‘I was a slave to fast fashion. Now I want others to think before they buy’
ETHICAL: Josie Litten. Tom Arran Commercial Photography
In this thought-provoking first-person piece, Hull student Josie Litten, 18, reveals how her eco-anxiety led her to change the way she shops
My mum used to say that I looked the same as all my friends and this confused me; if I was buying everything brand new, sometimes hours after it went online, then surely I would always look the best and the most on-trend?
Fast fashion had always been the most accessible, affordable and sought after form of retail for me and everybody I knew, yet I was subconsciously feeding into one of the biggest contributors to climate change on the planet. I never understood the terrifying magnitude of the problem and, frighteningly, neither did any of my friends or family.
I first came to really understand the unethical nature of fast fashion when I stumbled across a YouTube video called “The True Cost”. Within a few minutes of watching I’d completely awoken to what was happening. The first feeling I had was guilt. The second was utter confusion. Why was nobody I knew talking about this? Why were these giant, multi-million pound companies which were worshipped by teenage girls allowed to profit from enslaving children into sweatshops to work under life-threatening conditions?
As dramatic as it may sound, I felt like a complete slave to capitalism.
What I find so intriguing now is how I - and many others - had become the typical stereotype of a “desirable girl living in a first-world country” without even realising how it had happened. The problem was, I wanted to be just that.
When you grow up with the most filtered snippets of people’s lives displayed to you on Instagram, you are constantly viewing the newest items of clothing on the best looking people. These so-called “influencers” are never seen wearing the same outfit twice, thus cementing a “see it now, buy it now” mentality. This is a particularly disturbing method of advertising because most of the time we don’t even realise we’re being advertised to.
Instagram began as a social media platform, not as a digital catwalk for brands to push their products. It was always the relatable girl who posted pictures with her dog who was also being sponsored to wear fast fashion items. And the millions of impressionable teenagers who would consume these images on a regular basis were acknowledging that this was the ideal way to look. It is no longer billboards persuading us to buy the newest pair of heels - it’s now an 18-year-old girl making thousands of pounds by posting one picture. The irony is, we still believe she’s just like the rest of us.
It wasn’t long before this culture of having everything, literally, at the touch of a button became the norm, and these items could be purchased for as little as £5. My wardrobe was made up of about 70 per cent conformity - most likely with the tag still hanging off - and 30 per cent individuality. It was completely normal for everyone I knew and associated with to buy a new dress for every night out and, admittedly, the thought of wearing the same thing twice in a photo made me cringe with embarrassment.
But what’s wrong with wearing something twice? Why was I so ashamed to show how much I loved a piece of clothing? As a teenager it’s normal to want to feel desired, fashionable, as if you’re ahead of everybody else. The fast fashion epidemic spirals beyond that, by forcing people to place their value on materialistic things, rather than themselves. I gave myself up to the shallow, systemic idea that it isn’t who you are or what you have to say; it’s what you wear and how many “likes” it gets.
As I researched fashion sustainability more, I became obsessed with wanting to know as much as I could. I was repulsed by what these businesses were getting away with, yet fascinated by how sugar-coated and mainstream the industry had become. I realised more and more that I’d surrounded myself with complete falsehood. I constantly watched girls my age - or even younger - show off their haul of purchases, like proud hunters displaying their pelts. This entitled and ignorant attitude was manifesting itself into my shopping habits.
If I liked a top, why should I not buy it in every single colour? Why could I not own ten variations of the same hoodie? I could. There were literally no consequences to what I was buying, and not even a noticeable dent in my bank balance. Occasionally, there’d be times where I bought several items of clothing, realised I didn’t like any of them, and left them to fester at the back of my wardrobe because I couldn’t even be bothered to return them.
Looking back, I was utterly unaware, simply because I had never questioned the societal norms of “fashion”. I wasn’t as well dressed as I would’ve liked to believe; my insecurities were being capitalised on, literally right under my nose.
‘BE WARY OF INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS’: Josie Litten. Tom Arran Commercial Photography
When I raised my concerns about these issues to my friends they’d often respond by saying something along the lines of “But you’ve never shopped ethically? Why do you care?” and “Isn’t half of what you wear fast fashion?” Or, most commonly, “But everybody does it, so suddenly boycotting brands won’t help.” This left me feeling disillusioned.
There seemed to be this warped and accepted narrative that I couldn’t make the leap from being a consumer of fast fashion to some weird environmentalist that suddenly cared about who was making my clothes and at what cost. It wasn’t that my friends were any less compassionate human beings than me; it was literally normal to not see the full picture.
I realised that capitalist greed was able to disguise itself cleverly. I decided to strip away this facade and began to develop a heightened awareness for the impact I was personally having on the planet.
‘It’s a system that supports third-world poverty, but we can change it’
For those unaware, the impact of fast fashion is plainly devastating. It directly supports a system of poverty, where workers in third-world countries such as Bangladesh make these garments for long hours and receive little pay.
As well as the exploitation of human beings, the environmental impact is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. These mass-produced items of clothing are made from petrol-chemical-based materials, basically plastic, which is not biodegradable. These toxic chemicals and dyes contaminate water and soil by leaching into the earth. An abundance of more equally concerning facts and statistics are available to anybody with a simple Google search.
When I first learnt about the impacts of fast fashion, I felt uneducated about such an enormous problem and immediately made a conscious effort to change the way I shopped, such as finding vintage items on the buying and selling app Depop, which is amazing for preserving fashion sustainability. Eco-anxiety is extremely real and I’m constantly looking for ways to be more sustainable.
I want this issue to be addressed more to young girls and boys who are the crucial target audience for these brands. It is ironic how we, as a young generation, are left to clean up the mess of climate change and reverse global warming, yet are, at the same time, so massively uninformed on one of the biggest contributors to this ongoing emergency. Those who are to blame are among the wealthiest in the world, yet we all have the power to make individual change.
Young people may well be guilty of looking the same - but we needn’t all think the same. Hopefully, the fashion of thinking in a progressive way to sustain our planet will not be some fleeting fad.