Fast fashion - the production of cheap and chic clothing in large quantities - has been on everyone's lips for several years now.

It is a phenomenon that leads to many negative consequences. Cheap clothing is produced as quickly and cheaply as possible to keep the price as low as possible. This has a negative impact on nature and the people who produce cheap fashion clothes.

No real recycling takes place - less than 1% of textiles are recycled and made into new garments. 

Longevity: A Foreign Word

Fast fashion is trendy in that it is mostly copied cheap clothes that only stay in the wardrobe for a short time. The fashion is characterised by the rapid change of collections. The fast fashion industry is described by textile specialists Hony Hines and Margaret Bruce as a "marketing tool to increase customer frequency". The fabric polyester plays a relevant role in this. It is a strong driver of the boom because it can keep the cost of clothing down.

The Poison

Synthetic man-made fibres, especially polyester, contain petroleum or gas: they are non-renewable. Textiles made of synthetic fibres like polyester release microplastics during the washing process. More than 1/3 of the microplastics in our seas and oceans are due to this. It has now been detected in food. It is considered an absorber for other pollutants that turn out to be extremely dangerous for humans and can cause diseases.

Wash five 5 kilograms of clothes will release up to 6 million microparticles.

Untraceability as Inevitability

In addition, in the case of fast fashion labels, the value chains are difficult to trace because the companies often do not disclose their suppliers. It should be added that the over-exploitation of workers corresponds to reality. High daily working hours, insufficient rest days and forced overtime are the order of the day in this industry. Among various problems, workers in the textile industry are often exposed to hazardous substances. This is especially true for the products used to dye our clothes. Manufacturers use environmentally harmful substances that are toxic to their workers, but also have lingering effects on us who wear them and on our ecosystem. It should be noted that women make up about 80% of the textile industry and the vast majority of them are under 30 years of age.

It turns out that the dyeing and treatment of textiles using nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), azo dyes, phthalates and formaldehyde - is responsible for 20% of global water pollution.

According to a recent study by McKinsey, the global fashion industry is responsible for about 4% of global CO₂ emissions per year. These emissions are comparable to the cumulative greenhouse gas emissions of Switzerland, France, Germany and the UK.  However, 70% of the emissions are due to the production of raw materials, processing and finishing.

Switzerland has a particularly high amount of textile waste. It is important to note that almost half of all jumpers, T-shirts and dresses produced end up in landfills.they are never worn by a customer. Furthermore, 20 per cent of newly produced clothes are destroyed unworn every year. The "NZZ am Sonntag" reports that.

Greenpeace also believes that this problem must be addressed. Otherwise, clothing consumption will increase dramatically in the coming years: From 62 million tonnes in 2017 to 1021 million tonnes in 2030.

Less is more.

Sustainability is an important issue for luxury brands and we should try to minimise the impact of our production. Production should be more sustainable and versatile. Instead of producing increasingly short-lived collections, we should produce better quality, more durable and more versatile clothes in the future.

For us, actions are always more important than empty promises, so we support the federal sufficiency policy as well as the Sustainable strategy of the European Commission, like none other. We at LÆY are proud to base our collections on this and to be an active part of this movement.