More recently the term Fast Fashion has become synonymous with debates about the real cost of fashion and its impact on people and planet.

A research partnership between Public Eye, Schone Kleren Campagne and the Collectif Éthique sur l’étiquette within the Clean Clothes Campaign network, and the Paris-based research group Le Basic, investigated the what makes up the price of a Zara hoodie that costs €26.66, finding:

the biggest chunk of the hoodie’s retail price – an estimated €10.26 – went back into Zara, to cover retail space and staff wages. The next biggest slice, after VAT at €4.44, was profit for Inditex/Zara, at €4.20. Their research suggested that the textile factory in Izmir received just €1.53 for cutting the material, sewing, packing and attaching the labels, with €1.10 of that being paid to the garment workers for the 30-minute job of putting the hoodie together.

The report concluded that workers could not have received anything like a living wage, which the Clean Clothes Campaign defined, at the time the report was released in late 2019, as a gross hourly wage of €6.19.

Vanishingly few retailers guarantee living wages across their vast, complex supply chains. According to the not-for-profit group Fashion Revolution, only two of the world’s 250 largest fashion brands (OVS and Patagonia) disclose how many of their workers are paid a living wage – despite the kind of resources that make billionaires of founders.

High-street clothing has been getting cheaper and cheaper for decades. A major reason why, according to Gordon Renouf, the CEO of the fashion ethics comparison app Good on You, is that so many western brands have “moved from onshore production 40 years ago to larger offshore production”. Often, the countries they have chosen have “much lower wage costs, weaker labour movements and laxer environmental regulations”. Of course, we know all this, but we have also become accustomed to reaping the benefits. Our perception of what clothing should cost – and how much of it we need – has shifted.

According to the UN, the average consumer buys 60% more pieces of clothing – with half the lifespan – than they did 15 years ago.

Even among brands that have launched with sustainability as their USP, greenwashing is rife. Renouf warns against those that talk vaguely about being “natural” and “fair”, or bang on about recycled packaging, without giving details about, say, the materials they use or whether they engage with unions in their factories.

Many companies have spent decades promoting their CSR credentials. Zara’s parent company Inditex has been participating in the Ethical Trade Initiative since 2007 and 13 years ago proclaimed its progress on workers rights and working conditions in a 2010 annual report:

“Long before the signature of the international framework agreement by the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) and Inditex in 2007, the Group had already promoted, in close collaboration with the local union organizations, the development of the human and workplace rights in different geographical scenarios where Inditex carried on its production activities. the signature of the international framework agreement showed that it was possible to overcome the old paradigms on which labour relations were based and confirmed that, only from the moment of joint action with the parties involved, it was possible to promote proper working conditions in the production chain.”

The reality of high-street clothes shopping is still very far from this ideal of sustainable fashion. Apart from a few “sustainable” lines produced by the big fast-fashion brands, it is almost impossible to find new, ethical clothing at rock-bottom prices, because the business models that have enabled clothing to get this cheap rely on inexpensive, environmentally damaging fabrics and very low wages.

The organisation ‘Good on You’ aims to provide ratings for as many brands as possible, “rather than simply promoting the most sustainable brands”. You could, for example, move from an ultra-rapid fashion brand to a more engaged high-street fast-fashion brand, which might not cost much more, but still could constitute progress.

One of the realities of the impact of fast fashion was highlighted in November 2021 with the publication of an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report on the mountains of discarded clothing dumped in Chile’s Atacama Desert.  It is estimated that:

• about 59,000 tons of second-hand clothes arrive in Chile for resale each year from Europe, the US and Asia.
• However, an estimated 39,000 tons is unable to be sold and ends up dumped in the desert.
• The over-consumption of new clothing means that even an increasingly vibrant second-hand clothing market cannot keep up.  While second-hand markets can play a major role in reducing the carbon impact of clothing, a system where clothes are around the world multiple times, only to be wasted anyway is not sustainable.

Simply stated, the overwhelming research evidence from a wide range of sources and international bodies such as the World Economic Forum, the UN Fashion Alliance, the International Labour Organisation, Ethical Consumer and the Clean Clothes Campaign is that fast and cheap fashion is just not sustainable or fair.

In summarising the research, three core issues stand out.