**1. Introduction**

The 'fast fashion' industry is no healthier for the economy, environment, and people than its namesake, the fast-food industry. As the name itself suggests, fast fashion is geared towards quickly producing a huge quantity of clothing or accessories for the cheapest possible price. Not only would the production of these garments be cheap, but the turnaround time, shipping methods, etc., would also need to be efficient, so that they can reach from the manufacturing facility to the racks in clothing stores in the shortest possible time [1]. The primary purpose of fast fashion is to whet the consumers' appetite, who have been inching towards buying the hot new look of the season or want to imitate the latest look of their favorite celebrity.

On the face of it, this may seem like a good thing. It is true that currently, the human race lives in a time of abundance—and one need not feel guilty for enjoying the pleasures of life. If the fashion industry is able to sustain this highly efficient and competitive pace and make the consumers happy, it could be seen as a good thing.

However, while the manufacturers, retailers, and consumers may be happy with the current state of fast fashion, these trends come at a severe cost. The two primary areas where fast fashion is exceedingly dangerous are its environmental impacts and human rights violations. Essentially, while one counterpart of the society has been enjoying the newest clothing trends, the other has been sacrificing their life, safety, and health to make that happen.

Globalization has been one of the driving forces behind shaping the fashion industry to the state that it is in now. Along with the social, political, ideological, and economic changes of globalization, the continuous changes in consumer preferences have worked as the primary motivation behind the trend of fast fashion. In the history of human civilization, consumers have never had access to fashion commodities in such an efficient and cheap manner [2]. With almost every developed and developing nation developing shopping malls and other such multi-store shopping centers, a significant percentage of the same is dedicated to various clothing and accessories stores [3].

On a similar vein, the advent of the internet has also egged on the fast fashion industry—primarily in two ways. On the one hand, easy access to the internet has exacerbated the access and dependence of common people on 'trends'. Previously, to keep updated with the latest fashion trends, one would have to subscribe to fashion magazines that would come out maybe once a month. However, now, the latest happenings of the fashion industry are accessible to everyone at the swipe of a finger and they are 'happening' non-stop. Not only are the fast fashion brands themselves coming out with seasonal collections, look-books, etc., to hammer in the mind of the people that the items of the previous season are no longer 'hot', but there are several influencers, YouTubers, Tik-Tok-ers, etc., whose online persona are specifically geared towards guiding people's fashion choices [4]. This trend of rapidly changing the new 'in' thing for the fashion industry, which is geared towards keeping people buying new things consistently, has made people view their clothing and accessories as disposable. They are now seen as items that are meant to be worn only a few times before discarding, in fact, many people tend to view them as one-use only. For that reason, there needs to be a cheap but constant supply of new items to ensure that the industry can function at its current pace.

As brands, even the most renowned ones, begin cutting corners to ensure such supply, the one area where the most cost-cutting happened, is at the production level. As the multinational brands could no longer afford to pay the minimum wages and other employment benefits that are mandatory in developed nations, they moved their manufacturing facilities to developing nations to take advantage of the lax legal regime and ensure cheap labor. Currently, almost all big-name fashion brands have their production facilities in developing nations, primarily in South Asian nations such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Thailand, or China, where the workers are made to work 12 hours a day or more, for less than a living wage [1]. This employment does not come with any formal employment benefits such as health insurance or severance pay either, and no care is taken to ensure that the job conditions do not hamper the health of the workers. Not only that, often, the brands prefer employing vulnerable groups of people, such as women, children, and disabled people, as they can be controlled more easily and their labor is available at an even cheaper price [1]. The human rights implications of such sweatshops are massive—yet, the workers choose to engage in the same because of the lack of employment alternatives, and the concerned governments choose to conveniently ignore them because of economic benefits.
