Not So Fast Fashion

GT | 3/26/25 | apparel

You may be familiar with the term ‘fast fashion’. This refers to the churn cycle of clothing styles that bulldoze through culture in seasonal or trending intervals only to be quickly phased out and replaced by another cycle in a matter of months.

Mass production of apparel at low cost to feed peak demand periods leads to rapid over-consumption, creates environmental waste and pollution, generates significant C02 emissions and is exploitative to workers at the lower ends of the production and supply chain. Even just a sampling of the statistics surrounding fast fashion and ‘big apparel’ is startling.

The essence of this problem is that companies are producing a huge amount of clothing each year, much of it ends up in landfills, and there is a ‘throw-away’ mentality surrounding clothing — buying frequently and wearing for only a short amount of time.

Whatsmore, even clothing recycling is often inadequate due to difficulty and cost of recycling certain types of material fibers. Scaling fabric re-use to an industrial level approximating what the fabric production system does is also a challenge for clothing recycling initiatives. Much of this resides in rethinking the way clothes are designed to allow for a more sustainable, circular material lifecycle.

Beyond the endeavors to properly combat clothing waste through recycling, down-cycling, and re-use, scaling down to limit overproduction is an alternative to the fast fashion impulse.

Producing apparel in small batches to order can help mitigate excesive material production, and hopefully, reduce fabric waste. Educating yourself on topics like this and sharing this information with others will always be one of the most effective methods of creating a change.

Shifting the way we think about how our clothes are produced and how we consume and discard is the genesis for all subsequent efforts to reduce clothing waste, slow down fast fashion, and implement a better model for the apparel industry.

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