The term “fast-fashion” originated in the 1990s when the New York Times referred as such in reference to the production style of Zara after opening their first store in New York. If there’s one brand to point when talking about this incredibly fast production is Zara. They have been known since the very beginning in 1974 for their strategic logistics and production. Even though the term is relatively new, this way of obtaining final products it’s not recent. This event can be tracked down to the industrial revolution in Europe when thanks to machines production reach a new height with a  more wide number of products to a new and augmented demand.

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The pollution these factories created was enormous and as years advanced, and more rights and workers unions were uprisings, multinationals were “forced” to change the way they worked. They needed to adapt to the government in order to keep the factories in those countries. These translated into higher salaries, better conditions, and more recently, reduce pollution. They started to find it difficult to produce all the demand in developed countries.

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However, multinationals’ main goal is to reach the highest benefit possible, and they know people wanted, in this case, clothes at a cheaper price, leading to a phenomenon known as “Relocalization”. Some small shop owners probably thought that this may help their business because they couldn’t compete with a broad audience and at those levels of production nor prices. However, it made the gap even larger. The reasons for brands to move their factories to other countries is not for moral reasons, but because the countries they install them are more “permissive/corrupt” when it comes to workers’ rights and the environment. 

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So, these leave us with the brands getting more clothes in less time with less cost in other countries where exploiting is “permitted”, while they are still present and completely dominating the market of other countries where they cannot or is not beneficial for them to produce in.  The impact these factories have in various countries like Camboya and Bangladesh.

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People working in these factories earn really low wages for the number of hours they spend, with from minimum to non adequate equipment risking their health. Around a million people depend on the factories to support their families, being the majority female workers.

 

In their commercial market, they have always tried to locate their stores on famous and transited avenues. For instance, Zara doesn’t spend money on marketing or publicity, they open stores in strategic places adding to this the already well-established fame. Other brands do use a lot of publicity, but overall, the street exposure with their shops helps them tremendously.

 

People do buy clothing from these brands. Pretty much since the 1960s, the cheap-clothing had an incredible switch on clients’ mindsets as mentioned before. They focused on trendy cheap clothing and had a boom in opening shops during the 1990s and 2000s. In fact, if we look at the case of Inditex, from 2004 to 2008 the numbers of shops in Spain grew from 221 shops to 491 in 4 years expand. Even though the 2008 crisis forced some closer, they have maintained around 300.

 

Even though some small businesses have been able to maintain some of their clients, overall, they have suffered the expansion of fast-fashion brands. There are some owners who don’t seem to be bothered because they add more quality or specific extra.

 

Nowadays with the pandemic, the online phenomenon has started to change the way fast-fashion is operating, due to doing more online shopping and delivering and closing or uniting shops. In fact, Inditex has close down every shop they had in China with the plan of keeping their service online. This clearly affects negatively small businesses since they may find it more difficult to get into the online market on a big scale than huge fashion brands. Clothing shops sales have fallen 70% in Spain and accumulate around 80% of stock. Carlos Moreno, treasurer and spokesperson for the Spanish Confederation of Commerce (CEC) warned: “It is estimated that one out of every five stores that manage to open now, will have to close before Christmas”. Both parts of the textile sector are trying to face the crisis, however, fast-fashion brands still have the advantage they had since they expanded. Fashion and the way it works is constantly changing, so only time will show us the result.

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