Fast fashion
Here is where your presentation begins
What is fast fashion?
You can delete this slide when you’re done editing the presentation.
Let’s read it together.
Clothes shopping used to be an occasional event – something that happened a few times a year when the seasons changed, or we outgrew what we had. But about 20 years ago something changed. Clothes became cheaper, trend cycles sped up and shopping became a form of entertainment. Enter Fast Fashion – and the global chains that now dominate our high streets and online.
Fast fashion can be defined as cheap, trendy clothing, that samples ideas from the catwalk or celebrity culture and turns them into garments in high street stores at breakneck speed.
For many shoppers, Primark has an irresistible offer: trendy clothes at astonishingly low prices. The result is a new and even faster kind of fast fashion, which encourages consumers to buy heaps of items, discard them after a few wears and then come back for another batch of new outfits. — The Economist
To understand how Fast Fashion came to be, we need to rewind a tiny bit. Before the 1800s, fashion was slow. You had to source your own materials like wool or leather, prepare them, weave them and then make the clothes. The Industrial Revolution introduced new technology – like the sewing machine. Clothes became easier, quicker and cheaper to make. Dressmaking shops emerged to cater for the middle classes. By the 1960s and 70s, young people were creating new trends and clothing became a form of personal expression, but there was still a distinction between high fashion and high street. In the late 1990s and 2000s, low-cost fashion reached its zenith. Online shopping took off, and Fast Fashion retailers like H&M, Zara and Topshop took over the high street. These brands took the looks and design elements from the top fashion houses and reproduced them quickly and cheaply. With everyone now able to shop for on-trend clothes whenever they wanted, it’s easy to understand how the phenomenon caught on.
Many of the retailers that we know today as Fast Fashion big players, like Zara or H&M , started as smaller shops in Europe around the 1950s. It’s when Zara landed in New York at the beginning of 1990s, that people first heard the term “Fast Fashion”. It was coined by the New York Times to describe Zara’s mission to only take 15 days for a garment to go from the design stage to being sold in stores.
Other big names in Fast Fashion today include UNIQLO , GAP , Primark and TopShop , but while these brands were once seen as radically cheap disruptors, there now are even cheaper and faster alternatives, like Missguided , Forever 21 , Zaful , Boohoo and more recently, Fashion Nova .
Answer the questions.
What 3 things led to fast fashion.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
In your own words, define fast fashion.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
What invention led to clothes becoming cheaper
________________________________________________________________________
By the 1960s and 70s, young people used clothing as a form of personal expression. Give examples
1960s ___________________________
1970s ___________________________
1980s ___________________________
1990s ___________________________
From your own personnel knowledge, describe some of these trends
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
In the late 1990s and 2000s, low-cost fashion reached its zenith. What does this mean?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
In your opinion, how did online shopping impact fast fashion?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Where did Fast Fashion retailers find their inspiration for their clothing?
________________________________________________________________________
Who invented the phrase " Fast Fashion " and why?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Name 4 Fast Fashion retailers.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
The problem with fast fashion
There is a series of photos that illustrate the consequence for society as a direct or indirect result of fast fashion. Write a synopsis of each picture.
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6
Making a poster about fast fashion.
What do you think about fast fashion after the lesson?
Show your opinion through your own poster.