The Economic Impact of Fast Fashion

More than 500 billion USD in the fast fashion industry is wasted annually as a result of too many clothes being produced and not worn.  If the clothing industry reduced the number of garments produced, that excess money could be put into helping our environment rather than destroying it. If more people purchase second-hand clothing, the fashion industry could adjust their production accordingly. To put everything in perspective, 20 companies earn 97% of the world’s fashion industry profits. When companies have such a huge monopoly over the fashion industry, it is detrimental to small businesses that can not compete with the buying power of these corporations. Furthermore, in only four days, the average CEO of these fast-fashion companies earns what a garment worker earns in their entire lifetime! These big businesses do not care about the people working in their supply chain whether that is in the country where the garments are produced or where they are sold. Withholding such enormous amounts of wealth from the workers is an unsustainable and unbalanced economic model, and long term it costs the taxpayers money to cover the difference to provide these people with enough resources to stay alive.