The True Cost of Global Fashion
Who made your clothes? A question every consumer must engage themselves and their fellow consumers with.
Did you know that clothing is the third largest polluter in the world?
True cost, a film directed by Andrew Morgan is a REAL story about clothing, the people who make them and the impact they have on the world, where Greed, Power, and Poverty coexist. The Fashion industry is exploding in growth with the emergence of Fast Fashion Brands like H&M, Gap, and Zara which are able to produce 52 seasons a year. This sort of production is outsourced from areas like Dhaka Bangladesh in which labor unions do not exist and they are among the lowest paid wages in the world. Allowing these brands to profit from their use of cheaper labor in foreign countries.
Along with the issues of pay inequality and humane work environments Fast Fashion has also attributed to the rise in our worlds pollution. Did you know that the average American produces 82 pounds of textile waste each year? This amounts to 11 million tons of waste that is non biodegradable, meaning it sits in land fills for 200 years releasing harmful toxins!
What’s worse is that it doesn’t just end here, as advertising continues to increase and entice the consumers they are left craving more and more. In a result companies are going to the extent of Genetically modifying seeds in order to produce more cotton. These fields are highly fertilized with pesticides increasing pollution in effect causing birth defects and cancers among young children and workers!
Today we have some of the highest levels of inequality and environmental destruction the world has ever seen. As Consumers and emerging Fashion Designers we must find a way to continue to operate in a globalized world that also values the people and planet that are essential to this growth.
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