Fast Fashion Brands to Avoid 2020

Hither's all you demand to know about the worst fast fashion brands in the earth!

By Amma Aburam

We've all heard the solid arguments against fast fashion brands similar H&Chiliad, Zara and Mango: they create environmental crises by offering fashion that'south so cheap, information technology's practically dispensable. The reason that fashion can be had for such a low price is considering the garment workers making it are paid a pittance.

Only guess what? The likes of Zara have been knocked off their perches by newer online brands that can pattern a production and accept it on auction in as picayune as a week, according  to research by Fung Global Retail & Engineering science.

Ok, sure – the big, bad high street 'wolves', H&K, Zara and Mango, are pretty bad, too. However, due to public pressure, they've tried to make clean up their acts with green initiatives like Zara's "Join Life" sustainable collection or H&K'south conscious collections  – and fifty et'southward not forget Mango's rather stunning sustainable line, 'Committed'.

These efforts cannot exist completely disregarded, and there are far more steps these retailers have taken to be more sustainable, such as instigating clothing recycling programs, eliminating fur, ensuring all cosmetics are non tested on animals, and more.

The Worst Of The Worst

The truth is, the worst fast fashion brands couldn't intendance less about ethics. They're using social media and influencers like the Jenner and Hadid sisters to keep on acme of trends and they've  streamlined their supply bondage and moved production closer to key markets, allowing them to fast forward the design and manufacturing process.

Merely the consequences of this acceleration of what is already fast way are disastrous – think farther ecological devastation, even lower wages for workers, animal cruelty, and more mindless consumerism, now available 24/7 at the click of a mouse. Here's what you need to know about the nastier fast manner brands – and what you tin can exercise to slow them downwardly.

What You Need To Know: The Worst Fast Fashion Brands

1. Boohoo should exist booed

Boohoo may look pretty on the billboards, but it's a whole other story behind the scenes. The brand has had staggering growth in the past few years, especially after it bought up fast fashion retailers PrettyLittleThing and Nasty gal .

Many of the brand's labels state their products are made in the UK or European union, which is usually an indication of ethical labor practices, given the EU's minimum wage and other labour protection laws. Only as Aqueduct 4's  investigative programme, Dispatches, revealed, Boohoo is one of four fashion brands producing clothing in UK based sweatshops, where workers are paid far less than the minimum wage. The make claimed it was "unaware of that state of affairs". Hmm, they may want to check their employee's pay stubs, then?

Employees also complained of horrid working conditions. They revealed that they would be reprimanded for being one infinitesimal tardily, checking the time, or fifty-fifty smile. After three such 'strikes', they were fired. Boohoo denies such a policy, but several disgruntled employees accept come forth to state their cases against the company.

2. Don't exist Missguided

Missguided was another brand busted on Dispatches for underpaying British workers in sweatshops. But that's not all – check this out: a Sky News investigation revealed that this fast style brand sells what information technology calls 'faux fur' – just at that place's actually real fur from iv types of animals – including cats – in that material!

According to Claire Bass, executive managing director of Humane Society International , real fur is oft sold past brands like Missguided as imitation fur in order to give the product a more 'realistic' look. The brand denies knowledge of the employ of fur and says they accept a fur-free policy – simply they've been caught using real fur in allegedly faux fur products more than once.

Not surprising that Missguided is 1 of many fast mode brands with no CSR or sustainability section at all on their website. All they seem to care about is selling, selling, selling.As Nitin Passi, founder and CEO of Missguided told The Guardian,  "I like to say we're the quickest.  If [the high-street retailers] are fast way, we're rapid fashion….we update our site one time a day with new stock,  only in my eyes, we should be updating it every hr." Oh, that would be dandy for the planet, wouldn't information technology?

3. Never Forever 21

In 1984, the mega American make Forever 21 was launched in Los Angeles, offering the cheapest of cheap clothing – none of which, every bit far as I could encounter on a visit to the shop, was made from annihilation that could remotely be called 'natural' fibres.

This is i of the worst fast fashion brands for using cheap fabrics. Only nasty petrol-based textiles isn't the only reason Forever21 should be avoided similar the plague: the make refused tosign the Bangladesh Accord, which ensures garment workers' safety and rights, only it gets far worse:

• In 2012, five quondam minimum-wage loftier school employees filed a class-activity lawsuit claiming that the company failed to pay them for hours worked, forcing them to piece of work off the clock and refusing lunch breaks.
• According to the International Labor Rights Forum, Forever 21 did not bring together retailers like Gap Inc., Levi Strauss & Co., American Eagle Outfitters and many other companies in deciding not to purchase cotton wool from labour abusing Uzbekistan-based factories.
• In 2016, theU.S. Department of Labor reported that the brand's clothing is being produced in sweatshop-like weather by workers in Los Angeles.
• The company has been sued by at least l designers for copyright violation – almost recently was Adidas, who claimed Forever 21 was selling fake Adidas shoes.
• They were also  sued by the Us Section of Labor for ignoring a subpoena requesting information in regards to how much its suppliers pay East Asia and Latin American immigrant workers.
• In 2011, the company had to pay $i.03 million later the Eye for Environmental Health discovered Forever 21 was selling jewellery containing the toxic metal cadmium.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg! Could this be fashion's most toxic brand?

4. Out with Urban Outfitters

It's absurd, it'southward trendy, and…it'southward bad. It was revealed that not only were American workers non being paid a living wage, but they were also found to be asking workers to work for free on the weekends!

If that's happening in a country with pretty strict regulations, nosotros can only imagine how Urban Outfitters treat their workers overseas! What's more the shop still uses synthetic fabrics in the vast majority of their offerings, and makes no notable efforts to reduce their CO2 emissions or to ameliorate manage their waste product and water usage.

The fact that they donate a percentage of sales to the Pinkish Ribbon campaign just makes things fifty-fifty worse! If y'all're non aware of this scam, please click this link to get the details.

5. Victoria's Secret is out

Oh, this is another i of the worst fast manner brands, for many reasons.

Outset upwardly, there's the obvious sexism. The 'Angels' basically sell clothing past selling sex. The models oftentimes spoke of how they would spend weeks, or even months, to get 'in shape' for the gala VS shows. While they were once quite spectacular, they concluded upwardly descending into a kind of female exploitation aimed at guys, non their core customers (that would exist women, folks). This pic below, from their Facebook page, illustrates why many women have gone off the make.

But more than chiefly, the brand also exploits workers, badly! Not simply do they use literal slave labour in the US by forcing convicts in prisons to make their vesture, but they also treat overseas workers fearfully.

One written report stated the following on VS'south production facilities in Jordan:

The Victoria's Secret workers toil 14 to 15 hours a day, from 7:00 a.m. to nine:00 or 10:00 p.m., seven days a calendar week, receiving on average 1 day off every three or four months. All overtime is mandatory, and workers are routinely at the factory 98 to 105 hours a week while toiling 89 to 96 hours. Treatment is very crude, as managers and supervisors scream at the strange guest workers to move faster to complete their high production goals.

Workers who autumn behind on their production goals, or who brand fifty-fifty a minor error, can be slapped and beaten. Despite being forced to work five or more overtime hours a day, the workers are routinely shortchanged on their legal overtime pay, existence cheated of up to $eighteen.48 each week in wages due them. While this might not seem like a neat deal of coin, to these poor workers it is the equivalent of losing three regular days' wages each calendar week.

Workers are immune just 3.iii minutes to sew together each $14 Victoria'south Hugger-mugger women'south bikini, for which they are paid four cents. The workers' wages amount to less than 3/10ths of one percent of the $14 retail price of the Victoria'due south Hush-hush bikini

And to add to the long list of reasons to avert Victoria'south Secret, permit'south not neglect to mention that the brand is non transparent about its product processes; uses nasty synthetic materials in virtually ALL of its garments, and its possessor, Les Wexner, (who too owns Bed, Bath and Across) had a very, very close relationship with pedophile and sexual activity trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who likewise happened to accept power of attorney over Wexner's bank accounts.

Does information technology get whatsoever worse?

half-dozen. Not so brilliant: Shein & Romwe

We all know that China has i of the near icky human rights records in the world. So it'south no surprise to learn that China-based fashion wholesalers Romwe and Shein not only care for and pay their workers terribly, but also apply child labour, as well!

These cheap shops are some of the worst fast fashion retailers in the world. Their materials are crappy, petroleum-based synthetics; the construction of the garments is pathetic (they easily fall apart.) Since their goods come up from China, they have ages to arrive, and when they do, the items ofttimes look nothing like they exercise online, or are the incorrect size or colour. Returns are not easy. Scams are high on both of these sites. Just look at some of the comments about their site, similar this one, for example:

My returns link code doesn't piece of work and there is no customer service except a robot who has no answer for the link not working or anyone to really talk to. In that location is no options just to keep these cheap crappy made horrible clothes.

To promote their brands, these two stores ship bags of their all-time habiliment models to fashion influencers and bloggers to promote in 'haul' videos. We're definitely non fans of such promotions, since they not only glorify excessive consumption, but they also show fast fashion brands like these in a positive low-cal (that's what they're paid to do!)

Yes, the clothes hither are inexpensive. But they are besides the very definition of fast fashion: cheap looking, exploitative, unethical, flimsy, designed to last for a few wears merely, before going in to landfill.. Information technology's brands similar this that give style a bad name. Avert at all costs.

Challenges and solutions

So, what can be done nigh these unethical online fashion giants? Well, firstly, we consumers need to make better decisions. These retailers have grown enormously because people buy their crap. That has to stop – making a purchase from these brands is a direct endorsement for environmental devastation and human misery.

Secondly, we demand to spread the word. Share this commodity! And let's pressure influencers like Bella and Gigi Hadid, Kylie and Kendall Jenner, or Alexis Ren to stop working for these agents of misery. It's easy to tweet them or to exit comments on their Insta feeds (just click the links to a higher place) to permit them know how dissentious their 'influence' really is.

Thirdly, organisations like the Sustainable Dress Coalition (SAC) should pressure these retailers to join their ranks, and if they refuse, SAC should continuously shine a light on their questionable practices. Even though the system's Higg Index has proven to be a challenge in truly monitoring the practices of its members, SAC still provides an innovative means of delving into the supply chains of various brands beyond many industries.

Sure, information technology may exist a chip of a challenge to get the worst fast style brands to exist more fair, honest and witting about what goes on inside their supply chains. But if the large high street brands can brand deadening but steady improvements, so can they.

Main image: Missguided. Second image: Forever21. All other images from the brands' sites, except Victoria'due south Undercover, which is from the brand's Facebook folio

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Currently a Senior CRM Executive at AllSaints, London, Amma is likewise the blogger behind Style + Sustain. She's passionate about upstanding fashion and loves to shop for second mitt and vintage clothing. She is a frequent contributor to Eluxe Magazine, and resides in London.

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