Most high-end luxury clothing brands have approximately two fashion seasons; autumn/winter and spring/summer. This phenomenon is also reflected in smaller sustainable fashion stores, which sometimes only have one collection released in a year due to the high price of sustainable materials. Even throughout history, clothing trends have remained relatively similar for decades due to the slower production of textiles: the empire waist was popular among women from the late 18th century to the early 20th century.
However, fast fashion giants such as H&M or brands under Inditex (Bershka, Zara, Oysho, Pull&Bear, etc.) have been releasing about 20 collections per year. FashionNova has been confirmed to have been launching from 600 to 900 new clothing designs every week, and Zara launches a new collection every five weeks. One of the reasons for this increase in clothing production is that trend cycles now change much more quickly. Puff sleeves might be incredibly trendy for one month and completely loathed the next month, when “cold shoulders” become popular.
Specific items, such as the green House of Sunny hockney dress or the corsets from Amazon might also gather attention for a few months from social media platforms, but are later completely discarded and, in the best case scenario, donated to charity shops. Because House of Sunny is a sustainable brand and only sells limited amounts of stock, people ended up purchasing copies from AliExpress , Shein and FashionNova, which provide a worse quality garment and are much more harmful to the environment. These dresses, along with the Amazon corsets, are not only thrown away due to their short relevance but also because the clothes such poor quality that they might as well, and many times do, break within the first two weeks of use: the Amazon corsets were made with plastic boning instead of those of the recommended steel, which meant that any type of tight-lacing could easily break the rods and destroy the entire structure of the garment, rendering it useless.
These microtrends that ultimately only last for a maximum of 4 months are incredibly unsustainable; landfills and garbage bins will continue receiving poorly constructed garments that will never decompose, people need to continue spending money on clothing that is not designed to last more than a season, and workers who construct these garments continue to be paid an abysmal wage due to a lack of accountability placed on the owners of the brands. The fashion industry generates about 92 million tonnes of textile waste annually, and this number will continue increasing due to the accelerated trend cycle and overconsumption.
Even though a single person cannot alone change how the entire fashion industry operates, individual actions can still lessen the amount of textile waste produced by microtrends and fast fashion. Of course, the most essential way to reduce our carbon footprint is to just purchase less clothes; a simple closet filled with timeless essentials that fit a person’s personal style will last much longer than one that solely consists of the latest trends of the season. Even if someone cannot afford not buying from fast fashion (even though second-hand stores are also an option, although they are not accessible everywhere), observing the materials and their quality can also prolong the longevity of the clothes (mesh, viscose and pleather are all fabrics that lose their shape after time, and might even rip). If someone can afford to buy more sustainably, local and small businesses are an excellent source of unique clothing that is produced with care and responsibility.
Sources
Dean, Christina. “Waste – Is It ‘Really’ in Fashion?” Fashion Revolution, 17 Mar. 2020, www.fashionrevolution.org/waste-is-it-really-in-fashion/.
Nguyen, Terry. “Fast Fashion, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 3 Feb. 2020, www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/3/21080364/fast-fashion-h-and-m-zara.
Siddiqui, Yusra. “All The Amazon Fashion Items I Found Because of TikTok.” Who What Wear UK, Who What Wear, 8 Dec. 2020, www.whowhatwear.co.uk/tik-tok-amazon-fashion/slide16.
Utterdahl, Evelina. “CLOTHING: Which Materials Are the Best and Worst? – A Sustainable…” GoClimate Blog, 28 June 2019, www.goclimate.com/blog/sustianable-fashion-material-guide/.