Fast Fashion Dies With Us

Making slow fashion the hottest new fashion trend

By Nora Hitchcock

As I flick through the racks at Goodwill, the fabric of the clothes feels fake and artificial.

The hangers rattle against each other, the clothing on them almost paper thin and taking up next to no space. Running my hands down a shirt, the surface is slippery yet leaves a lingering itchy feeling on my skin. Beyond the usual mustiness of a thrift store, I catch a whiff of something like a gas station, which leads me to believe that all the clothing here is polyester. As a veteran thifter, I had never seen a store in such a bad state. I could only guess it to be the accumulation of fast fashion trends being thrown out again and again. With this not-so-new epidemic of fast fashion, perhaps it is time to move to “slow fashion.” The problem with this trendy and poor-quality clothing is that it’s only worn a few times and then thrown into the trash or sent to the thrift store. While thrifting was the environmental and economically conscious movement of the last decade, it’s simply no longer realistic to find quality and timeless clothes. However, ethically well-made clothing is incredibly expensive for the average college student.

I have found the best solution to this dilemma is to learn how to make and repair your own clothes. Fewer pants would go to landfills if people learned how to patch up holes or use creative problem-solving to make them into an entirely new piece of clothing. Take up knitting and make a sweater that you will cherish for years to come because no one else will have the same one. The only way we can kill fast fashion for good is to cherish the clothing we already have.