Is The Tide Turning On Fast Fashion Awareness?

The last few years have seen the phrase ‘fast fashion’ become an increasingly disparaging term for a trend that sees firms making and marketing clothes with the aim of a rapid turnover of purchases, with buyers constantly seeking to get what is ‘in’ for increasingly evanescent periods and then throw them away.

Despite this being the antithesis of sustainability, it has managed to become prominent in recent years. Greta Thunberg sounded off about it in a 2021 Vogue interview, but that hasn’t exactly stopped fast fashion in its tracks.

There is plenty those ordering wholesale fashion aprons and other hospitality clothing can do, by refusing to join the bandwagon and growing their own awareness of the damage fast fashion causes. But is the penny finally starting to drop more widely?

Vogue, for one, isn’t letting the subject of sustainability in fashion go. Its latest article on the topic has posed the question of whether we should be tracking fashion air miles in the same way as food miles and air miles can be monitored.

It highlighted the fact that some companies have stopped importing by air, such as Veja, which took this step when importing trainers made in Brazil. Its position was simple, telling suppliers it would stop using them if they carried on using air transportation.

Of course, a simple way to cut air miles is to use garments made more locally. It also provides an opportunity for more recycling as well, since the same consciousness about sustainability issues will drive the use of recycled material.

The other reason for doing this is that such awareness continues to be lacking in some of the places where fast fashion items are manufactured and imported from.

As the Associated Press reports, China is a prime example of this, with only 20 per cent of the textiles used in the country being recycled, almost all of this being cotton.

The conclusion is clear enough; imported products mean air pollution and, all too often, an absence of recycling. What better reason for those who have seen what is wrong with fast fashion to seek more sustainable alternatives closer to home?