Since many sustainable brands operate on much smaller scales with smaller batch sizes, they are mostly online only, meaning you can’t try on anything unless you want to return things that don’t fit. These smaller companies have less advertising, so it’s harder to find them unless you’re researching sustainable fashion, as opposed to places like Shein, Romwe, Urban Outfitters, etc. where advertisements are everywhere you look. Fast fashion brands have become household names, but even the more well-known sustainable brands are nowhere near that status. Fast fashion retailers turn out unoriginal designs quickly so consumers can keep up with the latest fashion trends.
Fast fashion produces low-quality clothing with low labor costs keeping the product cost low. Production is often outsourced to countries with low labor costs and mass production allows companies to produce large quantities of clothing at once. Slow and sustainable fashion companies often use higher-quality materials and ethical labor practices which makes individual products more expensive.
Microtrends are accelerated niche trends that last a month rather than a full fashion season. Microtrends gain popularity on social media platforms and die within a few weeks. Fast fashion brands look at what look is going viral on social media or a celebrity look and replicate it rapidly to sell to users while the item is still trending and sustainable fashion brands just cannot keep up. Fast fashion companies blatantly steal art and designs from other brands including small-scale/slow fashion and many of the images on the website are heavily photoshopped.
Slow fashion and second-hand shopping often have size limitations and a lack of sustainable plus-size clothing that is affordable prevents consumers from shopping how they want. Clothing retailers offer a limited range of sizes and this often skews to the smaller sizes. Sometimes larger sizes are sold at higher prices. 60% of women are size 14 and up, which is considered plus-size, but many brands don’t cater to plus-size women and many stores stores’ plus-size clothing lines end at 2XL and 3XL, still excluding many women who need larger sizes. Plus-size men have largely been ignored in the fashion industry with plus-size menswear making up only 0.6% of the global plus-size market. Many menswear brands don’t go above a 40-inch waist even though the average for American men is 40.5 inches. Fast fashion’s unethical labor practices and low-quality materials and methods allow plus-size people to find clothes that are in style, affordable, and fit.