Engaging the world of Fast Fashion on Twitter

Entering the Twitter community & spreading awareness of the negative environmental impacts of the fast-fashion industry through media & hashtags.

View my posts on my profile!

Twitter

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Fast fashion awareness on Twitter, has been a very informative experience for me through the exposure to all the knowledge and communities surrounding the idea of ethical fashion. These communities share their own experiences, scare tactics, their knowledge of the issues, as well as actions to change the way you consume fashion. A sense of community that I have not quite experienced on any other social media platform.

Hashtags are an important aspect on Twitter in terms of assisting with engaging your community and bringing people together who relate to each other through common interests. Hashtags are important for engaging my indented audience and community on Twitter, which is why I had done thorough research prior to posting my tweets. I had researched other ethical fashion and environmental fashion pages on Twitter and looked at the most common hashtags used, and which ones received the highest engagement and traction. The hashtags that I have decided to use in my tweets are #fastfashion, #landfill, #textilewaste, #greenwashing, #Boohoo, #recycle, and #sustainyourstyle. Each hashtag related to the content within the tweet on my profile.

My first post consisted of a YouTube video that I had come across that outlined the environmental impacts of fast fashion. I feel that this was an important video for people to watch as it relates it to current trends and fashion we see in society today, which further allows the consumer to feel responsible, resulting in a hopeful response. I had also included a scare tactic quote to reinforce the detriments of fast fashion on our environment, further driving the user to take action or at least watch the video.

The second post outlines some common examples of company’s that are guilty of fast fashion, which are all relatable and recognisable to my audience. I have linked an image from Unsplash.com of one of the brand’s logos, to further catch the user’s attention. While my post simply outlines which brands to avoid, I have also linked my blog which directs the user to read about why to avoid the brands.

The articles that I had retweeted were posts that had inspired me and added value to my views and knowledge of the fast fashion industry, in the terms of greenwashing consumers and negatively impacting the environment. My first quote tweet was regarding a popular fast fashion brand Boohoo, that had been called out for greenwashing their consumers by advertising as sustainable, when they are in fact the opposite. I has shared this post as I feel like it will be valuable to my readers through raising more awareness about which brands harm the environment. What motivated me to retweet my second post, was due to the shocking statistics about landfill, and how fast fashion brands contribute majorly to this. I felt that this was an important post to share to educate the consumers of fast fashion and encourage them to educate themselves on the environmental impacts of their purchases.

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My overall thoughts and experiences on twitter this week have been very informative and engaging through the use of minimal text with media as the main source of message delivery. Due to the limited character count of each tweet, it limits the text heavy aspect and allows the viewer to be focused on the media attached. This has really helped myself and others get their messages across in an effective way in an engaging environment.

Entering the Conversation...

Check out My Green Closet's page to find some trendy slow fashion alternatives the popular fast fashion brand: Dolls Kill.

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Read my thoughts below on their post about Dolls Kill!

This is such a valuable post My Green Closet. I appreciate how you use a relevant and highly popular fast-fashion brand to help younger audiences find alternative options. I agree that Dolls Kill is a common fast-fashion brand that breaches many ethical standards and environmental initiatives, like most fast fashion brands. I also love how you have placed slow-fashion brands with a similar aesthetic to Dolls Kill for consumers to easily make the switch!

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how they are breaching these standards, particularly within the environmental sector and how you think this may influence the consumer. As many consumers of these fast fashion brands, are not aware of the damaging effects that their purchase has on our environment. My research has shown me that the consumer’s purchase intentions towards fast fashion brands can be influenced, once they are educated and aware of various environmental issues, animal welfare, and worker welfare.

The source “Do ethical concerns personal values influence the purchase intention of fast-fashion clothing?”, has really helped me understand how people respond to relevant unethical brands such as Zara and H&M, that harm our environment. I would recommend giving it a read!

Creating Generative Value

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Link to news article: https://phys.org/news/2022-07-ultra-fast-fashion-charms-young-environment.html

Did you know that textile production being the 3rd biggest manufacturing industry contributes more to climate change than international travel and shipping combined. This alarming information is just one many problematic area involved with fast fashion. Fast fashion is a sector that produces items, clothes, accessories etcetera at extreme speed and at rock bottom prices. Stemming from the article by Emeline Burckel entitled Ultra-fast fashion charms young despite damaging environment, I want to go deeper into what and how the environment is being damaged and affected by this youthful fashion trend.

From the article, we get a sense of how fast fashion is harming the environment, and we also get the usual connotations and jargon about the negative impacts it has. However, the article only scratched the surface of the problem, focusing more on why it is popular and the idea of quantity not quality. When in fact, the environmental issues that surround fast fashion are what needs to be prioritised and talked about the most. For example, would you believe me if I said that it takes 2,700 litres of water to produce 1 single t-shirt . That is 8 times as much water as an average Australian household uses per day. And that’s only for 1 t-shirt. In this perspective you can really start to understand the crippling devastation that fast fashion can cause on the environment. Especially in current times and after the coronavirus pandemic inflation and economic pressure has rendered “a huge demand for low-price garments”. With this of course comes, the influx of youthful buyers and consumers who want everything but don’t have much to spend. Through my own experience this is a very tempting way to shop, particularly online. Sites such as Shien and others mentioned in the article seriously pose a temptation to spend very little yet buy so much, and this is exactly the trap that is harming our environment. The article makes a good point of pricing, stating “with t-shirts costing just the equivalent of $4.80 and bikinis and dresses selling for just under $10”. Yet it is a mystery to me how almost none of this gets recycled or reused, as the cost of this is $0. So the question becomes, what is the cost of sustainability, what is the cost of lowering our environmental damage, and what is the cost of choosing the ethically correct solution to clothing?

With fast fashion being such a contributor to the climate crisis, it is no wonder that figures such as Greta Thunberg has commented on the issue saying that this climatic and ecological emergency is all “for some to enjoy fast fashion that many treat as disposables”. This disposable nature of fast fashion has resulted in more than $500 billion dollars lost due to the lack of recycling. To further identify the problem through numbers, we see that 8% of carbon emissions worldwide, are caused by the fashion industry. This stems from fast fashion’s reliance on machinery, and over production, which means that those who purchase fast fashion are contributing to a global polluting machine. Not to mention, that with the purchase of fast fashion, you are also buying into an industry that does not pay its workers a living wage and has its workers working hours of up to 75 per week.

So, my question to you the reader is, is it really worth buying that $10 handbag?