And it's nice that when my clothes are stained or irreparably damaged I can afford to replace them quickly.
This is a preference that has been demonstrated time and again throughout the world as it became an option.
So no, I don't believe it is clear at all how this is to the detriment of the average person.
This is extremely incorrect. First of all, fast fashion isn't actually necessarily cheaper. The real difference is that fast fashion exists in an industry that has gutted the entire infrastructure for alternatives, so people actually don't have the alternative options anymore.
It's like saying that "people prefer to drive cars, which is evident if you look anywhere in the US". Sure, almost everyone drives cars, but that's because the previous rail infrastructure was literally ripped up and destroyed by the auto industry, so now there's no alternative.
If you look at the developing world, it's very clear how incorrect your statement is, because there, fast fashion is more expensive, and other forms of clothing are far cheaper, far better quality, and far more common.
All of that is part of fast fashion - including Walmart and Target; it's just the lower end or very far down the pipeline. You can't separate one from the other, because they are economically codependent.
> And the quality is perfectly fine
Fast fashion is indubitably much lower quality, and it's weird to see people here denying that, when the fashion industry itself is completely in agreement about that fact. It's not a secret - they discuss it openly.
Those articles of clothing I'm talking about are almost never worth mending, but they still can last for years.
It's all fast fashion, just different points along the line.
Yes, broccoli and kale look different, and one is a fancier class signifier than the other, but at the end of the day they're still the same species.
So there's only high quality tailor-made clothes... and fast fashion?, of which there may be a spectrum that goes from something like "very fast fast fashion", all the way to "slow fast fashion"?
> Yes, broccoli and kale look different, and one is a fancier class signifier than the other, but at the end of the day they're still the same species.
So you're against... clothes? And possibly also agnostic when it comes to the existence of taste buds?
I'm sorry but your line of reasoning is making zero sense to me. This is getting to the point where I have to ask: Have you ever bought clothes yourself or does someone else buy them for you? Can you put into words of your own (without googling) what makes an article of clothing like a shirt not fast fashion?
They made econmic trade offs depending on their level of poverty.
> If you could afford a tailor; otherwise you had to make do with homemade rags that constantly needed mending and looked terrible.
Or you bought clothes infrequently and maintained them, and they lasted longer because the quality was much better.
People are so used to fast fashion these days that they assume that the poor in previous eras suffered in this regard way more than they actually did, because people assume the poor quality of clothing today is representative of how it always was, rather than a recent phenomenon.
The quality of clothing was much, much higher - even for the relatively poor - and clothing wasn't treated as disposable, so people would maintain and repair it, so it would last much longer.
> Which the vast majority of people can afford, and which significantly improves their quality of life. Now they can buy clothes at Walmart or Target
Buying clothes at Walmart or Target is a step down, not a step up. (And ironically, it's not even necessarily cheaper!).
If we're talking about clothing, it's very clear that these trends have served to the detriment of the average person, not to their benefit. The ones who actually benefit are the ones capturing the profit - the Sam Waltons of the world.