How Mainstream Fashion Labels Benefit from the Demonization of Fast Fashion

Henry Sergent

In this chaotic, high-production-value graphic, Nike professes an alignment with the climate movement, using a catchy "Move to Zero" slogan and a cartoon snail. This campaign and many others from behemoth brands like Adidas, Patagonia, and Lululemon keep their customers confident that they are part of the solution rather than complicit in the problem of excessive clothing production. "It's okay to buy from us because we care." This is a rather obvious point; brands seek to align themselves with popular ideologies so their customers feel their purchase is an ideological action. But the more important question is how we, the consuming public, allow our guards to be let down so easily for these brands when we claim to be so hyperconscious of humanity's effect on the climate? If we saw the stores in our malls and shopping districts as the root cause of the issue, wouldn't we reject them? One answer to this confusing hierarchy of acceptability lies in the fashion industry's ability to scapegoat and outsource the focus of the public's disdain while leveraging their reputation and reverence to the furthest extent possible.

I am not necessarily alleging some high-level conspiracy born out of smoke-filled rooms or Anna Wintour's Vogue regime. Still, I assert that the mere existence of brands like SHEIN, TEMU, and now, Amazon Haul, benefits mainstream brands in that they can hide behind them and pretend they're somehow more ethical or sustainable. What brands do most of the conversation about fast fashion online focus on? The Instagram army (including me) spews hatred about SHEIN, TEMU, H&M, Zara, Forever 21, and anyone else in that category characterized by the cheap and excessive production of trendy, meaningless garb. This is for good reason, too. You could write multiple books about the human exploitation and environmental harm these brands are responsible for. SHEIN alone posts 3,000 - 10,000 new items PER DAY (not units, ITEMS, with MULTIPLE units). The disgusting, low-quality polyester they use on their garbage items is poisoning our Earth and Minds, and these companies need to be destroyed; their latest price hikes are a silver lining of the tariffs, I suppose. With all that said, though, they are low-hanging fruit and distract from the similar crimes of the brands we all know and love. Brands like SHEIN lack the cultural staying power that others have, which makes them easier to critique. What factors go into a brand's ability to shield itself from a similar fate?

Cultural reverence and price protect labels from the same reputationally toxic soup as the abovementioned brands. There are three aspects of cultural reverence to consider: 1) prevalence in the cultural product landscape, 2) lifestyle exemplification, and 3) purported morality/ethics.

Nike and the Jordan brand are a perfect example of reverence through prevalence. They are so intertwined with American culture that it's hard to picture a sports landscape without the swoosh or jumpman; if you watch a sporting event of any kind, you're likely to see it on screen. Nike is so ubiquitous through all levels of sport that its perpetuation seems inevitable; this suppresses critical thought. Given their affiliation with the celebrity world, you could say the same for a brand like Supreme. On the flip side, brands can create reverence by embodying a particular lifestyle. Lululemon, Aritzia, and Skims have a chokehold on the clean girl aesthetic; they want people to view their product as a key to open a door, the way to access a particular lifestyle. If you can do this well enough, you will be ignored in the crusade against polluters; you are the one fast fashion is trying to imitate, not one of the bad guys. This goes for brands like Carhartt and Dickies in the workwear world or North Face and Arcteryx in the outdoor space as well. Lastly, some brands like Patagonia lean hard into the alleged morality of the company to make customers comfortable with their purchase. Whether it is partial construction through recycled materials, a less water-intensive process, or special packaging, these brands swear their products are somehow activism in a box and tell you its ok to walk around with your nose up after buying them.

Furthermore, all of these appeals are protected by price. Regardless of whether a brand is leaning into its prevalence in the cultural landscape, the lifestyle they embrace, their morality, or a mix of the three, they cannot bring the point home if the price isn't enough to make you believe them. If these leggings are $100, they must be made with care, right? If this jacket is $200, then they're surely doing their part to protect the environment, right? All of these strategies collude to build a hierarchy in the minds of buyers and fuel your cognitive dissonance.

The unfortunate reality is that ALL fashion brands making products made from virgin material contribute to the climate crisis, not just a select few evil fast-fashion behemoths. Nike uses the same petroleum-based polyester that SHEIN does, albeit with a higher thread count and potentially better feel. Levi's jeans create an abhorrent amount of wastewater and dye pollution, just as terribly sewn pants from Temu do. More than ever, brands are under pressure to pull a bag over our heads and keep us buying while the world burns. Their little sustainability campaigns are cute, but the culture's focus on Chinese fast fashion giants as the root cause of clothing-related pollution does the heavy lifting of distracting the public from mainstream brands' culpability in the climate crisis. We need to refocus our gaze. We need to expand the conversation and stop enabling our collective hypocrisy. You are not an ethical consumer if you refuse to buy clothing from SHEIN but get a jacket from Amazon. You are not a moral consumer if your third new pair of shoes this year was made partially from recycled newspaper. They give us all these little ways to excuse our behavior so that we buy their polyester instead of their polyester. It is true, SHEIN and TEMU are evil and degrading to the spirit of humanity and the livelihood of our ecosystem, but so is every company that pumps out cheaply made, water-intensive, societally unnecessary clothing as well!

Let's not be fooled any longer, you can get that jacket for way less on Depop anyway.

BUY SECONDHAND !!!

-Henry