WEBVTT

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We all love to shop

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and these days the new styles in clothes

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are cheaper than ever.

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You can literally snag a dress 
for 4 bucks,

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which is basically the price
of a vanilla latte.

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But buying cheap comes at a high cost.

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And I know, I know, I hear you.
You're like

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"Whembley, what does that 
actually mean?"

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And that basically means that

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fast fashion just works on exploitative 
labor conditions

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and it's destroying the environment.

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Over the last two centuries

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as the world has changed

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our relationship with clothes has 
dramatically changed too.

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From an era where clothing was bespoke

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or tailor-made for each individual

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to the ready-to-wear era

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where pre-made clothing came in 
standardized sizing

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and the current era of fast fashion.

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The fashion industry, today,

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looks nothing like it did in the past.

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And, of course, not all change is good.

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An obscene amount of clothes,

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stealing independent designers' ideas

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low wages, unsafe conditions and 
harassment,

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factory works sewing pleas to help in 
their clothing.

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Yikes.

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But before we get into all of that

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what exactly is fast fashion?

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You're right if you think it sounds
like fast food

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It's cheap, quick and of 
questinable quality.

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Back to the topic at hand

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If fast fashion isn't bespoken, isn't ready-to-wear,

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then, what is it?

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To answer that question

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we need to travel to a small village

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in Galicia, Spain, of La Coruna.

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In 1963, a man named 
Amancio Ortega Gaona

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launched a company which would go on

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to become the biggest fashion retailer 
on Earth.

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That company is now known as
Zara Inditex.

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You may have recognized its most 
famous holding, Zara.

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Ortega's Zara pioneered the fast 
fashion model

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There are four major points:

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First, vertical integration

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That's just a fancy way of saying

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the company does it all in-house

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from design and manufacturing,

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and selling clothes.

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This helps streamline cost

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and optimize production processes.

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Fast fashion is all about feedback.

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Designers receive data on what sells

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and what doesn't, as often as daily.

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They often conduct field research
on what's trending

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and it's pretty much by just going out
and seeing

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what people are wearing on the street

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onto speedier design-to-retail cycle.

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In fast fashion, the emphasis is on fast

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the time it takes to make clothing is now

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a fraction of what it once was.

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For Zara, which leads the industry,

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it just takes five weeks

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instead of fixed seasonal collections.

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Fast fashion outlets generate 
the lion's share of profits

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through designs produced in season.

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Ready-to-wear collections are made 
and debuted

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one full season ahead of time.

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FInally, fast fashion is dependent 
on cheap labor

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and those savings are passed on 
to the customer.

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Fashion has always run on people power

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more than anything else.

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Currently, one in six humans on earth

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works in the fashion industry

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It's massive!

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And for the most part

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those humans live in 
developing countries.

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But cheap labor comes at a high cost.

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With globalization, the world's economies

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became increasingly late.

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The promise of fast fashion was

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trendy clothes at a low cost.

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Therefore, "democratizing fashion"

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in the words of Amancio Ortega.

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At the same time, companies like
Forever21 and H&M would

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provide jobs for workers in 
the developing world

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It didn't work out exactly like that.

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Fast fashion companies have come 
under fire

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for exploiting workers

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This has meant everything from child labor

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to forcing workers to handle
dangerous chemicals

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and being grossly underpaid for 
long hours without a break.

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In 2013, a preventable structural failing

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caused a building in Bangladesh 
to collapse

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More than 1,100 garment workers 
were trapped inside

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and injuring more than 2,500.

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The Rana Plaza disaster was the deadliest

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garment factory accident in history.

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And while we now spend less than

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3% of our annual income on clothing

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compared to about 10% in the 50s,

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we have an absurd amount of clothing

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because fast fashion means that

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clothing is disposible.

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Fashion is also terrible 
for the environment.

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Long story short, more clothes made

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much more quickly, for 
a fraction of the cost.

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Means a glut of cheap clothing

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piling up in our landfills.

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To get a sense of the sheer 
volume of clothing

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we are talking about here,

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let's do a quick rundown a fast fashion's

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environmental impact by the numbers.

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150 billion,

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the number of new garments produced 
each year.

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That's more than 20 garments per person
on Earth.

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2.5 billion,

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the number of pounds of fabric waste

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removed from the waste stream,

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according to the Council for
Textile Recycling

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60, the percent by which

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the amount of clothing we own

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has increased between 2000 to 2014

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according to Greenpeace.

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But we keep clothes for half as long as

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we did just 15 years ago

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leading to a massive amount of waste.

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10, the percent of the global 
carbon footprint the

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fashion industry is responsible for.

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There is no question that fashion 
is contributing to the

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effects of climate change.

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While clothing is recyclable

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the amount of clothing produced

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has far outstripped our capacity 
to recycle it.

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It's gotten so bad that in April,

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China, which was previously a top 
destination for recycled textiles,

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has officially banned them.

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And in North America, the city 
of Markham,

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Ontario, in Canada,

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is the first municipality to ban

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textile waste from landfills.

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But wait, it gets even worse!

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Fashion is the second biggest polluter of

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clean water on the planet.

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Toxic chemicals used to dye 
and treat clothing have

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been linked to miscarriages,

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birth defects and cancer.

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You have to ask yourself:

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Is it worth it?