Your killer outfit is actually costing people their lives.

Once upon a time, throwing together a last-minute outfit took time, imagination, and a damn good selection of accessories.

However, in our new climate of fast fashion and cheap-as-chips prices, the Thursday evening ‘what am I going to wear on the weekend?’ crisis is solved with a simple trip to your local shopping center – or a spot of fast delivery online shopping.

For the same price of a cheap meal, you can now be decked out head-to-toe in the latest fashion trends. Sure, the clothes might not last more than a few wears (or an encounter with the washing machine), but who cares when you are able to scratch that sartorial itch for under $50?

Sitting in a pile of clothes on your bedroom floor and moaning “I have nothing to wear!” is almost extinct, and we’ve never felt happier. But have you ever wondered how this love ’em and leave ’em fashion movement has been made possible?

The cost of the rapidly expanding ‘fast fashion’ industry is devastating to both the planet, and the people caught up in the production process. It’s time to stop and consider the true cost behind the price of fast fashion.

We are quickly racing towards the intersecting point where supply and demand in the fashion industry crash. We are demanding more than ever, faster than ever, and cheaper than ever. How fast can we expect the suppliers to run?

The 2015 documentary ‘The True Cost’ is one of those movies you can’t un-see. Tracking the production of cheap and cheerful Western fashion items from the rack all the way back to the factory, the viewer is shown scene after mortifying scene of horrifying work conditions, factory waste, human loss, and massive pollution.

“The great thing about fashion is that it always looks forward.” – Oscar de la Renta

A photo posted by The True Cost (@truecostmovie) on May 18, 2015 at 1:21pm PDT

 Aussie climate change website 1 Million Women pulled out their five most unforgettable facts from the film:  

The fashion industry is the world’s second-largest polluter.

Right behind the oil industry!

The world now consumes a staggering 80 billion pieces of clothing each year.

This is up 400% from two decades ago.

One-in-six people work in the global fashion industry.

A majority of these workers are women earning less than $3 per day. 250,000 Indian cotton farmers have killed themselves in the last 15 years. Partly as a result of going into debt to buy genetically modified cotton seeds, courtesy of Monsanto.

Only 10 per cent of the clothes people donate to charity or thrift stores get sold.

The rest end up in landfills or flooding markets in developing countries like Haiti where they are bought by the box and kill the local industry.
Our behaviour is learned.

Asking people to simply stop shopping is not realistic. We have been prodded and primed as the consumer generation, and are only acting out what we know: that materialism is healthy, and shopping makes us feel good.

 Advertisements for fast fashion pepper every media outlet. Whether you’re flicking through a magazine or flicking through the channels on TV,  the messaging is loud and clear – shop fast, shop cheap, shop now!

 

“Fashion is a human story.” – Alber Elbaz #TrueCostMovie A photo posted by The True Cost (@truecostmovie) on May 18, 2015 at 8:05am PDT

We have been groomed to believe that we deserve low prices, and that anything beyond a certain cost bracket is a crafty maneuver of the fashion industry to grab our money.

Big outlets like Zara make us believe we are cheating the system by getting the latest fashion at a fraction of the standard price.

We can enforce change.

Feeling slightly overwhelmed? We were too.

But if we just delivered the bad news, the good news is this: you can help.

Watch the trailer for ‘The True Cost’ below.

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After all, fashion is not an entirely evil industry – it is a creative outlet, art, an expression of who we are. So how can you continue to buy into fashion…without buying into the fast fashion industry?

Easy.

• Sign up to one of the many ‘Buy, Swap, Sell’ groups on Facebook. You can trade or shop for second-hand clothes from the labels you love – some items have never been worn.
• Head to your local op-shop! Take the time to properly sort through the racks, and you will be shocked with what you find.
• Set up a clothes swap with your girlfriends, or at your workplace – one gal’s trash is absolutely another gal’s treasure. We did a clothes swap here at Mamamia to great success.
• Educate yourself on ethical and sustainable fashion. There are hundreds of amazing labels who are producing their goods without exploiting staff or costing the environment.

The antidote: ethical and sustainable fashion.

Julia Hughes – along with her sister Miriam – is the owner and founder of Sunday Tracker, an online boutique that only stocks fully ethical and sustainable fashion.