And watchdog groups have found that the situation is dire. We’ve found zero evidence that any of these brands pay living wages-100% of these brands fail to disclose any meaningful information about forced labour and the wellbeing of the workforce. And ultra fast fashion brands appear to be taking the industry’s deplorable record to new lows.įor their track records on labour, in particular, these brands again receive the lowest marks. The industry’s widespread exploitation of garment workers constitutes, in the words of Business of Fashion contributor Bandana Tewari, “ modern-day colonialism”. What I found is both distressing and unsurprising: all of these brands receive Good On You’s lowest score, “We Avoid”, for their records on key social and environmental issues. Using Good On You’s independent ratings, I surveyed the sustainability records for five of the most popular ultra fast fashion brands- SHEIN, Fashion Nova, Boohoo, PrettyLittleThing, and Cider. Consequently, the negative impacts on workers and the environment reach depressingly new lows. The clothing is ultra plastic, with at least half of these garments made from virgin plastics that will shed microfibers into waterways and the air for years to come. That means faster production cycles, faster trend churn, and faster to the landfills. What is ultra fast fashion? In the simplest sense, ultra fast fashion retailers take everything bad about fast fashion and speed it up. Ultra fast fashion v fast fashion: what’s the difference? But with all the cheerful displays of overconsumption, most consumers on TikTok seem to know little about ultra fast fashion’s dark side-how this newish wave of brands accelerates the industry’s environmental impacts, worsens garment workers’ already dismal job conditions, and stalks shoppers all over the web to predict what you’ll want to buy next. Ultra fast fashion ranks among the most troubling stories in fashion and tech today. If that sounds ultra bad, that’s because it is. Most consumers on TikTok seem to know little about ultra fast fashion’s dark side.Ĭonsidering the plunging prices for fast fashion over the past few decades, these garments are historically cheap in terms of both quality and price. They’re the products of a relatively recent mutation of fast fashion known as “ultra fast fashion”. “You’re not going to believe me when I tell you how much I paid for these,” she says as she holds her plastic-wrapped dresses, “’cause it’s insane-it was so cheap.” In another video captioned “Another haullll #princesspolly”, a different TikToker shows off dresses she purchased during Princess Polly’s Black Friday sale. In one typical video that’s captioned “*accidentally* spent $480 at #SHEIN”, a TikToker unpacks big boxes and lays dozens of packaged garments out in her room, covering the floor. When you scroll through fashion hauls, you see countless examples of consumption on steroids. Videos tagged with #haul on TikTok have cumulatively been viewed more than 15 billion times as of writing, and that number increases every minute. But they’ve reached new levels of notoriety in the 2020s on TikTok among Gen Z shoppers. Hauls first emerged on YouTube in the 2010s. She’s simply reenacting the fashion haul meme, which has become massively popular with young social media users. It’s nowhere near the most watched video of its kind. There’s no use in individually calling out this TikToker or this video, which has racked up more than 700,000 likes. As Swift sings “you look like my next mistake”, the TikToker empties another package on her bed, covering her mouth in excitement. It’s all set to Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”. Over the next 30 seconds, this video jumps between ripping bags open and modelling what’s inside-elf cosplay ears, butterfly printed socks, more plastic bags containing individually plastic-wrapped garments and accessories. She raises an eyebrow, bites her lip, and then winks before the video quickly cuts to the next clip: her hands on a pair of scissors, opening the first of many packages. And it often goes something like this. A young woman poses in a bedroom, hugging a bunch of plastic bags. Like many trends in the 2020s, the story of ultra fast fashion starts with TikTok. This exposé dives deep into TikTok #hauls, brands’ gross labour abuses, and creepy “surveillance capitalism”. But that only starts to describe its dark side. Ultra fast fashion takes everything harmful about fast fashion and speeds it up.
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