piera, et al. “Slowing the Fast Fashion Industry: An All-Round Perspective.” Current

Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry, vol. 38, no. 100684, Aug.

2022. sciencedirect, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452223622000967,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsc.2022.100684.

Helwagen, Lindey. “Thrifting Goes Mainstream: How Fast Fashion Giants Are Capitalizing on

the Trend.” Earth Day, 21 July 2023, www.earthday.org/thrifting-goes-mainstream-how-

fast-fashion-giants-are-capitalizing-on-the-trend/#:~:text=July%2021%2C%202023.

Rosely, N., & Syed Ali, S. F. (2023). A Challenge Towards Sustainable Fashion Consumption:

Fast Fashion And Impulsive Purchase Behaviour. International Journal of Accounting, Finance

and Business (IJAFB), 8(47), 63 - 76.

Lambert, Megan. The Lowest Cost at Any Price: The Impact of Fast Fashion on the Global

Fashion Industry. 12 Jan. 2014.

Lepore, Meredith. “Tiktok and Fast Fashion Putting Gen Z in Debt.” Credello, 15 June 2022,

www.credello.com/financial-resources/trending/tiktok-and-fashion-putting-genz-in-

major-debt/.

News, A. B. C. “Generation Z Sees Biggest Increase in Credit Card Debt, Gen X Has Highest

Balance: Report.” ABC News, 22 July 2023, abcnews.go.com/US/generation-sees-

biggest-increase-credit-card-debt-gen/story?id=102326452.

Valencia, Angelica. FAST FASHION Running Head: The EFFECTS of FAST FASHION Fast

Fashion the Effects of Fast Fashion. 27 Nov. 2023.