🏭why is fast fashion ngmi

understanding the problem, and how yiume is going to solve it

waste

today's dominant fashion model creates a considerable amount of waste in materials, energy, time, money, labour and land, resulting in negative consequences on the environment and our lives. this waste is caused by two elements:

A) production in advance

clothing companies estimate the amount of clothes that will be purchased, each time resulting in unsold stock. since recycling is expensive, the majority of these unsold clothes get burned [1].

B) low quality materials

brands obtain revenue from their clothes only once, at the moment of purchase. accordingly, they’re incentivized to increase the frequency of transactions, which they achieve by producing low quality, quickly degradable garments. on top resulting in frequent disposal of clothes, only 12% of these are being recycled: at any given second, an equivalent of a rubbish truck full of clothes ends up in a landfill [2].

human right's violations

seeking to minimize costs of production, fast fashion firms outsource production into 3rd world countries, where corrupt institutions let them abuse workers with below minimum living wage salaries [3] and terrible working conditions [4]. the entire fashion industry is built upon the mass exploitation of those who work within its supply chains.

unhealthy industry standards

market-dominating firms drive the prices down to a point where competing is only possible if one would adopt their unethical and unsustainable practices. this has multiple negative consequences:

A) suppressing independent creators

no matter how good the designs are, independent creators can't compete due to a lack of resources, as compared to industry leaders. to create a clothing brand, on top of creating the designs one has also to take care of manufacturing, logistics, upfront capital, advertising, hosting a website… all hindering their potential contribution to the fashion world.

B) limited design choice for consumers

by suppressing the possibility of competition, fast fashion companies are robbing the world of a significant quantity of clothing designs and ideas. moreover, the effect is multiplied by the fact that the size of a company is inversely correlated with innovation and risk-taking, thus leading to duller, unrevolutionary creations.

C) users have no power

consumers keep participating in fast fashion because there aren't many viable alternatives available. this leads to users deflecting any responsibility, and forces them to continue interacting with these unethical and unsustainable companies.

now you are given an alternative: the yiume marketplace.