[ad_1]
Kourtney Kardashian Barker announced last week that she is the new “sustainability ambassador” for fast fashion company Boohoo. Given Boohoo’s reputation as an offender of fast fashion, this news was poorly received, to say the least, by climate advocates.
Fast fashion, as opposed to “regular” fashion, is defined as “an approach to the design, creation and marketing of clothing fashion that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers”. Boohoo, in particular, has been criticized for using cheap materials, inconsistent sizing and an overall negative customer experience. The UK even ranked it as one of the least sustainable brands in the country. Fast fashion is problematic not only for the climate, with the textile industry representing 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but also for culture.
Our society is rooted in instant gratification, looking for products and solutions built for the moment rather than longevity. Fast fashion has been packaged as an industry for Gen Z largely because of its affordability and quick return to consumers, but in reality, it has caused our generation to contribute to devastating cultural harms, from the use of slave labor to filling countless landfills.
As Kardashian Barker is producing brand new collections with Boohoo, she joins an ecosystem of social media influencers who earn a commission on products sold from their accounts. The so-called “haul” wraps of TikToks and Instagrams that encourage frequent and voluminous purchases have only added fuel to the flame. A quick search for “Shein try on haul” returns millions of results.
Shein, a company based in China, is probably the largest clothing manufacturer in the world. Forbes estimates that the company adds over 1,000 new designs a day, and at any given time, the designs on Shein’s website have only been available for about three months. Instead of offering high-quality, versatile pieces, Shein encourages high closet turnover, increasing clothing waste. Even worse, scientists in Canada recently found that a Shein jacket made for toddlers contained more than 20 times the amount of lead considered safe for children.
Shein has also run into trouble with supply chain reporting and labor laws, as the company is accused of using slave, or at least underpaid, labor to produce its clothing. While Shein has denied allegations of child labor, many of her practices are still unknown to the public. Similarly, an undercover investigation found that Boohoo paid its factory workers less than $5 an hour.
Both Shein and Boohoo make at least some of their products in China, and Chinese labor practices and human rights abuses have come under intense scrutiny recently with the passage of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The brutal and inhumane treatment of this minority population in concentration camps, the accusations of international espionage through social networking sites, and the repression of those who speak against the state show the PKK’s complete disregard for human dignity. Additionally, the country’s devastating environmental impact, particularly on our world’s oceans, easily places China at No. 1 for global pollutants. The bottom line is that American manufacturing is better for the environment and for workers.
Fast fashion threatens not only the planet we call home, but also our health and well-being. Instead of partnering with a scandal-ridden fast fashion company, Kardashian Barker should use her influence to encourage the purchase of high-quality clothing, or even second-hand shopping. At the very least, if she wanted to trade her influencer status for a sustainability ambassador title, she should encourage buying American-made products from companies that have legitimate sustainability practices and treat their workers with respect. .
Danielle Butcher is executive vice president at the American Conservation Coalition. Isabel Brown is a conservative content creator and broadcaster, best-selling author, and Gen Z political commentator.
[ad_2]
Source link