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If you’re a fan of sustainable fashion or just like to shop from small businesses you’ve probably heard the million reasons why it’s a good idea to stay away from fast fashion. Although there’s one aspect that’s not talked about often: big brands copying designs from small businesses.

Just put yourself in the shoes of an upcoming designer and imagine waking up one morning seeing copies of your pieces on fast fashion websites. Not cool. And it’s more common than you might think. The Giant Chinese retailer Shein is especially known for it. It’s not surprising considering that they released 6000 new products in one day... It happened to knit designer Elizations, sustainable business Elexiai, crochet maker Moon_chain , slow fashion brand indigochilduk and I could go on forever. The huge success of fast fashion mainly comes down to their ability to bring designs to life in a short amount of time (it might just require exploitative labour practices) and at really low prices, which

In the current fashion system, clothes are treated as disposable. We expect to pay very little for our clothes, even to even pay pennies or to be handed them for free during big sales. We need a new outfit for every event, because god forbid you be seen wearing the same garment twice. However, clothes can and do mean so much more than that.

If we want to change the fast fashion system to one that is slower and kinder to people and planet, we need to change the way we collectively think about clothes. Orsola de Castro’s phrase ‘loved clothes last’ may sound fairly obvious and has been used a lot since the publication of her book at the beginning of 2021, but it is true and impactful. How do we expect our clothes to stay with us for a lifetime if we don’t get joy from them? If we want to be wearing clothes we will put the time and effort in to make sure they are cared for properly and repaired so that we can feel good in what we wear going about our daily lives. I know that wh