Fast fashion refers to clothes that are made in huge quantities and sold for low prices. Fast fashion is trend based and therefore inherently disposable. Fast Fashion is a bad boyfriend.

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For starters, he is toxic. Literally. The Fast Fashion industry is not well regulated, so garments are often produced using poisonous dyes. These dyes pollute the water, harm the factory workers, and endanger the consumer, as they can leach from the garment onto his or her skin. 

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Secondly, he is manipulative. Fast Fashion preys on the insecurities of the consumer. It whispers, “With me, you are beautiful. With me, you belong. With me, you will feel confident and all of the other girls will be jealous.” The underlying message, of course, is that without Fast Fashion, a girl is inadequate and unattractive. Fast Fashion wants a girl who needs him to feel good about herself because then he makes money. 

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That brings us to the third thing. Fast Fashion does not care about you. He does not love you. If you suddenly ceased to exist, he would not even notice; he would just turn around and date one of your friends. The Fast Fashion industry is only concerned with one thing: making itself filthy rich. 

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Unfortunately, Fast Fashion seems attractive. He is affordable. He makes you feel beautiful. All your friends love him, and he looks great on social media. 

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This is extremely tempting, but you have to resist. Remind yourself that his affordability is dependent on cheap, synthetic materials that release plastic micro-fibers into the environment; under-paid labor in dangerous conditions; and mass production of clothes that end up in landfills. If you are still thinking about Fast Fashion, remember that, according to Earth.org, ninety-two million tons of textile waste ends up in landfills every year. If you want to give Fast Fashion another chance, research how a portion of this waste ends up in exceeding-capacity landfills in under-developed countries like Ghana, or how fashion brands resort to burning surplus clothes because there is no demand for them. Please, you deserve someone who actually cares about you. If all other methods fail, you can always distract yourself with other eligible bachelors like Second-Hand Clothing and Outfit Swaps. 

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Here is the tricky part. I would bet my bottom’s dollar that you already tried that. In fact, you probably already knew that Fast Fashion is a bad boyfriend. Tragically, you are equally as likely to have already fallen in love with him. This is the difficulty I have run into every time I have attempted to write this article. No matter the red flags I point out, I cannot stop you from falling in love with Fast Fashion. I am probably an unqualified author, as I, too, cannot help but have feelings for Fast Fashion, and yet I still wrote the article. I wrote this article because this topic matters. Fast Fashion matters. More broadly, clothes matter. They have power. They tell stories. They represent billions of dollars. Simultaneously, as a distinctly human construct, they reveal what it is to be human. Clothes matter, and I hope you care that they matter. I hope that you are, at the very least, aware of the dangers of fast fashion, because the more awareness that is raised, the more people think about it and the more likely they become to make conscious choices to ameliorate the situation.