Why is slow fashion more expensive than fast fashion?
With the world slowed down, due to the pandemic, we have been seeing many new smaller fashion brands emerging, bigger ones changing their ways and values, and a starting shift of mentality in customers. People are more aware than ever of the impact that the fashion industry has on both the environment and ethics, but, still find it hard to make the move to slow fashion. After so many years of having access to cheap clothing and perhaps not understanding why it was so cheap, it’s very difficult to make such a drastic change to more expensive clothing.
Often, people think that slow fashion is just an excuse that allows brands to charge more profit. We want to debunk some of these myths and explain a few reasons why slow fashion is more expensive than fast fashion, with the aim to help you make more conscious choices.
3 reasons why slow fashion is more expensive than fast fashion
1. Ethical means fair wages and higher costs
Slow fashion brands care for good working conditions, well-being, and pay of their workers.
Good working conditions - Seamstresses can work from the comfort of their own homes, in the same country, or at least continent to where the garment will be sold and paid a reasonable hourly wage.
Fair wages - If you were paying a seamstress in the UK £8 an hour, and it took them 6 hours to make a dress (which is actually quite fast!), the cost of the dress would be a minimum of £48. This doesn’t take into account the fabric (which if you buy it in small quantities will cost much more than mass-produced pieces), shipping, and any small profit/percentage that the brand might want to take.
All clothes are handmade - it is not possible to make them using just machines. So actually a dress being sold for £30 or even worse £5 means that someone, somewhere has really lost out, and it’s usually someone being exploited in a developing country.
2. Sustainable fabrics cost more
Fast fashion - The idea behind fast fashion is to mass produce clothes as cheaply and quickly as possible to catch up with emerging trends. This means the way that fabric is produced does not take into account the effect on the environment. It’s often farmed and dyed in harmful and toxic ways.
Disposable clothes - The fast fashion industry’s favourite fabric is polyester because it’s cheap but it is essentially made up of plastic. Buying cheap clothing causes disposable mindsets: you’re much less likely to discard a t-shirt you bought for £5 than one you bought for £50. That means that a lot of cheap clothes and plastic ends up in landfills.
Sustainable fabrics cost - If you switch to sustainable clothing and fabrics that are more sustainable like silk, cotton, and especially organic cotton, it incurs a premium on your clothes. At least it means that the fabric will be kind to your skin, and if you do decide to dispose of the item later down the line, at least there won’t be additional plastic in the landfills.
Deadstock - it can reduce the price of sustainable fabrics, but again, when it’s bought in small quantities, and you need to take into account shipping the small quantities, you will not get the economies of scale that fast fashion brands benefit from.
3. Making clothes last longer requires more attention to detail
Timeless pieces - The concept behind slow fashion is to make sure that the item lasts for many years to come: to reduce disposable mindsets. This means that clothes need to not only be made to last but in a timeless way - so they can be used across seasons and years.
Higher production costs- Often, slow fashion brands have much smaller collections, which means the sunk cost of doing all of the pattern and grading processes is divided over a much smaller number of sales, increasing the cost of each piece. This becomes even more acute when shopping made-to-order/made-to-measure where a new pattern needs to be made for each piece. Taking all this into account creates more time and more cost.
Love and care - So much more love go into the pieces though, which is why you always get such a well made piece, that is made to last for years to come. If you think about it and you spend £50 on a t-shirt you will wear 10 times (hopefully more), that’s £5 a wear - the same price as if you buy a £5 t-shirt and wear it only once.
Be smart with your money, our main tip is always to shop with quality not quantity. If that means buying less often something you will have for years, in the end you will save money.
EDIS connects you to fashion designers to co-create unique pieces of clothing. It’s ethical because the designers receive 80% of the price paid. It’s sustainable because we try to use deadstock fabrics wherever possible, and it’s personalised - each piece is made exactly for you. Start designing your outfit here today.