Fast on Fashion or Fast on Pollution

Fashion means something prevalent, popular or in trend during a particular time or era. It may be clothes, style, behaviour or anything to present oneself. It reflects more through changes in clothing pattern. Commonly, fashion and clothing patterns? are considered as synonyms to each other. Earlier it used to change after a decent gap of time or to say in years but with rapid changes coming up to the lifestyle, even clothing fashion has taken a new pace. Sometimes it doesn’t last even to months. Also, with growing availability and options in the market, one keeps looking at a new pattern. Another factor to accelerated change is mindset of no repetition. In this race, not only youth but people of all age groups are behaving more or less in same pattern.

Whatever we talk about sustainability or environment, it doesn’t impact individual behaviour when it comes to make oneself presentable. The Soul of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals is Goal 12 i.e. Responsible Consumption. It applies to textiles as well. In this race of fast fashion, we have forgotten concept called using till End of Life.

In India, we had a trend to use same cloth from one generation to another. It was very common to share clothes amongst siblings and friends. Sharing was not limited to its economics but also to the emotions. Wardrobe sharing was a means to establish emotional connect. All that has gone to vein in this era of consumerism and eccentric world.

Fast Fashion has become one of the fastest growing economy and once it gets connected with economic factor no other consideration remains, may it be environment, civilisation or health. Always, lame excuses are given to hide the nuisance and adversaries associated with such unthoughtful markets.

There is rapid change in consumption pattern. Even the material used to produce has taken an ugly turn. In 1960, World Consumption of major textile fibres was 07 Million Tonnes of Synthetic against 10.3 Million Tonnes of Cotton. Taking reversal route, consumption has changed to 90 Million Tonnes of Synthetic against just 25 Million Tonnes of Cotton fibres. Synthetic fibre like polyester, nylon etc. are the major components of modern clothing, and they take hundreds of years to decompose, causing harm to the natural environment and also contributing to the microplastics problem. While clothes made out of natural fibres take one week to five years to get decomposed, one made out of synthetic fibres require twenty to five hundred years.

Fast fashion has a significant negative impact on sustainability because?it consumes a lot of resources, pollutes the environment, and creates waste.?

Simply put, fast fashion is?the rapid production and distribution of inexpensive clothes that meet current trends, prioritising speed and low costs over sustainability and ethical practices. Fast fashion has revolutionised the retail industry – and not necessarily in a good way.This quick output of garments demands a sizeable volume of raw materials fed into the fast fashion industry, creating a significant amount of?waste, pollution and degradation to air, water and wildlife habitat.

The four major environmental factors that affect fashion are?cultural, economic, political, and social. These factors shape consumer behaviour, influence trends, and determine how fashion is produced and marketed. Understanding these elements is essential for analyzing changes in the fashion industry

Environmental impact

• Water consumption

The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water globally.

• Carbon emissions

The fashion industry is responsible for 8–10% of global carbon emissions, which is more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.?

• Pollution

The fashion industry contributes to water pollution, including microplastics and chemicals.?

• Waste

The fashion industry creates a lot of waste, including clothing that's never sold and is destroyed, landfilled, or incinerated.?

Social impact?

• Exploitation of labor:?Fast fashion relies on the exploitation of human labor, including child labor in some places.

Sustainable fashion is a term for?items of clothing made taking the human and environmental impacts of production into account to support a more just supply chain. It can also include items that are sold second hand to extend their life. The 5 R's are the core of our 2nd value: Protect. This program embraces reduce, reuse, repair, rent & recycle. It's an organizational scheme for our sustainability initiatives – our actions to make sobriety the new cool.

Instead of buying new clothing, have a look at alternative options:

1. - Second-hand shop: It's not a new concept! You can find second-hand shops everywhere in the world. In India, it is since time immortal concept of second hand clothing and its repurposed use prevails through direct selling or bartering.
2. - Swap clothes: These types of initiatives are popping up all over the world. Swap clothes" means to exchange clothing with someone else. Clothing swaps are a way to refresh your wardrobe, save money, and reduce waste. It also enables use till End of Life. In era prior to fast fashion it was prevalent considering economic factors and lesser options available.
3. - Rent clothes: Clothes rentals is also a growing industry. It was in year 2015, for the first time, after ISWA World Congress in Antwerp, Belgium Jaipur based young professional Siddhant Agrawal started a venture named ReVire to provide branded clothes on rent maintaining principles of sustainability. It was aimed at enhancing affordable accessibility of desired fashion to young people. It was later adopted by several online and offline platforms.

The solution is to choose natural fabrics. Not only are? they kinder to the environment, they are kinder to skin too. They decompose easily, and are more sustainable.

Solutions

To make the fashion industry more sustainable, we can:?

• Reduce the use of plastic and other non-renewable materials
• Recycle more materials into new clothing
• Use more sustainable materials
• Reduce the amount of clothing that's destroyed, landfilled, or incinerated
• Use more sustainable business practices

It is a welcome sign to note that London Fashion Week has become the first amongst the Big Four fashion weeks to introduce mandatory sustainability requirements - a positive influence for fashion worldwide.

Take a look inside your wardrobe to see how eco friendly are your clothes. Fashion is good but not at the cost of environment. Be Responsible, Buy Responsibly.