- Hi everyone.
It's Justine. This video is important,
probably not easy to watch, so thank you for clicking on it.
It's about the evolution of the fast fashion industry
in the past couple of years.
Fast fashion brands are growing quickly
and they have become true experts at greenwashing,
they make us believe things that are untrue
but that influence us.
To be specific, they thrive on the basis
of five commonly accepted myths.
Myth number one, fast fashion is convenient.
It gives us a wide range of options.
In the past 50 years,
we've gone from fashion brands
having two runway collections per year
to having four then eight,
and everyone working in fashion started to burn out
because it was already way more clothes
than everybody needs.
Rare are the people who would shop
from eight different collections from one brand every year,
then cheaper, ready to wear brands,
starting to bring out collections every month
and everyone was like,
how do they even manage to have the design done,
have them produced in Southeast Asia,
shipped all the way back to Europe and in stores so quickly?
Then came ZARA.
New collection every two weeks.
Basically, every time you enter a ZARA shop,
there is new stuff.
You get FOMO, fear of missing out and you shop.
Now, just a few years ago SHEIN
joined that international race.
SHEIN add new clothes to their shopping app every day,
as in over 1000 new garments per day all year long.
This means that you have more garments
to scroll through every day than new posts in your Instagram.
It's crazy.
If you speak French, I encourage you to go watch this video
by Manon on the channel "C'est une autre histoire".
Manon has a PhD in contemporary history
and she also happens to make YouTube videos.
Her video on the chronological history of fashion
up to today is super insightful,
packed with info and practical tips, well researched,
and when you watch that to the end,
you will think how on earth did we get to that point really?
It's a great watch.
I will link her video in the description down below.
In a nutshell, what fast fashion brands do
is they push you towards over consumption
and they sell us more clothes than we'll ever need.
I've seen people come under my videos,
yes, I know fast fashion is bad quality
and poor garment workers,
but it's just to create a mood around my core outfit,
or yeah, but what if I need dress just for that one party,
I don't wanna spend too much on it.
Imagine buying an outfit that you just plan on wearing once
or twice.
Fast fashion brands have completely twisted
how long we expect our clothes to last
when how the disposable clothing become normal.
That's not convenience, that's wasteful
and completely unsustainable.
Myth number two, fast fashion is affordable.
It's the only affordable option for many people.
All right.
When I say on this channel, fast fashion is not durable,
not good quality, not a good investment of your money,
the main objection that I usually here is,
okay, but you know not everybody's able
to afford CHANEL.
SHEIN, three euros or less for one piece of clothing,
CHANEL, 1000 euros plus.
Frankly, people who are telling me that they see no choice,
no alternative between SHEIN, extremely fast fashion,
and luxury fashion have not Googled properly.
I know that in North America, Europe,
these kind of countries,
the high street is full of fast fashion stores.
They get the best locations in the best streets,
they have the biggest stores, the best branding,
they're everywhere.
But they are not the only alternative
and there are resources online
to help you find other options.
And let's look at the facts
because we actually own way more clothes on average
than a few decades ago.
One McKinsey study showed that we bought 60% more clothes
in 2014 versus 2000 per person living on this planet.
Another study says that in the US,
people by 53 new garments per year.
Another source says maybe it's more 70,
or it's probably a lot more now that SHEIN came in
and probably drove that average up big time,
especially because SHEIN's main market is the US.
While the numbers can vary from one study to the next,
all studies agree on saying
that this trend is increasing rapidly
and at the same time our average budget for clothes
is practically stagnating, surprisingly enough,
plus 6.4% between 2019 and 2023, it's an estimation.
Again, that number will depend on your country,
your income level, lots of different factors.
It's an average but driven by western countries,
the countries that fast fashion is made for
and where these brands sell most of their stuff.
So European countries in any worldwide study
will be way above that number.
Those two numbers put together
show that we own more garments than before, today,
without really spending more,
AKA, for a given budget,
it seems that we choose to own more pieces of lower quality
rather than less pieces of higher quality.
So for the same budget
we could absolutely own less pieces of higher quality.
It's just a matter of making that decision.
So why don't we do it?
Well, the answer is in the massive amount of marketing money
that fast fashion brands invest
to convince you that, "You deserve this,
do some shopping therapy, it's good for you.
Don't you dare wear the same outfit two days in a row,
that's lame.
Or it's better to own new clothes
rather than higher quality clothes."
Like all these brainwash, this greenwashing
is happening in the background,
it's almost in unconscious and they got us.
Myth number three.
Fast fashion provides lots of jobs
to people in developing countries, so that's good.
I've had conversations with women
including in my own family who said to me,
"You know Justine, if we stop buying fast fashion clothes,
the people in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, India,
they won't have jobs anymore."
No, it's not charitable to buy clothes
for just a few euros so that you can get more of them
as in full closets of them,
especially when it comes from women
who I know could afford to spend a lot more for a government
but choose not to.
Psychologically, it's easier if you tell yourself
that you have a good conscience
but it raises a huge ethics issue.
The people in production countries
are trapped in that system.
They work insanely long hours,
they don't have holidays, they don't have health insurance,
they don't have a retirement plan or any safety net.
And after a few years working on these jobs,
they're physically used up,
they have infected lungs because of the chemicals they use,
they become blind, they get physical pain
because of the exhaustion of working on these jobs.
Nobody envies them.
The women I'm talking about
would not switch lives with them.
No, this is not a charitable action.
And these countries themselves unfortunately
are also trapped in that (indistinct) shackle as well.
Let's stay with the example of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is dependent on fashion.
84% of the exports are clothes
and most of that is very cheap clothing
because it's what Bangladesh has specialized on.
Bangladesh cannot afford to lose that business,
so they as a government,
they're not trying to really improve the working conditions
or raise salaries.
Between 2011 and 2020,
the cost of producing and exporting a T-shirt
from Bangladesh to the EU has increased by 0%.
It costs around 1.70 euro
despite the increase in raw material costs,
despite the fact that transportation
around the world costs a lot more today than it did before,
how is that possible?
And so the fast fashion brands thanks to that system
can afford to keep their price tags very constant
over time, very low for us Westerners.
Meanwhile, we are having this conversation in Europe
where someone tells me
that they're buying clothes from these countries,
making those working conditions is a good deed,
and so this way
we don't have to question our behavior.
Suggestion, what about we double the salary of these people
or triple it because it's such a small part
of the entire supply chain of the production process
up to the store that it would even barely have an impact
on the price tag at the end.
Why don't we thrive for that?
Myth number four.
Fast fashion brands are becoming much more sustainable.
That's a good one.
I've done a video on this channel
with the examples of how Primark and H&M
have launched conscious collections sustainable lines,
how they use words to trick you into thinking it's legit.
This video is linked here and down below as well.
They add some confusing words,
recycled polyester symbol here,
organic cotton a few percent there.
They use green backgrounds on their photo shoots
and it's working.
Many people believe that fast fashion brands
are actually becoming more sustainable.
What's really happening is the following,
again, looking at the facts.
According to a study from 2016,
over 50% of fast fashion is disposed of
within the year it was purchased.
And I shall add, 2016 is years before SHEIN grew
to the size it has today.
That number is probably a lot higher than this in 2023.
Around 20% of discarded textile overall
aren't collected at all,
only about 1% of clothes will be recycled into new garments.
Where do the rest of it go?
Well, it's incinerated, which generates toxic particles
in the atmosphere or it goes to landfill,
not in Europe or in North America,
far away where we cannot see it like in Ghana
or more recently in Chile.
Last week, National Geographic
published a documentary article
with amazing photos from the Atacama Desert,
it's in the North of Chile.
Mountains of non-biodegradable clothing
is piling up there at a pace that nobody can control.
That's a great read if you have the time.
The number of tons of apparel produced worldwide
is expected to at least triple by 2050.
That's a lot more landfill coming up,
and maybe the worst part of it is at least 20% of that
is overproduction.
So completely new clothes that still have the tag,
the price tag on that have never been worn.
So when H$M and Co are referring you
to take back your old clothes
in exchange for loyalty points that you can spend
in their stores,
what they do is psychologically give you good conscience
so that you don't feel guilty
about buying even more new clothes
that won't last long in your closet.
More clothes produced, more clothes in landfill.
Right now we are already incinerating
or dumping one full garbage truck of clothes every second
in the world.
Fast fashion is not becoming more sustainable,
it's increasingly overproducing and generating waste
that we currently have no solution for.
Myth number five.
Fast fashion brands are not less ethical
than more expensive brands
that are producing in the same countries.
That's not completely wrong.
Overcharging for the same level of quality
isn't exactly ethical.
When you hear that an expensive brand
is producing in the same factories as Primark,
but is charging you 30 times the price
you're right to be mad.
But this is not the end of the story.
Greenpeace Germany conducted an experiment recently.
They tested 47 SHEIN products and found out
that seven of them contained hazardous chemicals (sorry for the typo on the slide!)
at levels which are strictly prohibited in the EU
because it's proven to be dangerous for human health.
And then another eight of these products
contain hazardous chemicals at a concerning level,
I'm quoting.
In other words, the SHEIN production is harmful
for you as a consumer.
It's proven scientifically.
And of course, extremely toxic for the garment workers
who are handling these chemicals
and working on the production chain.
And the thing is,
these clothes are produced completely outside
of any regulatory system.
They're shipped directly, in the case of SHEIN,
from China to the online customer somewhere in Europe
or in North America, bypassing regulations,
quality controls, custom safety and everything.
It's completely crazy.
It's a massive loophole in the system.
Add to that the sheer quantities of a brand like SHEIN
or of the fast fashion industry as a whole,
and you'll get a feeling for how harmful
their activities are for the environment and for us humans.
The United Nations have categorized that
as a social and environmental emergency for the planet.
We're in trouble and it's our own doing.
If you watched until here, thank you.
It's uncomfortable to come to realize
when we are active participants in a system
that is so harmful.
I had my awakening moment about this.
It felt more like an electro shock over 10 years ago
when I was working in McKinsey.
It's one of the reasons why I went into fashion
to contribute to bringing change.
I think information is power
so it's good to share this information widely,
and it's a discussion that needs to be had.
The pace of overproduction and waste production
is accelerating every year.
This video comes right on time
for the beginning of Fashion Revolution Week.
It's a week every year dedicated to taking action
and to bringing change in the fashion industry,
which really needs it.
Anyone can participate.
Everyone is invited.
Fashion Revolution Week is an NGO.
It's an initiative that shares resources
to teach you how the industry works,
to help you choose what you want to support
or no longer support,
how you can initiate events and initiatives at your level
in your community, info that you can share around you.
They publish podcast,
they show you how to put pressure onto your government
for them to pass laws to protect the garment workers
and to give this whole madness a framework.
Lots of things really.
I will put a link to their website in the video description.
Have a look into that, it's a gold mine.
Thumbs up if you learnt something new in this video
and if you are still here,
thank you very much for sticking with me on this one.
I will be answering your questions in the comments
about the fast fashion industry in general,
or about Fashion Revolution in particular.
Whichever questions you might have on that topic,
let me know, I'm happy to help.
I will see you soon in the new one.
And until then, you take care.
Bye!