Fast fashion killed me

Remember that really pretty dress you spotted last week? You hesitated, a little, a lot, and finally gave up. Back in the store today, the dress had mysteriously disappeared. Vanished, flown away, already replaced on a rack by another dress. This sleight of hand has a name: fast fashion.

At the origins of fast fashion there were mass-market brands

We know them, we even love them. These big ready-to-wear brands established almost everywhere that offer accessible fashion, constantly renewed and sold at very affordable prices. They arouse desire in us, push us to consume more and more but above all, more and more badly. According to INSEE figures, the French today buy twice as much clothes as they did twenty years ago. A phenomenon that cannot be explained by a providential increase in purchasing power or by the emergence of a new season between autumn and winter.

Even if in reality, everything is a matter of seasons in the kingdom of fast fashion. But temporality is as if skewed, the benchmarks jostled. Everything goes faster and the collections are renewed at a frantic pace, sometimes every month. So we buy by reflex and the clothes pile up and pile up, sometimes even remaining prisoners of their plastic bag, the label still attached to the lining. Corollary of this massive overproduction, an equally massive degradation of quality. We buy more but our clothes have a shorter lifespan.

Textile overproduction = human and ecological disaster

The overpopulation of our closets is just one of the anecdotal consequences of fast fashion. The real ones fashion victim are the planet, and the workers who toil in dire conditions in some of the poorest regions of the world. The textile industry is the second most polluting sector after oil. First your car, and then just behind that little dress bought on impulse in a large Spanish fast-fashion chain. According to figures published in 2016 by the International Energy Agency, fashion emits more greenhouse gases each year than all international flights and maritime traffic combined, or 1.2 billion tons. Not to mention the waste, the trash generated and the unimaginable volume of water needed to make a single item of clothing. A dress or a pair of trousers made by a man, a woman or a child in extreme conditions and for a pittance. In 2013, the collapse of a textile factory in Bangladesh caused the death of 1,200 people. This event caused a real shockwave and initiated the beginning of an awareness on the part of consumers and certain major players in the sector.

Down with fast fashion, consuming differently is possible!

A silent revolution is underway. Consumers are increasingly sensitive to environmental and social issues, they want to buy differently. And more and more brands are also starting to think deeply about their production rates and the materials they use. Even if there is huge room for improvement, efforts must be highlighted and young responsible brands encouraged. Consumers are campaigning for more transparency: where are my clothes made, how and by whom? It is everyone's responsibility to self-criticize in order to gradually rediscover the pleasure of buying. Less but better.

“ Don’t buy for the sake of it. I think people shouldn’t invest in fashion, they should invest in the world ”, these are the words of the British designer Vivienne Westwood and they resonate with us with great force. In our philosophy and in the commitments that presided over the creation of CANOPEA. To manufacture quality clothing, both beautiful, eco-responsible and produced in European workshops for which working conditions are a priority.

For two years, we have been proud to participate as a brand in The Fashion Revolution to highlight the people who work in our workshops and their know-how.

For more information on this year's edition and how you too can participate, visit their website The Fashion Revolution .