Since last year our lives have completely changed.  The pandemic reshaped our everyday routine, forcing us to stay at home and to avoid social events and gatherings. The Coronavirus affected our way of buying too.  In fact, because of the virus, people preferred to shop from online stores as most of the physical ones were closed in order to avoid contagion. This facilitated, in some cases encouraged, people to buy from whichever store they wished without having to move from the house and, of course, it  brought significant benefits for the economy.  However, the increasing prominence of online shopping led to an increase in the sale  of things that are not always that necessary, such as clothes.  Due to all the elements mentioned above, and strictly linked to the selling of clothes, recently,  an important topic came back in the spotlight: fast fashion. You may have heard this word before, but… do you know what it means?

The term fast fashion describes a method of designing, manufacturing and selling huge quantities of clothes in the quickest way possible. Usually, these clothes are cheap and low quality but they are so popular because they are similar to clothes designed by luxury fashion brands and wore by celebrities. Although this method makes trendy clothes  accessible to everyone, it also causes several important problems and raises different questions.  Low prices push consumers to buy more and more, even if there is not a real need and this has an impact both on the planet and manufacturing workers.  The massive and rapid manufacture of clothes produces a significant amount of textile waste, carbon emissions (due to the enormous quantity of shipments per day) and pollution, especially of rivers.

The other negative aspect of fast fashion, and the one on which we, as ESN Macerata, would like to invite you to think about, is the impact that it has on the garments factories workers.  A lot of fast fashion brands have their garments factories in developing countries where labour is cheaper.  Often, the garments factories workers  are minors and women,  people who receive little or no protection of their human and working rights and who are forced to work for hours uninterruptedly without eating or going to the toilette. These workers are exploited since they are paid less than 6% of the final price of clothes sold in the stores. These people are obliged to continuously  work under pressure, in unsafe facilities with precarious hygienic conditions and with no type of insurance if an accident happens while working.  The fast fashion manufacture workers are the ones who are paid the least but actually work the most, even risking their lives in some cases.

Luckily, this topic is becoming more and more relevant and workers are raising their voices and protesting to have their rights granted. At the same time, innovative techniques to produce clothes in a more sustainable way are spreading; also alternatives to fast fashion, such as buying second hand items or going to thrift shops, are increasingly becoming  popular.

ESN Macerata encourages  you to think to these issues when shopping fast fashion clothes online.  We believe that people should ask themselves  “ Do I need this T-shirt? Is it really worth it? What impact will I make with this action?”.  These are simple but crucial questions to which we need to find answers, we should  meditate about the outcomes of our decisions and the effects those could have on other persons. We should think more as humans than  as mere consumers.