Fast fashion is a “monster” which is hurting all brands as shoppers demand cheaper prices and clothes that they only wear once, Topshop’s former fashion director has said.
Retailers have benefited from “the pressure on young people to never be seen in the same outfit”, former Topshop chief Gillian Ridley Whittle said.
She added that customers had become accustomed to the idea that “if they want fashion, they can get it at cheap prices”, which was piling pressure on all fashion brands.
“Fast fashion has become such a monster. In order to keep the prices down, because it is all so throw-away, and then these companies have gone to cheaper and cheaper sources for their clothes, which don’t pay their workers fairly or care about the planet.”
Some work I do for the Americans means reading lots of the girlie mags. And it’s always the more expensive ones, the ones running the ads for the £500 blouses, which are most adamant in their opposition to fast fashion.
Umm, “reading girlie mags” doesn’t usually mean what you think it does, Tim. That being said, if it were true, it sounds like a great job 🙂
‘Girlie mags’ brings this to mind:
Rodney
Well, I wanted to buy one of my ‘adult art’ magazines.
Del
What’s the problem?
Rodney
Debbie’s serving! We’ve been seeing each other, sort of thing! She might think I’m odd!
Del
She’s gonna find out sometime Rodney.
Rodney
Get it for us would you Del?
Del
Alright, alright, Rodney!
Rodney
Cheers Del, you’re a pal!
Del
(To Debbie)
Here you are, darling, look Exchange and Mart, oh, give me one of yer dirty magazines darling will you.
Debbie
Yeah, which one d’you want?
Del
(Calls)
Which one d’you want Rodney?
“clothes that they only wear once”: I’ll bet there are persons of a female persuasion of whom it might be better said “clothes that they wear at most once”.
You’re reminding me of a pair of pyjamas I got. Bloody things tore in no time at all.
Wah, wah, waaaah!!
I’m reminded of a trenchcoat style raincoat labelled Pierre Cardin & bought in Paris for un bras et une jambe . Dry cleaners lost an epaulette & in failing to source a replacement, spoke with the manager of the company in Nottingham made it. The current product they had on the line was industrial overalls.
Just bought a couple of jackets out of China because the range of colours available here is somewhat limited, dagos being excessively conservative in menswear. 32€ a piece including shipping. I do know my schmutter & there’s nothing substantially different about them from labelled stuff shopping at 250 a go.
As Tim says, it is all really about labels & the premium people will pay for labels. Marbella fashion is to wear them on the outside of the garment. But on the wear it once thing, I’m not sure if the high end label stuff isn’t more prone to it then the cheap fashion. The problem being, it only makes the statement required the first time its worn. It does the opposite on its second outing. I have a pal in London who runs a business on this basis. She sells or rather rents second hand designer. The buyers return to trade it in for other second hand designer. I’d start one up here if I could find a woman partner knows anything about togs
*Lower* prices, you bloddy illiterate.
Prices are low.
*THINGS* are cheap.
The worker who makes the five hundred quid blouse probably sits right next to the worker making the five quid blouse. Admittedly the cloth may be a little more expensive. Both workers got paid the equivalent of seventeen US cents per blouse which is good work if you can get it.
Do they ever wonder about the local economic effects of paying a ‘fair wage’ above local market value? If jobs at ABC Fashions suddenly pay twice the local norm? The owner is going to ration out those jobs to family or for a backhander. Or maybe some community fixer will operate a scam, for a weekly kickback. The poor sods who do the work may not be better off, as well as being subject to spite and envy from those who were left out.
Find it very hard to believe people are throwing away clothes after on use. Also, in my experience, nobody shows off by wearing cheap clothes, it has to have the label of an expensive brand.