We live in a world where fashion retailers can, if they choose to, take a design from paper to the store in under a month. Whilst this means that we can gain access to on-trend items quickly, cheaply and easily, it also means that clothing is being produced, and disposed of, at an alarming rate.
In 2014 over 100 billion items of clothing were produced worldwide, equating to around 4 items of clothing per person living on Earth. Traditionally, 'seasons' of fashion were limited to two a year- warm weather and cold weather. It then expanded to the four seasons of the year that most temperate climates experience. In 2017, some retailers are looking between 9-11 'seasons', with clothing being removed from stores as early as a month after going on the shelves. Herein lies the origin of the term fast fashion, goods that are produced quickly and cheaply, and often of a poor quality.
The advent of fast fashion has resulted in a throw-away culture emerging in the western world. Clothing is often purchased for a single event or time period with the logic "It's cheap, I can just throw it out later". While it's fair to say that this is relatively representative of our consumer culture as a whole, the disposal of clothing and textile waste has begun to stand out more than some other forms of waste. For example, it is predicted that in the spring of 2017 that 235 million items of unwanted clothing will end up in British landfill sites.
So how do we make this relevant to our students, who, more than ever, are targeted as consumers via every form of media imaginable?
After watching the ABC Australia documentary War on Waste with my Year 7 students it became more than apparent that they were horrified by the amount of clothing waste being produced by our nation. They scorned the women featured in the fast fashion segment (who freely admitted to buying new clothing for every event they attended, as well discussing being 'unable' to post a photo of the same outfit more than once on Instagram) as being greedy, ridiculous and wasteful; they recoiled at the amount of clothing being dumped into landfill every year and they discussed how they thought people should stop buying so much clothing.
War on Waste is a 3-part ABC (Australia) documentary series
But I couldn't help but wonder whether or not their outrage matched the reality of their consumer lives. So I designed a fast fashion activity. It featured a fact sheet, take home closet inventory and some follow up questions. The goal of the task was to find out just how much clothing my students actually owned, as well as how many items they disposed of over the course of a 12 month period.
The first part of the task was the wardrobe/closet inventory survey. I sent students home with a survey and asked them to fill it in based on what they had in their wardrobe. We then collated the data and created a results table that included the average number of items that students owned and disposed of, as well as the class totals.
Fast Fashion activity results table
Whilst the class as a whole assumed that they would own a lot of clothing (perhaps more than they might have liked to admitted with a total of 1,595 items) the biggest surprise to them was just how much other their clothing was under $20. In fact, nearly one-third of the total number of items the class owned cost less than $20.
However, whilst the class realised that they too were buying into the bargain price fast-fashion lifestyle, they were rather proud of their method of disposing clothing- the majority of unwanted clothing had been donated to various charities. They were also able to apply a lot of the knowledge gained from class discussions and War on Waste to the activity reflection questions.
Student response to Fast Fashion activity reflection questions
War on Waste has been a fantastic tool for starting the conversation about household waste management with young people. It's current, relevant and utilises examples that are a part of the everyday lives of most young people. I've found by combining the fast fashion activity with this documentary that I've been able to really engage the students and get them to closely examine their own consumer practices. So many of the students were shocked at the sheer amount of clothing they actually had once they pulled everything out of their closet. What's even is better is the amount of students who completed this task with the assistance of family members, meaning that the conversation has moved beyond the classroom and into family life!
Want to try this activity in your classroom? Check it out at our Teachers Pay Teachers store: FAST FASHION ACTIVITY
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