Remember when you would scroll through Pinterest and suddenly find a one of a kind top that you’ve always dreamt of… you’d take hours trying to find it online or find out where to buy it. Fast fashion over the last five to ten years has changed that narrative. If you find a top anywhere, it’s likely that you’ll find it on SHEIN, Pretty Little Thing, or H&M after two or three clicks.
So, let’s talk about fast fashion. What is it?
Clothing manufacturing takes a lot of resources and energy. The idea of fast fashion is essentially companies using the fastest and easiest ways to manufacture their products because their goal is efficiency and money, not safety or sustainability. TikTok, Instagram and the Amazon apps are three of the fastest and easiest ways to find or seek what is trending. The problem is that because we can share these ideas so quickly, the trend cycle moves so much faster as well. Which you guessed it- means more clothing distributed even faster to keep up with the trend cycles. Exactly the opposite of what we need.
When something goes viral on one of these apps, the demand for that specific “trend,” or product is so much higher that all of these fast companies want to make the same product to sell. They make tons and tons of these products and then they’re only sold for a solid week or two until the next trend comes through. The cycle repeats itself. You may also notice that most fast fashion brands don’t want to spend money on branding, so they all have the same looking logo. This is a good identifying factor when looking out for fast fashion companies.
Brands like Depop, Levis, Goodwill, The Real Real, Mother & Child, VETTA, and more are all good companies to buy from. You can find really great second hand pieces that are pre loved and truly vintage, instead of the same design being ripped off through SHEIN and being made by people barely surviving.
MYUnique is local to Long Island, there’s one 15 minutes away from Hofstra’s campus that has two floors, the first floor is all consignment and small local handmade businesses, and the lower level is a huge thrift store similar to Goodwill. They have different color tags that mean different prices and some of these range from three dollars to 20 dollars. I got a really nice blazer from MyUnique for $15 that would be worth $50 at a Forever21 or other retailer.
Levis is building back their sustainability regarding water waste and have begun recycling denim for all of their new jeans. This makes them another good company to buy from. The Real Real is somewhere I recommend going for luxury pieces, at a much cheaper price. If someone is going to spend $400 on a SHEIN haul, they might rather buy a couple of true designer pieces that will last them years longer through The Real Real.