Despite the fact that Gen Z identifies as the most environmentally-conscious generation, most teenagers are unaware about the ways to spot a fast fashion brand while shopping in the store.
Our survey of students at Amador revealed that 7 out of every 10 students either didn’t know any sustainable clothing brands or weren’t sure if the brands they knew were sustainable. This inability to identify fast fashion brands as fast fashion was backed up when we later asked students to choose from a list of nine popular brands the ones they counted as fast fashion.
The twist? All of the listed companies were well-known fast fashion conglomerates. While most respondents accurately recognized infamous staples like Forever 21 or Shein, they made more incorrect judgments when it came to other popular teenage brands, like American Eagle, Urban Outfitters, and Nike. Their wrong judgements doesn’t tell against them, but it shows that students are less likely to consider a company fast fashion when they themselves buy from there.
“I do see some people engaging in shopping in fast fashion, but most of my friend group just tends to wear athletic wear or hoodies from places like Nike, just typical stuff,” said Aarav Kakad (‘24).
Honing one’s fast fashion detector is hard. If you’re dealing with a well-established shop, you might find its name on lists of fast fashion companies compiled by blogs like Minimalism Simple and Sustainably Chic, or the ethical shopping app Good on You. For most, though, researching beforehand is an impractical approach when it comes to shopping in real life.
“I just get whatever I like… If I am downtown and something catches my eye, then I might go in there, or sometimes I’ll shop online if there’s something specific that I’m looking for. It depends, but I try not to shop at those really big, fast fashion brands,” said Alana Hicks (‘24).
That said, there are several red flags that make a fast fashion company stand out from the crowd. When you’re shopping in person, the tell-tale signs revolve around closely examining the cost, materials, and production location of the clothes they offer.
Online, unethical companies hide their tracks better. It takes more fastidious digging through a company’s website to determine their sustainability status. Sowers, a seasoned veteran in such matters, recommends searching websites for the more human aspects of a brand, like profiles on business owners or executives.
“[This] gives a key inside the morals [companies] value, and then you can extend that to the choices they would make on sustainability,” said Sowers. “It’s almost like finding the legitimacy of a website extends to the same thing [as] the business.”
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