Welcome to the Age of Fast Fashion

The Global Reach (and Consequences) of Fast Fashion

Here’s a look at the life cycle of all that inexpensive clothing we buy these days, and how it affects everything from the people who make it to the environment.

The Rise of Fast Fashion

Thanks to inexpensive prices, stylish designs, and rapid turnaround times, fast fashion has taken over the apparel industry.

Fast fashion isn’t exactly a new concept. The New York Times used the term as early as 1989 to refer to the Spanish retailer Zara, which had pioneered a model of getting trendy designs from concept to market in just two weeks. That helped Zara become the multibillion-dollar company it is today, and it transformed the fashion industry. Everyone likes stylish clothes at low prices—in 2024, the BBC reported that the average price of an item from market leader Shein was about $11—but fast fashion’s domination of the broader fashion industry is about much more than that, according to Min Zhao, an associate professor at BC’s Carroll School of Management. Zhao, who covers fast fashion in her courses on consumer behavior, said social media has played a critical role in the rise of fast fashion because of a psychological concept known as the exposure effect. People who are shown specific items repeatedly grow to like them more, she explained. “In the old days, it took longer for people to see and adopt trends,” Zhao said. “Now, if I see three friends posting about buying a certain outfit, I think the whole world is wearing that, and I can’t fall behind.” Because people have a wider audience for their outfits now, Zhao explained, social media leads us to buy more clothing. In fact, social media sites are no longer places to merely post photos of yourself wearing your latest outfit—they’re now places where you can actually buy your next outfit. TikTok Shop, for instance, allows users to purchase all kinds of items, from clothes to electronics, directly in the TikTok app, and its users are buying more fast fashion than the average shopper. A 2024 report from Earnest Analytics showed that for people who use TikTok Shop, 11 percent of their total spending on clothes goes to fast fashion, compared with 7 percent for people who don’t shop on the app.

Troubled Waters

How fast fashion became one of the world’s leading sources of water pollution. 

Though it may not seem obvious, fast fashion is a major polluter of Earth’s clean water. The dyes used to color textiles are the world’s second-largest source of water pollution, according to the UN, and overall, the fashion industry is responsible for about 20 percent of global clean water pollution. An estimated 90 percent of clothing is dyed synthetically. “Synthetic dye is where we have problems,” BC Assistant Professor of Engineering Ali Salifu said. “That’s where you end up having a lot of heavy chemicals like mercury, cadmium, and lead.” Of the dyes used in textiles, 60 to 80 percent are what are known as azo dyes, which studies have shown can be carcinogenic. In Bangladesh, the second-largest producer of garments internationally, half of textile dyeing sites do not have effluent treatment plants, meaning toxic dye runoff flows directly into rivers, according to a 2020 paper published in the International Research Journal of Advanced Engineering and Science. “That can lead to chemicals leaching into water bodies,” Salifu said,  “which can affect aquatic life or people downstream who rely on that water for agriculture or washing things, or who may consume it without fully filtering it.” But it’s not just the manufacture of fast fashion that causes water pollution. Washing clothes made of synthetic fabric can release millions of tiny plastic microfibers, according to a Rutgers University researcher. Those materials can be ingested by fish, and then by humans who eat the fish. “It’s especially concerning when a pregnant woman eats the fish because the chemicals get into her bloodstream and then they cross right over into the baby,” said Phil Landrigan, director of BC’s Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good.

It’s a Synthetic Material World

The large majority of the fibers used in fast fashion are created not from natural sources but from plastic. 

What materials do you think your favorite clothes are made of? Wool, perhaps? Cotton? Cashmere? Well, you might be surprised to learn that most clothes today are actually made from plastic. According to the Changing Markets Foundation, approximately 70 percent of textiles are made from synthetic materials like polyester, nylon, and spandex, all of which are created using plastics derived from fossil fuels. And fast-fashion retailers use the most synthetic fabrics of all, the foundation concluded in 2024. So what’s the problem with synthetic fibers? They may be cheap, but they pose a variety of hazards to both the environment and the people who wear them. “Fast fashion depends on energy-intensive processes,” said Edson Severnini, an associate professor in BC’s economics department. “Many of these manufacturers are still using coal, for example, which contributes a lot to CO₂ emissions.” The harm from fast fashion may not be limited to the environment, either. Chemicals in the clothes have been shown to be potentially dangerous to people wearing them. In 2023, for instance, researchers at the UK’s University of Birmingham found evidence that potentially dangerous chemical additives in clothing may leach into human sweat and be absorbed into the body through the skin. In 2024, meanwhile, the French newspaper Le Monde reported that officials in South Korea identified sandals from Temu that contained lead at eleven times the legal limit. And when clothing containing lead is thrown into landfills, Severnini said, the dangerous chemical can enter the environment and pose serious health risks. “Once you have incorporated the air, water, or soil pollution into the body, it affects the neurological system, the immunological system, and it could lead to death.” Here’s a look at the problems caused by synthetic fibers used in fast fashion.

Fixing Fast Fashion

Here’s how we can make better apparel decisions, and the industry can clean up its act.

So, what can be done to address the problems associated with fast fashion? Experts believe that solutions must be rooted in policy, research, and consumer education. In one closely watched development, the European Union adopted rules last year requiring corporations (including fast-fashion companies) to pay for the collection, sorting, and recycling of textiles they introduce to market. Meanwhile, California has implemented a similar law that will go into effect this year, and New York is considering two bills of its own. Of course, consumers must also do their part to curb the environmental harms of fast fashion. Advocates promote the so-called “5 Rs” of fashion: reduce, rewear, recycle, repair, and resell. These steps can take many forms, but one of the most popular is thrifting, or the buying and selling of used clothes, which extends the lifecycle of existing garments while avoiding the environmental harms of producing new apparel. Even as fast fashion booms, thrifting is on the rise, with sales of secondhand clothing projected to grow at three times the rate of revenue from new apparel, according to a report by The Business of Fashion and McKinsey. “We’ve moved from an era when you thrifted in secret and hoped no one noticed to an era where your secondhand find is a badge of honor,” said James Reinhart ’01, whose thrift store ThredUp has grown into one of the world’s most popular websites to buy and sell used clothing. Another popular option is upcycling, which refers to repurposing old clothing—everything from turning a pair of jeans into shorts to sewing a men’s dress shirt into a fitted blouse. In 2017, Julia DeVoy, associate dean at BC’s Lynch School, and Dielle Lundberg ’16 founded Make Fashion Clean, a nonprofit that partners with a Ghana-based foundation to upcycle textile waste into new creations sold online. “There’s so many different ways students and researchers can get involved in this and create a better tomorrow,” DeVoy said.