Before watching "The True Cost" video in class, I never think it's problematic to buy new clothes regularly. It's a habit for me to change new clothes every season, although I just wear the clothes less than 10 times. Everyone around me have same customer behavior as me, then I regard this as the common sense and don't think there exists negative influence behind my behavior. I didn't realize this is called fast fashion until I take this class this quarter.
"The True Cost" raised my awareness of relentless reality behind our daily fashion demand. I could't image that the workers in clothes supply chain in the video were living below the minimum wage. It was really ironic that people who made our clothes by hands were in hopeless and dangerous life because of these textile. A collapse sweatshop in the video caused 1000 worker's death because they wanted to keep the low cost and had to continues working inside the dangerous building. When I saw a mother worker wailing in front of the lens and said, she believed these clothes were produced by their blood, but in order to give her child a bright future and hope her child not to get the same way as her, she would continue struggling, I'm so impressed and start to think seriously of fashion industry and to reflect myself and the society. As author said in Satan's sweatshop, "In an era, when the economy is necessarily a global one, it is impossible for consumers to avoid products made less than ideal labor conditions." But, I should not so selfish to build my happiness upon the pain of others'. The workers have same human right as us. If buying less clothes can save them from hopeless life, I will contribute my effort into Green Challenge.
As what have been revealed in the video The True Cost of Fast Fashion from Economist, in order to tackle the fast fashion throwaway culture, brands and customer need to change their behavior. Rent the Runway, the clothing borrowing service, is a good project for this. Customers are allowed to rent clothes with other people. In this case, customers are cycling through clothing rather than buying something only for wearing several times, and at the same time, the clothes are worn faster because of sharing. Meanwhile, there actually are many business opportunities in selling less. The Patagonia's sustainable model can prove this. I believe that methods are always more than difficulties as long as we start the first step.
In the future, I'm encouraged to recycle my clothes and pay more attention to workers and environment condition under apparel industry. I will also appeal my friends and my family to join in our Green Challenge project to make a more sustainable world together.
Work Cited:
- Movie: Andrew Morgan. “The True Cost” (2015)
- U.S. News & amp; World Report. (n.d.). Santa's Sweatshop. Retrieved April 29, 2019, from https://www.saigon.com/nike/news/Us1.html
- The True Cost of Fast Fashion | Economist. (2018, November 29). Retrieved April 29, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLfNUD0-8ts
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