How Fast Fashion Keeps People Poor

[justaprogressive]

Ella Tummel

Earlier this month, I went thrifting, a habit many Gen Zers prefer over buying new. But as I flipped through the racks, I noticed prices have been creeping up. I pulled out a yellow tank top, likely from the late 2000s, cotton, and slightly worn. The price? $13. By comparison, Shein sells a nearly identical shirt for $2.24, about the cost of a bus ticket in Cincinnati. Even thrift shopping, once the bargain option, now feels like a luxury.

But there’s a catch to this wonderland of cheap fashion. According to UCLA’s Sustainability Committee, the average fast-fashion purchase lasts fewer than ten wears before it falls apart or is thrown out. That’s if it doesn’t fall out of style first. Still, the appeal is undeniable. Fast-fashion platforms bombard shoppers with daily flash sales, push notifications, and endless pages of inventory. Shein alone lists over 600,000 items at any given time. To a consumer on a budget, it feels like a sense of freedom.

In reality, it’s a trap: The illusion of affordability masks an industry built on overconsumption. As the fast-fashion industry grows along with economic uncertainty, so does consumer demand for mountains of cheap clothing.

It’s not just the cluttered graphics and $5 price tags that hook people. The real sales pitch comes through influencers. “Haul culture,” the crown jewel of fast-fashion marketing, has become impossible to avoid online. One in two college-aged individuals watch fast-fashion haul videos at least once a week. On TikTok alone, # Shein has garnered over a million posts in the last three years. These videos follow a familiar formula: A grinning influencer hoists an oversized plastic bag overhead, then pulls out item after item, each shrink-wrapped in more plastic, until the floor practically disappears under the drifts of packaging waste.

One video shows a teenage girl preparing for an upcoming cruise by unveiling over 40 articles of new clothing. Item after item, bikini after bikini, each labeled as a “summer must have.” But as you watch, it becomes clear that the draw isn’t the clothing, which is barely any higher-quality than its plastic packaging, it’s the sheer abundance. The spectacle is in the volume, not the value.

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-08-29-how-fast-fashion-keeps-people-poor/]

[milestogo]

1. And since its unwearable when people are done with it, most of it ends up in land fills.

Bad for the economy, bad for the environment.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

5. I see more and more of the cheap stuff showing up ijn throft shops. No one wants it

[Silent Type]

2. Should they raise the prices?

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

4. The quality of the fabric. Its awful

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

3. There are new chain stores filled with clothes made from that thin, plasticjy fabric

Dressin
Uniqlo (at many malls now)..I think it's a Korean company

Old Navy carries that low cost stuff too

Fabric is slick and thin. I can't stand it

[Celerity]

7. Uniqlo is Japanese, is over 50 years old, and absolutely is not rubbish.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

8. Ok...thanks. i walked inside one. Saw some clothing made of that thin fabric

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

6. "Fast fashion tells consumers they can "shop like a billionaire," but billionaires don't live paycheck to paycheck, and

Fast fashion tells consumers they can “shop like a billionaire,” but billionaires don’t live paycheck to paycheck, and they don’t rack up BNPL debt on flimsy polyester tank tops

[flvegan]

9. So it seems "fast fashion" doesn't keep people poor, rather

people not controlling their spending on said fast fashion is keeping those people poor. To wit, those people trying to imitate *checks notes* "influencers" on the internet by purchasing an abundance of crap.

Sounds brilliant.

[msongs]

10. I shop at the House of Costco lol

[BigmanPigman]

11. New laws have been passed to help aome issues.....

1. A ban on "forever chemicals" (PFAS) in textiles: As of January 1, 2025, California has banned the manufacture, distribution, and sale of clothing and textiles containing intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of potentially harmful "forever chemicals" used for water and stain resistance.

2. The Responsible Textile Recovery Act (SB 707): Signed in 2024, this law establishes an extended producer responsibility (EPR) program for the textile industry. This means textile and apparel companies must create and fund a system for collecting, reusing, and recycling their products when consumers are done with them.