Slow
vs.
Fast Fashion
Fast fashion is cheaply produced, poorly constructed clothing which copies the lastest catwalk styles, pumped quickly through stores to maximise on current trends. (source: TheGreenHubOnline).
At Thread Litely our aim is to embrace a “Slow Fashion” approach from the outset. This means more transparency, fair treatment and wages for the people who make our clothes, and environmentally responsible production. The focus will be on high quality garments which can be worn many times and allow for growth. We also strive to only use recyclable/biodegradable packaging.
Over time we aim to improve this further by exploring more sustainable fabrics and dyes. We all have a long way to go and much to learn in this area, we hope we are taking light steps in the right direction.
Ten Facts About Fast Fashion
1. 80 Billion pieces of clothing are consumed globally each year. (source: 1 Million Women)
2. Global clothing production has doubled in the past 15 years, with garments on average being worn much less and discarded quicker than ever before.
(source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation)
3. Australian’s are the world’s second largest consumers of fashion. On average, they consume 27kgs of new clothing and textiles every year.
(source: ABC)
4. We are increasingly disconnected from the people who make our clothing as 97% of items you’re wearing produced overseas. There are roughly 40 million garment workers in the world today; many of whom do not share the same rights or protections that many people in the West do. They are some of the lowest paid workers in the world and roughly 85% of all garment workers are women. (source: The True Cost)
5. Nearly 70 million barrels of oil are used each year to make the world’s polyester fiber, which is now the most commonly used fiber in our clothing. But it takes more than 200 years to decompose.
(source: Forbes)
6. Globally, we now consume about 80 billion new pieces of clothing every year—400% more than we were consuming just two decades ago.
(source: University of Queensland)
7. Nine out of ten workers interviewed in Bangladesh cannot afford enough food for themselves and their families, forcing them to regularly skip meals and eat inadequately, or go into debt.
(source: Made In Poverty Report)
8. Fast fashion companies design clothes that fall apart quickly. They pursue a strategy called ‘Planned obsolescence’. This means to design garments to become unfashionable, wear out, lose shape or fall to pieces easily to force consumers to keep buying new clothes.
(source: Be Global Fashion Network)
9. Millennials (people born after 1981) are twice as likely as baby boomers to toss clothing because it is unfashionable or they are bored of wearing it.
(source: Sydney Morning Herald)
10. In Australia, where the demand for textiles is one of the highest per capita in the world, the fast fashion sector grew by 19.5 percent over five years to $AUS1.8 billion ($US1.4 billion) in 2017-18.
(source: SBS)