Cathy Anderson likes clothes — trendy, cutting-edge clothes that look as if they’ve come right off the runway. And she wants them now and she wants them at bargain prices.
Anderson, a 28-year-old District resident, could be a poster child for those who graduated in a down economy but still feel the need to look fashionable.
Have the recent events in Bangladesh impacted your shopping habbits?
U.S. suspends Bangladesh’s trade privileges due to labor concerns
Move comes after a years-long review of the nation’s working conditions.
Young men and women like Anderson have turned to stores such as H&M, Zara and the Gap. Inexpensive clothing has always existed, but these retailers have racked up huge sales by mastering the art of “fast fashion”: identifying hot designer trends immediately, ordering up inexpensive copies and stocking their stores with the look-alikes, often within weeks of their runway debuts. And they do so at a fraction of the designer price, making them accessible to a broad range of consumers. (These are not knockoffs in the traditional sense because no one is trying to pass them off as designer originals.)
“Fashion used to be . . . really an elite thing to do. Now it’s not,” says Daniel Benkendorf, an assistant professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
In April, a factory in Bangladesh involved in producing “fast fashion” collapsed, killing nearly 1,300 people and seriously injuring scores of others. Advocacy campaigns for safe conditions and worker protections swung into high gear. Protests, including one scheduled for Saturday at a Gap in downtown Washington, are part of an effort to urge — some would say shame — retailers into signing a legally binding accord aimed at improving safety conditions and standards in Bangladesh factories. H&M and Zara have already signed on; the Gap has declined and is pushing its own agreement. (On Thursday, the Obama administration also announced the suspension of U.S. trade privileges for Bangladesh, although this action does not apply to textiles.)
Have the revelations about the dangers to faraway workers turned off consumers — often educated and otherwise globally-conscience consumers — from clamoring for the latest peplum top or high-low skirt?
Not really. Although profits for many of fast fashions’ biggest names dipped in the first months of the year, fluctuations in currency and diversion of money for long-term investments seem to be the most prevalent causes. And global sales at H&M have recently bounced back, with a 14 percent spike in the first two weeks of June, reports trade publication Women’s Wear Daily.
“They’re not the best fabrics, they’ll probably last a season, the seams rip, the material balls up, but for the moment we can buy it it feels good,” says Jennifer Baumgartner, a clinical psychologist and author of “You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal About You.” “Then we’re bored and we start up again.”
Positive reinforcement for snatching up trendy clothes at bargain prices also drives some consumers. Haul videos — clips on YouTube showing shoppers brandishing piles of new purchases — can rack up hundreds of thousands of views. Public figures such as first ladyMichelle Obama and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, (a.k.a. Kate Middleton) are hailed for wearing inexpensive, fashionable brands including Zara and Asos, along with designer pieces.
The article is from http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/cheap-trendy-fast-fashion-in-demand-despite-factory-dangers/2013/06/28/b10ceb74-d906-11e2-9df4-895344c13c30_story.html
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