That chiffon top you’re wearing? Totally last season. Those fringed ankle booties adorning your feet? Correct- last season. Those painfully tight skinny jeans hanging in your closet? You guessed it, last season.
The fashion industry’s structure is based on the idea that this season’s hottest garment will be obliterated next season. The constant rotation and recycling of trends keeps the fashion world thriving.
Fast fashion is the term used to express the idea that designs move from runways quickly in order to reproduce current trends. Fast fashion retailers, such as Zara and Forever 21, pump out various garments that are identical to the ones seen on runways, but are mass produced at lower costs. This approach prompts disposability by encouraging the discarding of cheaply made clothing a mere season after it is made.
Lisa McRoberts, Assistant Professor in the Textiles, Merchandising, and Apparel Department at LSU, believes that fast fashion promotes a culture of wasting clothing that is predominantly composed of synthetic fabrics that are not biodegradable. “The best solution would to be to buy less quantity and more quality clothing, focusing on styles that most enhance your body…I would rather buy one quality item of clothing than ten poorly constructed items,” McRoberts said.
A documentary titled “The True Cost”, addresses fashion’s sustainability and provides a look at the factory workers who make the clothing. One in six people on Earth are involved in the worldwide fashion industry in some way, and today, 97 percent of America’s clothes are made overseas.
The executive producer of the documentary, Livia Firth, stated that fast fashion exploits slave labor from all over the globe, as well as exhausts the Earth’s resources. “Eventually the resources will deplete, the profit margins will shrink, and there will be revolutions in the streets,” Firth said.  
So what is the solution? Not buying clothes from Zara or H&M? Only buying designer products that guarantee sustainability?
There is no simple solution. Fast fashion retailers will continue to produce clothing until people stop buying their products. People will continue to buy clothing from fast fashion retailers as long as designers keep fabricating new trends that the public wants to be a part of.
People as a whole can decrease the wastefulness of the fashion industry, simply from buying clothing made by trusted designers who promote sustainability within their designs. Not everyone can afford the price-tag that accompanies high-end labels, but newer labels, such as Kowtow and Amour Vert are producing sustainable clothing that comes with a cheaper price-tag.
So next time you drool over that new fringed skirt from Forever 21, remember how quickly it will fade from the trend reports next season. Instead think of how much nicer it would be to own a skirt that will last you more than two weeks.