Chan, Emily. “Global Fashion Summit 2023.” Vogue, 23 May 2023, https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/global-fashion-summit-2023/.
Top heads met at the Global Fashion Summit this year and discussed various environmental problems. Textile disposal still is a major issue on a majority of these companies’ boards, local textile producers in countries such as Ghana came to complain how they are hurt by these fast fashion companies. They also discussed how the European Parliament is attempting to pass bills to help “end fast fashion” (they have yet to do so, but it is clearly their intent to). Other advocates came to speak to brands and explain that they need to stop promoting overconsumption to speakers, but the reality is that these ideas will probably not stick with the companies, as overconsumption is what made them so successful in the first place.
I am glad there is a fashion summit at all where climate advocates can come together and lecture these companies on their fashion impacts, but it is clear that the companies still have a majority of the power of fashion’s environmental impact, and their power doesn’t seem to be going anywhere helpful for our Earth. Maybe one day this summit will lead to an impactful change for a major fashion company that helps the environment.
I have also noticed how fast fashion has impacted the world. Brands like Shien are making clothes for very cheap and selling them on a wide scale. Millions of people are contributing to the problem by buying from fast fashion stores. I wonder how we could advocate for this to stop since the clothes are very cheap?
Thank you for your response. I think people have already advocated for fast fashion to stop, and it seemed to have a decent sized impact on Shein, however, the issue of the desire for cheaper clothing won over morals, and Shien is still very alive.
This one is a very confusing dilemma because on one hand, there are plenty of people who actually need cheap and mass produced clothing, but they are typically not the ones who receive it. Both the consumers and the producers are at fault here because the consumers will overconsume for the sake of convenience and companies will overproduce for the ones who buy it. I feel that both need to be held somewhat accountable in this case.
Thank you for your response. I also feel that consumers and producers need to be held accountable here. We can’t completely demonize companies when their main job is to be appealing to the consumer, so their actions are simply following the suit of the buyer. We need to make both sides be more eco friendly to push our earth into a better future.