Slowing Fast Fashion? COVID-19’s Impacts on the Fast Fashion Industry.

The coronavirus pandemic is causing far-reaching effects on businesses globally, and the fashion industry is no exception. The impact of COVID-19 on the fashion industry has seen effects across areas from production to consumption. With the growth of online retailers, and an overall decrease in non-essential spending, could this mark the end of fast fashion and pave the way towards a more sustainable future for fashion?

Online is the new high street.

The closure of physical stores had its greatest effect on Primark, whose lack of online presence saw its revenue drop by 75% between 1 March and 20 June. For many retailers, online purchases grew to reflect the ‘stay at home’ guidelines produced by the government. Online purchases saw a growth from 30% to 77% over a 12 week period leading to 10th August 2020. However, spending on fashion as a whole has seen a decline, as it becomes less of a priority. 

The fashion industry in the UK saw a massive sales decline of 40% in the 12 weeks leading to 28th June 2020, compared to the same 12 week period in 2019. This has been influenced by a shift in prioritized spending. With a large amount of the UK population losing some or all of their work, and many more registered under the government’s ‘furlough’ scheme, non-essential purchases have seen the worst hit. As a result of the pandemic, one in three shoppers said they will be more mindful of their spending post-lockdown, placing non-essential purchases such as clothing at risk.

 

As fashion consumption moved online, many companies needed to make shifts to accommodate for this. Next saw a 32% fall in full-price online sales, which was impacted by its decision to close its warehouses and halt online sales for 18 days. This decision was made in order to allow the company time to re-organize their warehouse in order to ensure a safe operating environment for staff, allowing for social distancing measures to be in place. The company ensured social justice for their workers, by creating a safe place for warehouse staff to work in, despite meaning a loss in profit.

 

 

It’s time to pay up.

Whilst staff in UK warehouses, factories, and distribution centers have largely seen measures taken to ensure the protection of their health and jobs, the same cannot be said for workers overseas.

There has been significant controversy surrounding the actions of major brands and clothing companies about their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the UK, non-essential shops were forced to close for a number of months in lockdown, hitting fashion retailers hardest during the lucrative trading period for the spring/summer season of clothing. In light of this, a number of companies rejected production orders for clothing from factories across the world, with a significant proportion refusing to pay for orders already placed. 

 

As of 8^th Oct 2020, a number of US and European fashion companies had refused to pay overseas suppliers for more than £12.3bn of goods ($1.5bn) since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. This figure has been produced by two US-based groups supporting workers rights; the Center for Global Workers’ Rights (CGWR) and Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), using databases that had previously unpublished statistics, enabling the ability to calculate the loss of at least $1.5bn in revenue from garment factories and suppliers globally between April and June 2020, as brands canceled existing orders or refused to pay for orders placed before the coronavirus outbreak.

The effect of this has caused suppliers in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Myanmar with no other option than to reduce their operations or close altogether, placing millions of workers at risk with reduced hours or no work at all, according to the report.

The effects of COVID-19 show the precarity of employment in garment factories, as the unstable nature of work produced by politically induced conditions in these regions causes the workers in these regions to suffer from inadequate social and economic networks of support, leaving them at risk. Precarity thus introduces a generalized state of insecurity based on employment uncertainty, erosion of working conditions, and deregulation of employment. Although Bangladesh's economic growth has been improving, the risk of economic stagnation from lack of work for garment workers could push a large number of families back into poverty, reversing the progress made. For garment workers in these areas, all of these conditions are present, as their work is not protected, and the power of big companies to refuse to pay for orders creates great uncertainty for workers.

 

COVID-19 has seen detrimental impacts on Social Justice in countries where garment factories operate. Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest exporter of fast fashion to the Western world, has unsurprisingly seen harsh impacts. The infographic below shows how COVID-19 has affected clothing factories in Bangladesh.

 

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that some companies are still putting profit over people. In March, Kohl’s, one of the US’s largest clothing retailers, paid out $109m in dividends just weeks after canceling clothing orders it had already placed worth approximately $100m from Korea and $50m from Bangladesh. The Awaj Foundation, an NGO working in Bangladesh has shown support for those working in these factories, protecting garment workers who continue to fight for a living wage for some of the poorest women in Bangladesh. 

The existence of groups such as the Awaj Foundation, the CGWR and the WRC, who campaign for improved working conditions for garment factory workers, is important, as often these workers are unable to fight for these rights themselves. This shows the theory of resistance, as campaign groups challenge the power of the companies to enact change for better conditions for the workers, promoting social justice. These groups show resistance through opposing the actions of big companies, challenging the huge power imbalance by displaying their actions to the public as immoral. In doing so, they provide the public with the information these companies intended to conceal, allowing them to make informed choices by where they spend their money. This gives consumers money an unconventional sense of agency; it is given the power to support companies that make responsible and sustainable choices. As agency is primarily associated with the ability to make choices with the individual's own free will, buying from companies that produce their garments in sustainable and ethical ways is making a choice to support for these ideals, and that other companies need to make changes to their methods.

 

 

Time for a change?

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fashion industry was overproducing garments on a large scale. It can be hoped that the trends we have seen lowering consumption of fashion alongside the increased exposure of the conditions of the industry will make us more conscious of its harmful impacts on both the environment and the health and wellbeing of individuals within the production line. The time spent indoors with store closures and a decrease in impulse buying will hopefully lead us to a lifestyle of reusing and repairing clothing to increase their longevity, rather than throwing clothes away or purchasing items to only wear them once.

As purchases of non-essential items decreased during the pandemic, it can be hoped that this will force people to re-think their consumption choices surrounding fast-fashion. As people have continued to work from home, spending on fashion is likely to continue to be less of a spending priority.