2. • The apparel industry accounts for 10% of
global carbon emissions and remains the
second largest industrial polluter, second
only to oil.
Examples:
• Production of a 1kg of cotton ( necessary to
produce a t-shirt or a pair of jeans) requires
20.000 litres of water.
• Transformations of raw materials into clothes
requires until 8.000 different chemicals
2
3. • Cotton production is one of the most water
intensive crops – responsible for 2.6 percent
of global water use.
• In order to increase the production of cotton
high volumes of pesticides and fertilizers are
utilized; these chemicals contributes to the
pollution of groundwater and air, as well as
the reduction of soil fertility.
• Cotton production is responsible of Cotton
uses 22.5% of the world’s insecticides and
10% of all pesticides
3
4. • Some amazing facts ( from Forbes )
Nearly 70 million barrels of oil are used each
year to make the world’s polyester fiber, which
is now the most commonly used fiber in our
clothing. But it takes more than 200 years to
decompose.
4
5. • More than 150 billion garments are
produced annually, enough to provide
20 new garments to every person on the
planet, every year.
• Americans throw away about 32 Kg of
clothing per person every year.
• Today ‘throwaway fashion’ culture is
widely diffused in the western world.
Some amazing facts ( from Forbes )
5
6. Today ‘throwaway
fashion’ culture is widely
diffused in the western
world.
Textile waste had risen from 7% of
total waste to 30% in the last five
years
The textile waste
was not “easily
recyclable”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/23335593@N05/29887951456
7. Environmental and social effects of the fashion industry
80 bilion of garments
Produced every year
+400% compared
to 2015
CO2 Production
Pesticides
insecticides
Fashion industry
produces 10% of
pesticides and 22.7%
of insecticides
High consumption
( water, energy,…)
Cotton
production (25
million tons)
labor
exploitation
7
8. Traditional fashion:
clothing and
accessories are
released two to four
times a year, usually
coinciding with the
traditional fashion
seasons of summer,
autumn, winter, and
spring.
8
9. In fashion industry Time is a critical
parameter: for the instability of demand
and short life cycle of apparel products
Traditional fashion brands start the design
of the collections many months before their
market launch. This results in high risks of
failure
9
10. Fast Fashion
Definition ( from Financial Times): “Fast fashion
companies copy catwalk looks and tend to use
extremely efficient supply chains to release
more of these collections each year than other
retailers. Items are sold cheaply and released
quickly into stores.”
Designed and manufactured quickly and cheaply
to allow consumers to buy trendy styles at a
lower price.
10
11. Fast fashion ( from Macmillan dictionary) :
a term used to describe cheap and
affordable clothes which are the result of
catwalk designs moving into stores in the
fastest possible way in order to respond to
the latest trends
Fast fashion or McFashion
11
12. Enhances product design capabilities to
capture the latest consumer trends
Reduces lead times in design,
production and distribution ( i. e. all the
phases of the supply chain)
Fast fashion
12
13. Fast Fashion is a disposable Fashion
Delivers designed product to a mass
market at relatively low prices
Fabric and construction quality is low and
often doesn’t withstand washing
13
14. Main bricks of fast fashion
Fast fashion model is based on the folowing
fundamental bricks:
• Production lead times reduced to a matter
of weeks
• Garments are transformed from the design
stage to the retail floor in only a few weeks
• Cheap prices
• Consumers are stimulated to purchase
more than they need by low prices
14
15. Companies of fast fashion as Zara, H&M,
Gap and Forever 21 identify the
prevailing trends during the
presentations of collections of the
traditional fashion brands (presented at
least one season in advance ) and design,
produce and send at stores in few weeks (
2-3 weeks) .
This model allow to propose products
that are always ‘fashionable’.
15
16. Fast fashion brings the latest designer-inspired
fashions to the masses very rapidly and cheaply
Consumers can buy trendy items at affordable
prices.
Profit:
• products are rapidly produced and consumed
in large quantities,
• consumers are expected to buy multiple
items at once, discard them shortly, and buy
new items again.
16
17. An efficient supply chains is central to to design and
manufactur quickly and inexpensively as well as to arrive
fastly in shops
17
18. Fast fashion brands are organized generally
through an efficient information technology
system integrating all activities from design,
production, administration, logistic offices as
well as retailing stores.
18
19. Fast fashion requires fast marketing
Companies promote the desire of which the
consumers buy the last articles that exist on the
market.
On having diminished the times of design and of
manufacture, the consumers feel incited to buy
these products as rapidly as possible, that is to
say, across the advertising campaigns and the
merchandising they create an instantaneous hook
for the client and create a buying experience.
19
20. Fast fashion brands must maintain a
fast marketing strategy to keep the
attention of the consumer at the
continuous new fashion products
“buy it now” is the message transmitted
at the consumers
20
21. Fast fashion increases consumption
We buy more clothes than we
actually need!
Quickly-changing trends and low
prices stimulate consuming and
discarding clothing
21
22. The average person buys 60
percent more items of
clothing and keeps them for
about half as long as 15
years ago
22
23. 25 pants/shorts 25 tops 40 dresses/suits/Jackets
25 accessories
5 shoes 5 leather shoes
10 lingeries
Wardrobe of a typical Fast Fashion consumer
( from TheFashionCult )
23
24. • Fast fashion retailers have significantly higher
sell-through rates compared to traditional
fashion retailers.
• The fast fashion retailers are able of selling
at as much as 85 percent of the full product
price as opposed to the traditional fashion
industry average of 60 percent.
• Fast fashion retailers achieve profitability
about two times higher of that of traditional
fashion retailers.
24
25. A cheap T-shirt: what is the gain for the worker?
From a 2011 report
realized by O’Rourke
Group Partners considering
a $14 polo shirt sold in
Canada and made in
Bangladesh ( from
Mcleans )
Workers gains just 12 cents
for a shirt( 2% of the
wholesale cost.)
Factory Overhead $ 0.07
Factory margin $ 0.58
Freight/insurance/duties $ 1.03
Agent $ 0.18
Labour $ 0,12
Materials and finishing 3.69
COST FOR RETAILER
TOTAL COST FOR
RETAILER $5.67 25
27. Evonronmental costs
Cheap material is often utilized as
polyester in order to get the lower
prices
Polyester is non-biodegradable, requires
enormous energy to be manufactured
The hidden costs of the Fast Fashion
27
28. Environmental costs:
Millions of tons of clothes winding up
in trash bins, incinerators and
landfills.
About 95 percent of the clothes could
be used again or recycled but the vast
majority ends up in landfills or
incinerators
The hidden costs of the Fast Fashion
28
29. Example of environment pollution by a Fast Fashion Brand
%Breakdown of climate impacts across H&M value chain
Data from Harvad Business School – Digital Initiative
29
30. Low wages, forced labour, unhealthy and
dangerous working conditions, and child
labour
It is estimated that 168 million children
aged five to 14 are forced to work In the
fashion and luxury industry
The hidden costs of the Fast Fashion
30
31. Child labour is a particular issue for
fashion because much of the supply chain
requires low-skilled labour and some
tasks are even better suited to children
than adults. In cotton picking, employers
prefer to hire children for their small
fingers, which do not damage the crop (
from International Labor Oprganisation).
/
Image from
https://www.flickr.com/photos/iloasiapacific/1608369692231
32. In the slums of Dhaka in Bangladesh two thirds (
66%) of girl labourers are working in the
garments sector, while boys are 16%.
Average hours worked in a week by a child in
the Dhaka slums: 64 hours!
From an article of Ecouterre based on a research of Overseas
Development Institute
Who pays the price for our clothing?
A brutal reality
The garment industry in Bangladesh has a value of $19
billion-a-year —the world’s second-largest after China 32
33. Who pays the price for our clothing?
“The True Cost” a documentary released in 2015,
set out to expose the many ills of the fashion
industry.
The ‘True Cost’ documentary opened people’s
eyes to the horrors of the fast fashion industry.
The video shows the harsh treatment and
conditions of the people making our clothes.
See the documentary
33
34. The catastrophic Dhaka fire in 2012
and the 2013 Rana Plaza building
collapse killed over 1,200
Bangladeshi apparel workers and
injured many more.
Who pays the price for our clothing?
By rijans (Flickr: Dhaka Savar Building Collapse) [CC BY-SA 2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 34
35. The most popular Fast fashion Brands
• Zara
• H&M
• Topshop
• Forever 21
• Urban Outfitters
• United Colors of
Benetton
• Mango
• Gap
35
36. Everyone can do simple things to make a
difference, and every little bit really does
count ( Stella McCartney)
I like to think fashion call tell a story
not only based on values (Valerie Goosr.
Founder Kitty Ferreira)
“Time is the luxury – everything is going too fast.
To make something beautiful. You have to take the
time with it”- Haider Ackermann
36
37. 37
Carl Honoré, author of
“In Praise of Slowness”
‘Slow approach’ intervenes as a
revolutionary process in the
contemporary world because it
encourages taking time to ensure quality
production, to give value to the product,
and contemplate the connection with
the environment.
38. Slow Fashion
High quality fashion you would wear
for years
Slow Fashion can be the answer
In the future the fashion industry
become more sustainable?
38
39. Slow Fashion was first conied in 2008 by
Kate Fletcher starting from the experience
of Slow Food founded by Carlo Petrini in
Italy in 1986, Slow Food links pleasure and
food with awareness and responsibility.
39
40. Slow is not the opposite of fast
40
It’s a different approach in which
designers, buyers, retailers and
consumers are more aware of the impacts
of products on workers, communities and
ecosystems.
41. Slow fashion in synthesis:
• clothing which lasts a long time and is often
made from locally-sourced or fair-trade
material
• Ethical manufacturing taking into
consideration the workers and environment
by assuring the workers are paid fair wages
and are provided a safe working environment
• High Quality of products and slowing down
consuming
41
43. Environmental sustainability : use of natural
products, recycling, local production processes
minimizing that minimize the mobility of goods
Social sustainability: fair treatment of workers,
taking into account the workers' terms and
conditions, child labor and underpaid, and
enhances the use of local labor skills, and
invest with a medium- and long vision in labor
in developing countries (Africa, Asia,…);
Enhancing communities: Utilization of local
materials and resources when possible and try
to support the development of local businesses
and skills
43
44. Slowing down consumption: buying fewer
products, but higher in value, emphasis on quality,
recycling of used clothing , consumer awareness of
environmental and social sustainability of the
producer.
Quality and enduring design values:
apparel items are made from better-
quality materials, which are more
durable and will last longer than
clothing manufactured using fast
fashion methods.
44
45. Slow fashion: reuse and recycling
Reuse: means reusing products in other contexts
(markets, consumer types, the fashion industry,
...).
•Recycling: concerns products, waste and / or
waste of a company and their transformation
to re-insert them in new production processes
and thus enable a new life cycle
45
47. Fast Fashion Slow Fashion
Quality Low High
Production Global Local
Customer interaction Low High
Innovation Fast, constant style changes Low, timeless design
Production range Large selection of products Small choice among high
quality products
Fabrics Low quality High quality
Labour costs Low High
Labour forces Outsources labor
sweatshop in developing
countries
Usually locally made
Sustainability Impossible to produce eco-
friendly and ethical clothing
Sustainable, ethical
47
49. Examples from Triple Pundit
Example: ( from Junk and Jin) :
T-shirts Made & Crafted,” from the sustainable line
of Levi Strauss cost $50, while H&M men’s T-shirts
cost $5.95
49
Fast fashion pants are $17.90, while slow fashion
pants are $128.
An on-trend dress from a fast fashion retailer
sells for $15.90, while a similar dress from a
slow fashion site goes for $145
A fast fashion sweater is $24.90, and a slow
fashion sweater is $160;
50. The slow fashion, for its higher prices
compared to mass-produced apparel, is able
to sustain businesses?
50
Low speed and small quantity production cannot
compete with fast fashion companies and higher
pricing may not generate today sufficient demand
for slow fashion.
51. 51
Consumer has an important
role or maybe the crucial
role in the concept of slow
fashion
Consumers with their
choices and behaviours
are the only ones who
can make real change
53. Consumers must be conscious about
their shopping decisions
53
It’s important that
people know what they
are buying and take care
of its clothing items
54. Being aware of where your clothing
comes from
Making decisions based on quality rather
than quantity
Buy less
Take care of your clothing
54
To be an aware consumer
55. From ligaturejournal
Choosing Slow Fashion means simply: to take
responsibility for the choices you make around your
consumption of clothing.
• How much clothing you choose to own
• Where the materials are sourced from
• What the materials are and how they are processed
• Who makes them and the conditions they work under
• The industry that surrounds the making of those clothes
• The transport miles involved in getting it from where it
was grown and made to you
• The longevity and durability of the piece
• What happens to the piece of clothing after it is no
longer useful to you or wearable. 55
56. Today we live in a “society of
product-consumers, not owners.
And there’s a difference.
Owners are empowered to take
responsibility for their
purchases—from proper cleaning
to repairing, reusing and sharing.
Consumers take, make, dispose
and repeat—a pattern that is
driving us towards ecological
bankruptc hereby avoiding the
CO2 emissions, waste output and
water usage required to build it.”
By Patagonia
56
58. 58
Consumer must be able to make
“informed buying decisions”;
this implies the availability of
clear standards in slow fashion
industry and easily to be
understood.
“It is time for slow fashion
to come together as an
industry to define itself, set
clear standards” ( by
WhyDev)
59. Slow fashion standards should have
three primary goals ( from
Whydev.org) :
59
• to help the public make informed buying
decisions
• to fend off dishonorable companies
• to create an identity for the slow fashion
movement
60. 60
A video explaining GOTS standard
The standard : GOTS
GOTS is an abbreviation for Global
Organic Textile Standard and it’s the
Global leading certificate for organic
products which include ecological as
well as social criteria
GOTS defines requirements to ensure organic status of textiles,
from harvesting of the raw materials, through environmentally
and socially responsible manufacturing up to labeling in order to
provide a credible assurance to the end consumer.
63. 63
“100% cotton. Made in Cambodia by Behnly,
nine years old. He gets up at 5:00 am every
morning to make his way to the garment
factory where he works. It will be dark when
he arrives and dark when he leaves. He dresses
lightly because the temperature in the room he
works reaches 30 degrees. The dust in the
room fills his nose and mouth. He will make
less than a dollar, for a day spent slowly
suffocating. A mask would cost the company
ten cents. The label doesn’t tell the whole
story.”
MADE IN
CAMBODIA
The Label Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
A campaign created by the Canadian Fair Trade Network.
It highlights the point that a garment’s tag really doesn’t tell you much
The campaign aims make people aware of
conditions the devastating conditions that
persist for many workers in garment factories
around the world.
http://cftn.ca/sites/default/files/Fair_Trade_End_Child_Labour_Swe
ater_2000px_0.jpg
64. “Sourced In" initiative, which
will look beyond the “Made
in…” tag by Zady
64
Starting from the Zady Essential Collection label gives
data about environmental, ethical and economic
factors throughout every step of production, "from
farm to finish factory.“
The entire production process can be watched online
65. According to a recent survey
commissioned by the British
charity Barnardo’s, a majority of
women’s garments are worn
seven before being pushed to
the back of the closet or tossed
into the garbage ( from The
Atlantic)
65
Buy less Chose well
Make it last
--------------
Vivienne Westwood
66. 66
Buy less and choose timeless garments that
will last for many seasons
Wear the same items over and over again
Limit the number of pieces in your closet, but
choice high quality garments
67. 67
Before you purchase an item of clothing, ask yourself some of
these questions ( from tashamillergriffith.com)
• Do I need this?
• Can I see myself wearing this frequently? Does it go with
what’s already in my closet?
• When I look at this, what message does it send? Is that the
message I want people to get when they see me?
• Do I need this many?
• Is this so cheaply made, or so trendy, that it won’t last me
very long?
• Am I shopping for something I really need, or is this “retail
therapy”?
68. In fast fashion a clothing item is wearing
on average five times
Wearing a clothing item 50 times instead 5 reduces carbon
emissions by 400% for item and for year
………......…
1 2 3 4 5 6 …………….. 49 50
1 2 3 4 5
68
69. 69
Take care of your garments
Wash them right
Dry them right
70. 70
Wash and dry of clothing items can reduce the
carbon footprint if some simple rules are
adopted:
– Utilize green laundry detergent, with
biodegradable and phosphate free ingredients;
– setting your washing machine to use cold water,
As an example wahing at 30 degrees Celsius the
carbon footprint is 0.6 kgwhile at 60 degrees is
3.3 kg
– when possible use hand washing
– when possible avoid the drying machines
Example: during a single t-shirts life cycle, approximately 75%
of its carbon footprint will be caused from the consumers
machine washing and drying techniques
Carbon footprint is the measure of the
environmental impact of a particular
activities , measured in kilograms of CO2
(Carbon dioxide).
71. Reuse
71
Take care of your garments
Repair
Recycling
Upcycling ( or creative reuse) :
transforming by-products, waste
materials, useless, or unwanted products
into new materials or products of better
quality or for better environmental
72. Repair is a radical act ( by Patagonia)
An innovative initiative by Patagonia
Product Care and Repair: Patagonia has published
a set of 40 Repair Care Guides for its items to
ensure a long life to its items
Reuse & Recycle: customer can send back to
Patagonia any product arrived at the end of its life
cycle s to be recycled or repurposed
72
73. Some simple and obvious rules to be an aware
consumer ( by Kate Fletcher)
Tips to slow down your wardrobe:
– Repair your clothes with a smile (it’s
easier than going shopping)
– Or ask stores about repair services… that
may get them thinking
– Ask your friends for new ideas about how
to wear the garments you already have…
it’s always good to wear things in a new
way. 73
74. A non-ehaustive list
of slow fashion brands ( ½)
Alternative Apparel
Amour Vert
Begood
Blue Canoe .
CP Shades
Deadwood
EcoAlf
Eileen Fisher
Esprit
Ethica
G-star Raw
Industry Of All Nations
Fjällräven
Jan ‘n June
Kowtow
Made&More
Mela Artisans
Minna
Nau
74
75. A non-exhaustive list
of slow fashion brands (2/2)
Osborne Shoes
Outdoor Voices
Pachacuti
Patagonia
People tree Ltd
Polly Wales
Raven + Lily
Reformation
Stella McCartney
75
Synergy
Toad & Co
The Sept Label
Under the Canopy
United by Blue
Wills London
Woodze
Zady
Fast fashion clothing collections are based on the most recent fashion trends presented at Fashion Week in both the spring and the autumn of every year.
These trends are designed and manufactured quickly and cheaply to allow the mainstream consumer to buy current clothing styles at a lower price.
This philosophy of quick manufacturing at an affordable price is used in large retailers such as H&M, Forever 21, Zara, and Topshop.
