Why fast fashion is slow death to the planet?!

From reading the Observer magazine in work they always have interesting fashion articles. This one in particular stood out to me written by Lucy Siegle.

Its all about the high street chains of fashion and how we now buy more cheap clothes then ever before. I'm sure we all have many items of clothing we have not a clue why we bought but because they simply looked good and came with a cheap price tag. Alot of it is to do with marketing and what the consumer thinks is a good buy.

* you will now demand roughly four times the amount of clothes you would have in 1980

* You will spend at least £625 on clothes

Consumers love anything with a cheap price tag or knowing they are getting fast fashions cheaper than some where else on the high street. The millennium was a big turning point in the UKS fashion mainstream industry it was more about selling clothes than the making of them.

Topshop became a destination point for anyone interested in fashion, ' get the look' plastered over magazines as everything relates back to Topshop. From Topshops success other high street retailers began to copy, producing big quantities of fast fashions and quick snappy marketing schemes. The high street fashion world has gone from new fashions ' in the next few weeks' to fashion buyers faxing world suppliers with tweaks from the design teams to get the look in the high street on a daily basis.

However fashion store Zara took a slightly different approach rather than focusing on quantities manufactures and designers came together creating tiny quanties of lots of different designs. This is where your last chance to buy comes into it as a consumer you hesitate at the point you might miss a chance on a new fashion item this makes you want the garment more and creates a sense of fear it will be snatched from you forever.

Zara fashion policy was a game change in the fashion industry. As consumers we now look at how fashion is marketed and having pieces someone else doesn't have so buy creating tiny quantities but lots of different designs makes the consumer want to dig out their wallet.