332\. What is Fast Fashion? (English Vocabulary Lesson)
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Think 85 to get amazing discounts. Support the show and level up your language skills with ELSA Speak. Hello, I'm Tom Wilkinson and welcome to the Thinking in English podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced level English learners. Fast fashion has revolutionized the clothing industry.

Companies like Zara and Shein release new clothing designs at a fast pace, create designs that are trending and stylish, and do it all at an affordable price. Today I want to define fast fashion. I'll talk about the history of fast fashion, how it works, and introduce the debate over using fast fashion brands.

You can find a full transcript of this episode for free on my website, on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts. And if you want ad-free, commercial-free episodes, become a Patreon subscriber. You can listen to ad-free episodes on Patreon or on Spotify too, if you're a Patreon subscriber. Here is today's vocabulary list. Fashion. Fashion.

A popular style or trend in clothing, accessories or behaviour that is widely accepted during a certain period. For example, fashion changes every season. Trend, trend. A general direction in which something is developing or changing, especially in fashion or culture.

as in fast fashion is driven by the latest trends. Stylish, stylish. Fashionable and attractive in appearance, often reflecting the latest trends. For example, she always wears stylish outfits. Affordable, affordable. Inexpensive and reasonably priced.

For example, fast fashion brands are known for offering affordable clothing options. Synthetic, synthetic, made from artificial substances rather than natural materials. For instance, many fast fashion brands use synthetic fabrics like polyester to keep costs low. Consumer, consumer, consumer.

a person who buys goods or services. As in, consumers often seek affordable and trendy clothing. Fashion is constantly changing. When I was at high school, everyone was wearing very skinny jeans and converse shoes. Clothes with logos also became really popular. People wanted to buy designer clothes like Gucci with a big logo on it.

As I got a little older, athletic clothes became trendy. As a student, most of my classmates were wearing track suits and athletic brands. Also, clothes from the 1990s came back into fashion in the early 2010s. More recently, oversized clothes like baggy jeans and large sweatshirts have become popular. To be honest, I'm not really into fashion.

But I know that fashion changes really quickly and can vary significantly between countries. Different places and different cultures have different trends. In the past, it took months or even years for the fashion styles worn by models and celebrities to become available for the average person. Today is different.

You can walk into a store or open a website and find new styles almost every day. If the pop star Harry Styles wears a unique t-shirt at an awards ceremony, the next day there will be hundreds of companies selling that t-shirt. This is the result of fast fashion.

Fast fashion is a business model that allows clothing companies to produce trendy, affordable clothes at an extremely fast rate. We can define fast fashion as the rapid production of inexpensive clothing designed to reflect the latest trends. These clothes are often produced using low-cost materials and cheap labour.

which allows brands to sell them at very affordable prices. Unlike traditional fashion, which focused on high quality, long-lasting materials, fast fashion encourages people to buy more and replace their clothes more frequently. In simple terms, fast fashion is all about speed, affordability and trendiness.

Instead of waiting for a new fashion season, companies introduce fresh styles weekly or even daily. Fast fashion companies pay close attention to the latest trends seen on social media and also what celebrity influencers are wearing. They quickly design similar styles and then produce them.

Because fast fashion is designed to be cheap and trendy, the clothing is not made to last. Many fast fashion items lose their shape, fade or tear after just a few washes. This creates a cycle where customers constantly buy and replace their clothing, leading to waste and environmental issues. There are several global brands that have embraced fast fashion.

Zara, which became known for releasing new clothes twice a month, H&M, a brand which can be found in almost every major city, and Sheen, an online retailer that uses algorithms and real-time data to create new designs extremely quickly.

While fast fashion is a relatively recent trend, I think it began with the rise of consumer culture in the middle of the 20th century. After World War II, the global economy grew rapidly and people had more disposable income, left over money that they could spend on things that they liked. Clothing was also becoming more affordable.

and people had more money to buy clothes with. People also wanted clothes that reflected their lifestyle. They wanted to wear things that they saw on TV, or in newspapers, or in the movie theatre. At the same time, synthetic materials like polyester made clothing even cheaper to produce. In the 1990s and early 2000s, we saw the true birth of fast fashion as we know it today.

Brands started moving their factories to countries with cheaper labour, such as China, Bangladesh and Vietnam. This significantly reduced production costs, allowing brands to sell clothing at very low prices. Advances in supply chain management also allowed companies to design, produce and distribute clothes in just weeks.

Spanish brand Zara was one of the pioneers of fast fashion and they introduced a new business model. They shortened the design-to-store process from about six months to just a few weeks and instead of restocking old designs, they continuously introduce new collections. The growth of online shopping in the 2000s made fast fashion even more accessible.

Customers could see a trend on Instagram or a fashion blog and buy a similar item online instantly. Online retailers like Shein and Boohoo have taken the fast fashion to the next level. These brands use artificial intelligence to track trends and then release styles in just a few days. How is all of this possible?

Well, I've already mentioned some reasons, but I think it's important to talk about it in more detail. One of the biggest reasons fast fashion exists is globalisation. Globalisation is the interconnected nature of the modern economy. Companies can manufacture their clothes in countries where wages are low, such as Bangladesh or Vietnam.

Labour laws in these countries allow lower pay than in Europe or in North America and longer working hours, saving those European and North American fast fashion brands a lot of money. Instead of producing huge quantities of clothes in advance, fast fashion brands use just-in-time production models.

This means that clothing is produced only when there is a demand. It's just in time. The material used in fast fashion is another reason why clothes can be produced so cheaply. Instead of using high quality durable fabrics, most fast fashion items are made from synthetic materials that are cheaper but lower in quality. Fast fashion companies also speed up the design process.

They replicate or copy designs from high-end fashion brands. They monitor social media to find trends and then have digital designers who can produce quick designs in just a few hours. Fast fashion also markets aggressively. They use flash sales, discount codes and promotions. They have really low prices, making it easier for people to justify buying.

It's much easier to buy a $5 t-shirt than it is to buy a $30 t-shirt. And by offering so many low-priced items, they can have more sales. In the final section of this episode, I'd like to present two sides of a debate over fast fashion. I think this is a topic that might appear in English proficiency tests like IELTS and TOEFL, and it is also just interesting for us to think about.

Let's discuss the pros and cons of fast fashion, starting with the pros. One of the biggest advantages of fast fashion is that it makes trendy clothing affordable for a wide range of people. Low prices allow people to buy stylish clothes without spending all of their money.

People want to wear nice designs, but if you buy designer clothes, it can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. Fast fashion allows you to wear fashionable designs without spending too much. Also, the fact that fast fashion brands release designs every week or sometimes every day gives people more choices.

There are more options, more designs and more sizes for every type of person. Rather than a limited collection, you have an almost endless amount of clothing options to choose from, which is better for customers. And the fact that there are free returns and big discounts saves people money and is low risk. If you don't like what you buy, you can send it back.

Despite its benefits, fast fashion does have major disadvantages, particularly for the environment, workers and consumers. Fast fashion is one of the biggest polluters in the world. The industry produces huge amounts of waste, pollution and carbon emissions. According to the World Bank, the fashion industry causes 20% of global wastewater.

meaning it is the second largest water polluter. It takes 2,720 litres of water to make one t-shirt. This is about what a normal person drinks in three years.

In fact, an article I found from earth.com states that the fashion industry is also responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions and washing clothes released 500,000 tons of microplastics into the ocean every year. The same as dropping 50 billion plastic bottles into the sea.

As fast fashion encourages overbuying, people throw away clothes very quickly. Many pieces of clothes are not biodegradable, meaning they sit in landfills for hundreds of years. Furthermore, to keep prices low, many fast fashion brands exploit workers in poorer countries.

Wages in factories are often very low, some factories operate without proper safety measures, and some brands have been linked with child labour and modern slavery. Also, fast fashion promotes a throw-away culture, where people buy clothes and then throw them away quickly. People buy clothes they don't need, leading to unnecessary waste.

and the constant need to follow trends creates stress and pressure to keep up with fashion.

I remember being at high school and all of my friends were wearing some kind of jacket bought from a chain in the UK. But my family just couldn't afford that kind of jacket. And I was really stressed, right? Looking back, it's strange, but I was really stressed that I didn't have that cool looking jacket, which I think now probably looked a bit ridiculous. But all of my friends were wearing it. I was pressured to keep up with the trends.

Now it must be worse as there are so many more styles and trends being released every day online on Shein and on other websites. Here is today's final thought. In this episode I have tried to introduce you to fast fashion. I defined it, explained it and discussed the development of fashion and fast fashion companies.

Then I ended by introducing two sides of the debate over the fashion industry. While fast fashion offers affordable, stylish and convenient clothing, it also comes with major ethical and environmental concerns. What can we do about this? As consumers, we could try to make more conscious choices. We could have less unnecessary purchases.

or we could buy second-hand clothes instead of new fast fashion items. However, I am not really in favour of blaming us, the customers and the consumers, for buying cheap online clothes. It's common in the environmental world to ask individuals to make changes to their lives, like buying an electric car or flying less or using less plastic.

But I believe the real change needs to be made at a higher level. The people telling us to change our behaviour are the governments and the companies. But the governments and companies are the ones who need to change their behaviour. I think governments need to introduce stricter laws and rules to prevent fast fashion companies from exploiting workers and harming the environment.

And I think fast fashion brands need to be pressured into switching to more sustainable materials and to treating their workers better. But what do you think? Do you ever buy fast fashion?

Is it ethically or morally okay to regularly buy clothes from companies like Zara and Shein? How often do you buy clothes, actually? I want you to leave a comment, comment on Spotify, comment on my website, or if you're a Patreon subscriber, comment on Discord and let me know. In fact, I want you all to become Patreon subscribers. For £5 a month,

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As a longtime foreign correspondent, I've worked in lots of places, but nowhere as important to the world as China. I'm Jane Perlez, former Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times. On Face Off, the US versus China, we'll explore what's critical to this important global relationship. Trump and Xi Jinping, AI, TikTok, and even Hollywood. New episodes of Face Off are available now, wherever you get your podcasts.