Recent Fisher School of Business Marketing graduates, Harrison Pyner (left) and Marissa Henterly (right), set up a vendor table for Memory Lane Clothing to sell at the Ohio Vintage Fest- IX Center in Cleveland, Ohio June 22, 2024. Credit: Courtesy of Harrison Pyner and Ohio Vintage Fest
According to these Ohio State students, sustainability is so not last season — rather, fast fashion is.
According to the Environmental Innovations Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, fast fashion occurs when fashion brands quickly produce large quantities of trendy clothing at low prices.
Fast fashion has drawn criticism for a number of reasons, including its generation of “more CO2 emissions than aviation and shipping combined,” according to the U.N. Environmental Programme.
Kristin Paulus, a senior lecturer in Ohio State’s Fashion Retail Studies Department, said she has been grappling with the upsetting realization that this is a new reality in fashion.
“I’m very sorry to say it’s not going away, and we’re actually seeing a resurgence of this fast fashion, I say gross consumerism, going on,” Paulus said. “That’s thanks to what used to be the Forever 21’s, Zara’s, etc., that would fuel that. Now, what we’re seeing is coming out of Shein and Temu putting it on acceleration.”
Paulus said the fashion industry operates using a cyclical structure; when it comes to fast fashion specifically, a phenomenon known as “trickle across” plays a key role in shortening trends’ longevity.
“Our industry is literally based on planned obsolescence, which means we’re constantly changing to make people buy more,” Paulus said. “What you’re referring to is what we call ‘trickle across,’ and what happens there is if you start to look at your social groups — whether it’s the stay-at-home moms or it’s the sorority girls — something will catch on, typically through social media, and then all of a sudden, this trend just trickles across that social group fast.”
Molly Hoskin, the president and co-founder of Students For Sustainable Fashion — a club dedicated to educating students about environmental science and being responsible consumers — said fast fashion affects the environment through aspects like landfills, water usage and greenhouse gas emissions.
However, Hoskin — also a fourth-year in environment, economy, development and sustainability — said many consumers neglect to thoroughly analyze fast fashion’s social ramifications across the globe.
“I think people tend to focus on the environmental side and not really, like, the social side,” Hoskin said. “One of the things that I like to advocate for is the difference between a fair wage versus a living wage. A lot of these fast fashion companies are not paying their employees fairly at all.”
Shoppers’ access to rapidly changing styles is something Paulus said will not decline any time soon. Still, she does see a wave of support for sustainably made clothing that is currently growing.
“I do see, particularly with your guys’ generation, there’s two momentums going on,” Paulus said. “I used to ask the question, five years ago, when I first came to the university, ‘How many of you are thrifting?’ Maybe five or 10 hands based on a class size of 100 would go up. Now, I ask that same question and 90% of the class is raising their hand. I do think that there is an equal momentum going on, and it’s really around awareness that people are starting to appreciate ‘Less is more.’”
Hoskin said one of Students For Sustainable Fashion’s main goals is to educate students on how to reroute current fashion beliefs to create more holistic ways of consuming clothing.
“We mainly try to focus on the educational aspect as we talk about the latest fashion trends and how more organizations, more companies, more people and designers are focusing more on the sustainability aspect of fashion,” Hoskin said. “We also like to do different workshops, focusing on how we can upcycle our clothing, make it new and correct those imperfections.”
Harrison Pyner, a 2024 marketing graduate from Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, started his own Columbus-based thrifting and reselling business, Memory Lane Clothing, in 2020.
“When I took some of my clothes to a local resale shop for them to buy off me, I found a vintage 1997 Chicago Bulls T-Shirt in there for $6, and I ended up selling it for $540,” Pyner said. “That instance initially sparked my interest in the business, but the high-profit margin isn’t what kept me in it. What kept me in it is giving unwanted, well-constructed clothes a new life. Now, I try to curate garments that will garner a sense of nostalgia for my customers.”
Pyner said contrary to popular belief, there is no shortage of options when shopping with a more sustainable approach.
“Going to local garage sales and estate sales, you never know what you may find here, and it is also nice to know you are supporting people in your town,” Pyner said. “Also, any thrift stores that are close to you are worth supporting. The Goodwill bins are 15 minutes from downtown Columbus and [are] a great place to grab some garments before they end up in [a] landfill and pollute our earth.”
Paulus said though it may seem overwhelming at first, changing shopping habits to be more sustainable doesn’t have to be complex.
“To me, it’s very simple — buy less, own what you love and then pass it to another human being,” Paulus said.
