Scrolling through shopping sites, you may come across one called Shein. At first glance, this seems like a dream site; everything is nicely laid out and dirt cheap. However, there are many problems associated with Shein. According to earth.org, 92 million tons of textiles end up in landfills every year.
Amelia Christopher, senior and co-president of the fashion club, said she also believes there are many issues with fast fashion. She has had many personal experiences with the low quality of fast fashion.
“Fast fashion isn’t good because it’s fashion that is meant to be thrown away and the quality [is] super low,” Christopher said. “I’ve had a lot of personal experiences with it, where I washed it twice and it [came out with] three holes. [Fast fashion] also [has a lot of] production and ethical issues because [they are] just trying to get designs out as fast as possible.”
Amanda Roberts, Intro into Fashion teacher, said she is also very passionate on the topic. She believes fast fashion has many issues that need solving.
“Fashion is the second [biggest] pollutant in the environment only after oil and that’s because of both the lack of recycling, [and] the use of chemicals to dye, stain [and] put a certain texture on the fabrics,” Roberts said. “The way those products are then released back into the environment is causing a lot of problems around the world.”
Another major problem with Shein is how they treat their workers. Spoiler alert: not well. According to The Cut, workers were working up to 18 hours a day and only given one day off a month. Christopher believes the workers are treated too poorly, and there is work to be done improve working conditions.
“[Their treatment] can always be better,” Christopher said.
“Instead of a camaraderie it’s just like people who are trying to do better than everybody else. A lot of times, people forget that [those] in charge or the people who are working are human [too].”
— Amelia Christopher
Anna McGinnis, senior, is co-president of the fashion club as well, and also believes fast fashion workers need to be treated better. She said Roberts usually plays a documentary called “The True Cost” that touches on these problems very well.
“Mrs. Roberts plays a movie [and] it covers a lot of this topic, like how the people around the [fast fashion workers] are affected by the chemicals used, and children are born with disabilities because of all the chemicals in the water,” McGinnis said. “They’re treated so badly, so they form unions. In the movie, it talks about a group that tried to go on strike, and they got locked in the factory and beat up [all because] they pushed for a better working environment. No one listens to them, and it’s really unfortunate.”
A big issue with fast fashion is big companies stealing smaller creators’ ideas. Even when they try to fight this, they aren’t on equal playing ground with big corporations, so they can’t do much. McGinnis said this is a huge problem that needs solving. One way people try to solve this issue is by suing big corporations like Shein.
“I’ve seen a lot [of] small businesses on TikTok [talking about how] Shein stole [their] idea,” McGinnis said.
“It’s frustrating because people who don’t know about fast fashion [will] go buy the cheaper product from Shein and not honor the hard work and dedication of the artist that created it.”
— Anna Mcginnis
Roberts believes there are major problems with fast fashion. She said America needs to make some changes for things to get better.
“Until America can stop and say ‘woah, I don’t want [this],’ nothing [is] going to change,” Roberts said. “I tell my students this all the time: my generation didn’t pull through. We’ve let you guys down. It’s now on you guys to be the ones to make the changes.”
