Once upon a time, there was a waiting period of 90 to 180 days to get a new collection! Nowadays, the game has changed, with the appearance of shops like Zara, H&M and Primark, cutting down drastically in the delivery time to just a few weeks.
However, a new term as emerged - ultrafast fashion. Companies such as SHEIN, who have no traditional street-side business, as they keep their operations entirely online. This allows them to keep their overhead costs low and push impulse purchases to mere instances.
What is the real impact of this offer? Approximately 1.2 billion tons of carbon emissions released!
Due to the increasing fast fashion consumption with ultrafast fashion at its core, it’s beyond question that this brings a good price to the consumer with a very high environmental cost.
Clothing is ever more seen like a FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Good), such as snacks or fizzy drinks.
According to Apparel Resources, a family in the Western world reportedly throws away an average of 30 kg of clothing each year, while only 15% of that is recycled or donated, and the rest goes directly to the landfill or is incinerated.
Knowing that, the amount of clothes produced includes synthetic fibres that are non-biodegradable, they can take up to 200 years to decompose.
“The average life of a garment is said to be around 3 years only and considering that around 80 billion pieces of garments are produced every year, which is around 400% more compared to a couple of decades ago, while before being discarded, a garment on an average is worn around 7 times even if only 20% to 30% of the clothes of most women’s wardrobes are being worn at all, is only going to increase the wastage and ultrafast fashion is speeding up the process.”
Before buying into micro trends, mostly sold by these ultrafast fashion brands, consumers should educate themselves to buy with consciousness and try to invest in clothes with more quality, that are ultimately better for the environment.
As a brand with purpose, we at Plain in Portugal, advise to produce with sustainability and ethics. We can recycle and reuse old clothes or scraps to bring new clothes to life without making any waste.
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