Fast Fashion at Midd: The Gray Area
By Pearl Tulay
Photography by Emma Cortina
As a student body frequently concerned with sustainability, fast fashion can often fall into a sort of middle ground. Even though many try to avoid fast fashion for moral reasons (see: human rights violations, unlivable wages, pollution, overconsumption, the sheer amount of clothing dumped in landfills), it also tends to comprise a significant amount of people’s wardrobes. I was curious to hear from Midd students how fast fashion fits into their closets. I spoke to four students about their relationship with clothing and what informs the choices they make in buying clothes, especially concerning fast fashion.
Molly Gallagher
Describes their style as: comfortable, functional, coordinated.
PT: How would you define fast fashion? What “counts” as fast fashion, and what doesn’t?
MG: “I think that fast fashion refers to a type of shopping mindset as opposed to just certain brands. Trying to fit a trend from the internet, or buying an outfit just to fit a certain event, recycling through styles really quickly … that’s what I think of as fast fashion.”
They say they greatly prefer the feel and look of secondhand clothes, both from a style perspective and an ethical one. “Thrifting clothes then mending and upcycling them just feels more personal. I feel better about myself, and the clothes end up fitting me and my style way better,” they say. They describe a sort of coevolution of sustainability and style over the years, as they slowly phased fast-fashion pieces out of their life in exchange for clothes that feel more like them.
They have struck a bit of a middle ground on that front - they try to buy those trendier or shorter use items secondhand, and keep fast fashion basics that still serve them well. Some fast-fashion pieces they own have held up better than they expected, and even if it isn’t from a sustainable brand, if you wear it for so many years it earns its keep.
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Emily Kuperstein
Describes her style as: classic, timeless.
PT: What are your considerations when you buy clothes? Is sustainability a primary concern for you? If not, what is?
EK: “Sustainability is definitely not a primary concern for me. Honestly, I don’t care enough about trends for that to be a concern.”
A lot of the clothes Emily wears, she says, are clothes she has had for years. If it still fits, she probably kept it. Most of her sweaters, jackets, and pants are neutrals, so she keeps them around. “I have no reason to get new ones.”
The exception, she says, is going out tops. “I barely wear most of them, and I know I will never wear them again after college.” It isn’t worth it to invest in good quality if you won’t be using it forever. She also finds that she tends to buy new bikinis each year from places like Target. A key point she brought up was that a lot of these clothes’ poor quality forces people to throw them out and get new ones.
“The cheaper the things are, the worse quality they are, so the more you have to buy.”
Despite the few fast fashion pieces, her wardrobe has remained pretty consistent over the years, and she has held on to pieces that still fit her style today. Emily is a testament to how longevity can be an avenue of sustainability, no matter what brand the clothes came from originally.
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Grace Kellogg
Describes her style as: cheerful, versatile, minimal.
PT: What goes through your mind when buying clothes?
GK: “Sustainability is a major factor in buying clothes for me. I research companies beforehand and I care a lot about the brand’s ethos and footprint.”
Grace is very thorough and diligent about purchases in general, and especially clothes.
As a Seattle native, she also brought up the crucial point of going to school somewhere where she can’t bring a ton of clothes back and forth. Having to fly each time means that she has had to purge her closet a lot and cut down to core staples in her closet that she really uses. She says she has internalized her mom’s mindset about buying things - “Don’t buy something because you like it, buy it because you love it.”
We discussed the huge difference in financial accessibility between fast fashion and sustainable brands, particularly rooted in convenience. She is able to make slow and measured decisions about clothing because she has the privilege to - for example, she is not in a position where if her jeans rip, she has to purchase another pair right away because they’re her only pants. The convenience and speed of fast fashion brands are one of the major draws, she thinks.
She also mentioned one huge benefit of communal housing - sharing clothes. This softens the impact of fast fashion because the items are being worn and shared between many friends.
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Sophie Oberdiek
Describes her style as: comfortable, athletic.
PT: “So, I know you’ve said you hate shopping.”
SO: “Haha, yeah, yeah, I do.”
PT: “So how do you end up going about buying clothes? I mean, you have to, right?”
SO: “Cost is a big consideration. I don’t buy clothes for fun, I buy them when I need them.”
Most of Sophie's clothes are athletic, and she doesn’t buy very many clothes to follow microtrends. She says that she will spend more money on something that’s a longer-term trend or basics that she knows she will wear. She mentioned brands like Shein, Urban Outfitters, Nike, and lululemon.
Like Emily, Sophie noted going-out tops as the primary source of fast fashion in her closet. She buys shirts from Shein because, she said, it doesn’t matter if they get messed up or lost - since they are so cheap, it’s very easily replaceable and she can buy it on her own, as opposed to having to ask for it as a gift.
As she has a younger sister and many female cousins, Sophie has been getting and giving hand-me-down clothing throughout her life. Whenever she gets rid of clothes, they aren’t thrown out but are simply passed down to someone else. She has also accumulated a lot of clothes from family members, and she joked that she has way more clothes than she needs now. She is from Philadelphia, so unlike Grace, she says, “I can bring as many clothes as I want to school. It’s kind of dangerous!”
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I was surprised to find such a wide range of opinions across just a few people. The way people buy clothes is such a deeply personal decision, even for people who don’t consider themselves particularly trend-conscious or who don’t think about fashion very often. Even the definition of what we call “fast fashion” isn’t so cut and dry. I found it became more and more complicated with each person I spoke with - is it a certain brand’s ethic? Where do the clothes themselves come from? How much clothing is bought? Who is wearing it? And for how long? I have no doubt that if I spoke to every single student at Middlebury, I would get drastically different answers. Whether people consider these questions consciously or not, each one factors into a larger picture of what fast fashion is, at Midd and beyond.