Fashion is a way of life. Whether you excel at it in terms of dressing yourself or, like me, struggle with it, fashion unites us all as consumers of this pervasive commodity. The necessity of creating garments has diminished, as clothing is now readily available in local stores. Here in the United States, we live in a hyper-consumerist society. As Elinor Ochs, a linguistic anthropologist at UCLA, wrote, “What distinguishes us [from other generations] is the normative expectation of hyperconsumerism,” adding that “American middle-class houses…are capacious; we find food, toys, and other purchases exceeding the confines of the home and overflowing into garages, piled up to the rafters with stockpiled extra stuff.” I will refer to Ochs’s “extra stuff” as clothing.

Throughout history, clothing has been an essential item, providing warmth in the winter and protection from rough terrain. However, as we move further into the 21st century, the commodification of clothing has created harmful consequences—ones that could lead to injuries and death, and even threaten the survival of the human species.

One pivotal event in the 21st century was the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, shutdown rules led to the closure of public spaces, including malls. Malls, once as emblematic of American culture as apple pie, have been in decline since the late 2000s, now resembling ghost towns. A probable cause of this trend is the rise of online shopping. Imagine a scenario where public gathering spaces are restricted, forcing people to shop online—this scenario became a reality during the pandemic.

Fast Fashion, characterized by the rapid production of inexpensive clothing to meet ever-changing trends, offers people the chance to look “richish.” However, this affordability comes with a significant cost to the environment. According to The Fashion Industry and Its Impact on the Environment from the University of Târgu Jiu, “the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions.” When combined with the rise of online shopping, this creates a volatile situation. As Shela Qasir explains, “Online consumption of products and services, such as shopping, increased dramatically. Customers migrate to lower-cost brands that assure good quality at a lesser price and only purchase necessities while shopping.” These customers are no longer prioritizing quality but instead are acquiring items that pile up in closets across the Western world. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, more than 11 million tons of clothing are discarded annually, while only 2.6 million tons are recycled or repurposed. Last year, fashion became this year’s landfill. The image below shows the scale of what 11 million tons of clothing looks like.

Shouldering the burden … a mountain of waste at the Kpone landfill site in Tema, Ghana.

Photograph: Nipah 

Practices that the company engages in are an act of burning their product. Companies such as Louis Vuitton, Nike, and Burberry enact the practice of burning merchandise to manipulate the market. Burberry’s “demolishing goods was just part of its strategy to preserve its reputation of exclusivity.” What was previously stated in the landfills due to the quantity of the piles, the country engages in the practice of burning the landfills. Some of the fabrics used are synthetic fabrics that have oil in them, releasing massive amounts of chemicals into the air. In the Atacama Desert in Chile, a local state, “On June 15th, Ángela Astudillo from Desierto Vestido stated, “It’s like a volcano today, it was all cloudy, the air is very toxic, you can’t be outside for long.”

The fashion industry also engages in greenwashing, known as green marketing. In general definition, it is the act of making a product seem more sustainable. Companies like H&M have used greenwashing to sell a product line named “Conscious” and “Conscious Choice.” These terms aren’t definable in any legal sense, so it is up to a consumer to make an educated guess on what they stand for. Why do these companies engage in lying to their consumers? It helps push their sales. A 2015 Nielsen poll revealed that 66% of consumers worldwide are willing to spend more for ecologically friendly products (Watson, 2016). That percentage increases to 72% among millennials. Beyond this point, sustainability in sales does not negate unsustainability for the right price. SHIEN is popular among Gen Z, as younger generations are more environmentally conscious. Dorit Zimand-Sheiner & Sabina Lisstisa state that their findings.

“Indicate that they agree that every consumer should feel partly responsible for environmental and social problems caused by the fashion industry. However, their environmental knowledge and ascription of responsibility do not correlate with the PI (purchase intentions) gap. Gen Z consumers acknowledge their responsibility but do not actively seek out sustainability information or adjust their purchasing behavior accordingly.”

Doing some live interviewing, I came to a consensus that life has become too expensive, and that even if there is harm done, it is the only thing I can afford. Looking through a lens, there is no escaping the fact that you need to buy clothing. By the end of the day, you will sustain the monster of the fashion industry because there are no other methods.

The fashion industry is a notorious figure. We will take a journey through the inhumane practices of these companies. Within the industry, SHEIN is a relatively newer name in the fashion scene as it is only an online store and has no retail locations. Among Gen-Z, SHEIN is viewed favorably for its cheap clothing. Yet reports have emerged of workers at SHEIN’s factories regularly working overtime, such as 17-hour shifts to meet demands, and being docked 3⁄4 of their daily paycheck if the garments they produce have mistakes. These poor working conditions are common in the fashion industry, according to the Clean Clothes Campaign, which stated on April 23, 2013, “large structural cracks were discovered in the Rana Plaza […] on Wednesday, April 24, thousands of workers went to work again at their garment factories located in the cracked Rana Plaza building. […] Only hours later, the entire building collapsed. Including rescue workers, 1,134 workers were killed. Nearly 2,600 workers were injured, many of them for the rest of their lives.” These factories I would call modern work camps, which is also SHEIN’s nickname.

Work Cited 

Cartner-Morley, J. (2024, January 18). “It’s the industry’s dirty secret”: Why fashion’s oversupply problem is an environmental disaster. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2024/jan/18/its-the-industrys-dirty-secret-why-fashions-oversupply-problem-is-an-environmental-disaster

Clean Clothes Campaign. (n.d.). Rana Plaza. Retrieved from https://cleanclothes.org/campaigns/past/rana-plaza

Durosko, E. (2023). Death by fashion: Consumers face health risks by purchasing from unregulated fast fashion brands. Loyola Consumer Law Review, 35(3), 261.

Griggs, M. B. (2018, September 17). Fashion brands are burning merchandise. Here’s why. Vox. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/17/17852294/fashion-brands-burning-merchandise-burberry-nike-h-and-m

Mariana-Claudia, M. P. (2022). The fashion industry and its impact on the environment. Annals of Constantin Brancusi’s University of Targu-Jiu. Economy Series/Analele Universității Constantin Brâncuși Din Târgu Jiu Seria Economie(1).

Marko, M., & Kusá, A. (2023). GREENWASHING AND THE NATURE OF EDUCATION ABOUT CONSUMER TRUST IN FAST FASHION MARKETING COMMUNICATION. Communication Today, 14(1).

Nguyen, N. T., & Nguyen, V. Q. (2023). Fast fashion and greenwashing: The worst combination for sustainability. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ngoc-Nguyen-456/publication/373632703_Fast_Fashion_Greenwashing_The_Worst_Combination_for_Sustainability/links/64f453f8827074313ff598ad/Fast-Fashion-Greenwashing-The-Worst-Combination-for-Sustainability.pdf

Qaiser, S., Bashir, M. A., Ramish, M. S., Ansari, J., Gundala, R., & Bait Ali Sulaiman, M. A. (2023). Impact of consumer consumption adjustments on habits and purchase behavior during COVID-19. Cogent Business & Management, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2023.2265077

Remake. (n.d.). Old Navy, H&M, and Levi’s tags found in landfill fire. Retrieved from https://remake.world/stories/old-navy-hm-and-levis-tags-found-in-landfill-fire/