858: Fast Fashion | Skeptical Sunday

24:13Can't they just undam or redam whatever water source they dammed up or didn't dam up to make the lake? I don't understand. Well, for one, the notion of Soviet hipsters actually sounds hip to me. It does. It's coming back for sure. It's definitely coming back. If I'm going to be a hipster, I'm going to be a Soviet looking hipster. Not because we like communists. I know everyone's always like, you guys are commies. Yeah. It's quite the opposite. Isn't it sort of like chic to dress like a Soviet when you're a capitalist? And that should be a thing. They're charging American dollars for those Che Guevara t-shirts.

24:42So obviously. Facts. But I have a Soviet era military army belt that is so freaking cool. This is so off the rails, but the coolest thing about Soviet era hipsters is how they would trade forbidden records, rock and roll records. Do you know anything about this? I sort of do. when I lived in East Germany, I remember my host father, he was, he is a musician and he was like, man, it was so hard to get music. We had to drive to Berlin and then you'd find some sketchy guy who had a record store or not even a record store, but like a store that maybe sold something. And you just knew that was the guy who was somehow getting smuggled records in from West Berlin.

25:21So you could get Pink Floyd or whatever. And they were freaking expensive as hell. Oh yeah. But even cooler was the bootleg records in order to bootleg them, They would print records on x-rays, on old x-rays, because somehow that it's the same material and it could work. So you can get an old Soviet Pink Floyd record on an x-ray of a dude's broken hand. They're the coolest looking thing you've ever seen. That's really cool. That is cool. That is cool. I'd like to think that back in the day, I would have been a smuggler who smuggles things into the Eastern Bloc because they probably back then wouldn't just execute you or do something like now the ISIS curtain or something.

25:56You don't really want to screw with that. But back then it was like, okay, don't go bringing your records in here unless you're going to give me a bribe, which I would be kind of down for that. But anyway, we're way off topic now. We are. I do like the idea of X-ray Pink Floyd. Yeah, I'll send you a picture of some of the old X-ray records you could get in the Soviet Union. So, okay, back to the lake. You're asking about the destruction of it. The initial desiccation of the sea. Look, you can't just re-lake the lake. This is over my pay grade, but the short answer is you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.

26:28Salinity levels are changed. Evaboration rates are changed. And the agriculture in the area is different than it was pre-cotton. The fix here is not a quick one. So forget damning the lake. Damn the humans who chose blue jeans over blue waters. And they're blue jeans for a reason, by the way. Our clothes have more dye in them than Tom Cruise's hair, which gets me to our next point, pollution. I saw Top Gun Maverick, the fashion industry, they can't be using that much dye. A lot of water is used to dye the clothes. The World Economic Forum says the dyeing process uses enough water to fill 2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools each year.

27:07So there's your little analogy that maybe you can wrap your head around. And that's not the worst part. The dye water travels and ends up contaminating the oceans and lakes. 20 % of global wastewater comes from textile dyeing. textile dyeing is the second largest contributor to global water pollution. So the fashion industry uses a lot of water, and the water that they don't use, they pollute with dye or whatever. That's right. And for no reason other than we don't want to repeat an outfit. I will say, okay, this is crazy. At least the fossil fuel industry serves a purpose. I mean, something has to power the world.

27:44But fashion's damage is a self-inflicted wound. We don't need to buy all this clothing. We don't need to change styles every six minutes. And it's not just making the clothes that's harmful. It's the clothes themselves. How so? Okay. In 2019, Vox published statistics from the fashion industry showing 60 % of garments are made from polyester, which is a plastic, which does not break down. And when materials don't break down, they turn into microplastics. A 2017 report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimated that 35 % of all microplastics in the oceans came from the laundering of synthetic textiles.

28:25Laundering, right, washing our clothes. We did an episode on microplastics recently with Matthew Simon. That's episode 818, 818, by the way. So we're going to that in the show notes. He did mention laundry was a huge creator of pollution in terms of getting micro and nanoplastics into the water supply, oceans, et cetera. And unfortunately, or fortunately, the solution would have been, yeah, just put a filter on your washing machine in your dryer and then throw that stuff in the trash and at least it goes into a landfill. And it's like, no, that would add 38 cents per washing machine. So we're not going to include that, but you can go buy one on Amazon for 30 bucks or whatever.

29:00It's obscene. That is, I'm so glad you said that. That's, I am definitely going to buy one for my washing machine because these figures break my heart, man. Just the simple act of washing synthetic fibers releases 500 ,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean each year. that's equivalent to 50 billion plastic bottles. That's a staggeringly high number. Again, that I can't really wrap my head around. I need it. I need it in buses or airliners or boats or something. But it does jibe with what Matthew Simon was saying on the podcast. There's just a huge, huge, huge number of plastic and it settles at the bottom and then fish eat them and they end up with the plat and then we eat the fish and there's a fricking guitar pick worth of plastic in that thing or whatever.

29:43It's really, really nasty. It is. And I just, the number is so huge that I had to double check it, but the UN environmental program, the world economic forum, business insider, and on and on, they all back this figure up. It's shocking and it's hard to fathom. I don't think a human brain can understand a million, let alone a billion. Let me ask you this and don't think about it based on the fact that you know what a second is and you can comprehend that measurement. Best guess, top of your head. How long is 1 million seconds? Without doing any math, I'm going to say like a month or three weeks or something like that.

30:18It's a little more than 11 days. Okay, so I was off. Gotcha. So now, you know what a million seconds is? So without doing any math in your head, what's a billion seconds? Oh gosh, this is going to be some years. I don't know, like three years? I know I'm way off. This is bad because I'm not doing any math. I'm purposely not doing any math. It is 31.69 years. Okay, I wasn't even close. I was originally going to say six years, and I was like, that's too many. But now it's the entire lifetime of the average listener of this show. Yeah. Holy cow. That's a lot. And we're talking about 50 billion. Yeah.

30:53Oh, wow. So 50 times that, that's 50 billion bottles here, 50 billion bottles there. So every year, pretty soon, well, we're talking about a big number. When I visualize this plastic filling the oceans, there should be a sense of urgency to change what is happening. But it's saying, oh, God, it seems so hopeless. Yeah, and by the way, that doesn't include the actual number of real bottles we're tossing into the ocean. Something definitely has to change. Right, so we're measuring this in bottles, but that's not actual bottles. That's just the crap that comes off our clothes. We're also throwing bottles into the ocean.

31:24Okay, so the fashion industry, the problem here is they employ millions of people, and surely the change is gonna be catastrophic to so many livelihoods, especially in what's referred to as the global South, aka countries where people make clothes. Exactly. And look, this becomes a whole conversation about globalization, so I'll try and keep this fashion focused. I don't think it's surprising to learn that the people who make our clothes don't have it so good. According to research by Global Labor Justice, female garment workers in H &M and the Gap supplier factories in Asia face poor work conditions, low wages, and forced overtime.

31:59Okay, so global labor justice sounds a little bit like, okay, they've got their sort of lefty agenda, but I find that they're probably not making this up because you can find this information in a lot of different sources. But I also have a question. Why just female garment workers? Are men in the industry treated better somehow, or is this sort of a women's-only industry? What's going on here? Yes, exactly. 80 % of fashion factory employees are women. And in countries like Bangladesh, there are stereotypes about what jobs women can do. The industry exploits and takes advantage of women working in these factories because, well, it's easy.

32:37They have few options. According to a Wall Street Journal article, one in six people on earth work for the textile industry, and only 2 % of them earn a living wage. And here's the thing. That's also by design. So that, okay. Wall Street Journal, not known as a sort of liberal lefty publication, by the way, I think most people realize that that's an insane amount of people working in the clothing industry. I had no idea one in six on earth. Okay. And 2 % of them earning a living wage. So that's, that's just tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people sewing for pennies on the Looking like I bought something new at Zara can't be worth this injustice.

33:17I would think not. And it's, look, the fact of the matter is it's just not very progressive to wear all these hip clothes. The fast fashion industry takes advantage of women's already unequal position in societies and uses countries that pay women significantly less than men. The Irish news outlet The Journal reported in 2013 that the industry moved factories to Vietnam for cheaper labor. Vietnam then passed labor laws to protect their workers, and you know what the industry did? Sure, that what happened is they supported and lobbied for the workers to be treated fairly, and everyone lived happily ever after.

33:51Of course not. The industry didn't update their practices. They moved to Bangladesh. So forget chasing a high. The fashion industry is essentially chasing a low. So low cost, low quality, low standards. And it seems like that's inevitable for pretty much every industry, unfortunately. It sure does. And it's not just the labor. According to Laura E. McAndrews, the textile professor at the University of Georgia, the fashion industry wants cheap machines, cheap factories, and cheap materials. In Bangladesh, those low and unenforced standards caused the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern history, the 2013 Rennap Plaza factory collapse.

34:291 ,134 people died, all for low-priced clothing, will wear seven times. Low prices and low-skilled labor are sewn into the system. The cheapest materials are stretch materials. You know, T-shirts, jeans, yoga pants, and it's not a coincidence that stretch materials are made with low-skilled labor. That's interesting. I wouldn't have necessarily guessed that, but I guess that makes sense why yoga pants were having such a moment. Me too. And I knew it couldn't be because they look classy. It's because the industry loves stretch materials and for no other reason than we can make it cheap and imperfectly.

35:09George Hahn highlights the pitfall of stretch clothing on his website, calling the material the high fructose corn syrup of fashion. He points out a tailored suit has to be made precisely and fit right. Stretch materials mask imperfections and don't have to fit right at all. They just stretch to whatever shape they need. This is just me pontificating here, but the cycle seems to be a vicious one. With well-made clothes, they need to be a good fit. With modern, fast fashion, trendy wear, the clothes stretch to fit us, so you don't have to be fit for your clothes to fit. I see what you did there.

35:45Clever. Thank you. And a quick look around any town USA, it's obvious we're not that fit. That conclusion might be a bit of a stretch, but I hear you. We've seen people built, you know, well, like me, try to stuff themselves into spandex or whatever, and it ain't pretty. I get that it's more forgiving for both the way you look and for the way that it's created. That's interesting. I knew it was forgiving for the way that you look, but I never thought, oh, it's also forgiving so that somebody could just make it really damn fast, really damn cheap with very low skill. And it looks kind of okay because it's going to look how it's going to look once you pack your butt cheeks into it or whatever.

36:20Exactly. And look, these are hard problems to address, but they are being addressed. There are eco-conscious designers and companies out there, but they're not the norm. Are there any benefits to the fast fashion industry? I mean, it's got to be easier for parents buying clothes every time their kids have a growth spurt and whatnot. Like my kids' shoes fit for two months now. Yeah, I mean, I get that. And proponents will tell you that fast fashion's benefits are affordable prices, instant gratification for consumers. and Time Magazine dedicated an issue to the democratization of stylish clothing.

36:51That last point is complete nonsense. Democratization of stylish clothing is just a fancy way of saying capitalism. That's how we vote with our dollars. You know what you're gonna wanna keep around for more than two measly weeks? Something from the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Once again, thank you for listening to the show. deals, discount codes, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals, or search for any sponsor using the search box right on the website or our AI search bot as well. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday.

37:29It's not a convincing argument for fast fashion. Again, I always like to highlight here, this is not an argument against capitalism, at least on my end. It's just, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. The idea that, oh, like now everyone can afford to be stylish. It's like, okay, that one, not a human right to the stuff is crap. It's also, I find it hard to believe that you couldn't save your money and buy a couple of nice pieces. It's the whole thing. The idea is making people feel like they need this crap, not that they actually do. That's where I'm at with it. Which gets us to the people that are making us feel like we need this crap.

38:02The entire industry now is driven by influencers and they all seem to get a pass, but it's problematic. Turn on any fast fashion TikTok video and you'll get a person who portrays themselves as so progressive on social, economic, and ecological issues, while they sell us the very problems that they claim to hate. I mean, if there was an influencer on TikTok saying, hey guys, we need to fight climate change, so I'm here to talk today about the exceptional new high-grade octane fuel by Exxon, the contradictions would be obvious. But with the fashion industry, the irony is often printed right on the t-shirts.

38:37The fight for women's rights shirt your favorite TikTok influencer is wearing was probably made in a factory where women were not treated properly. So what should we be looking for on the labels when we buy our clothes to avoid this? Can I go to the store and go, oh, I don't want this because this is made in a certain place or with certain materials? No, I really don't think so. The made in label is unique to the US. Europe knows how meaningless that is and doesn't even use it. It's misleading. It's accurate. There are a lot of pending legislation to take the country of origin off our labels. The reality is it's a global effort and a piece of fast fashion is rarely made in just one place.

39:15Why don't they list all the places that contributed to our clothing, like an ingredients list? Because that would be one long label. In 2015, NPR followed the journey of a shirt from design to store. This proved the supply chain is invisible. We can grow cotton in the US, spin it into yarn in another country, send it to another country to make the textile, and another country to be turned into a shirt. So which country is it made in? What country do you put on the label? In the United States, this is crazy, whichever country sewed the main seam gets the label. That's it. Made in the USA is bullshit.

39:48It's loosey-goosey. So sure, say it's made in the USA. Don't threat on me, anyone? All right, so that I understand. So this is essentially the last person to touch the thing is like, aha, I'm putting my flag on. It's like the moon. Aha, I'm putting my flag here. Well, you didn't make it, esh. I'm putting my flag here. Don't say anything. I'm just branding it. It's branding. Of course. And the point is our clothes touch a lot of borders, and that's just how the supply chain works. So again, we're talking about globalization, love it or hate it. Yeah. And that's because you can't avoid it. It's part of the fast fashion conversation.

40:20Ultimately, we are failing to create an industry that looks after its employees and their surroundings. Fast fashion is all about the ways to make bigger profits all the time. What can we do to wean ourselves off this cycle? I mean, I've done a pretty good job of becoming an old middle-aged irrelevant guy, so I don't need it. What can other people do who are not as pathetic as me? I would say be like you. Be like Jordan Harbinger. Just buy one. Just because a t-shirt is 650 doesn't mean you need five. Or save up and buy one higher quality brand that will last you. Huffington Post published an article in 2014 alerting consumers that we are trained to believe the more we have, the happier we'll be.

41:00But that's so sad. And you will die a thousand deaths in the materialistic cycle. We seem to be trapped in these shirts that only cost five bucks are sold at an over 75 % markup. These clothes are cheap, like really, really cheap. Does anyone in the fashion industry have integrity? Are they speaking up about this kind of thing at all? Well, I mean, it costs money to speak up. That's the reality of the world we live in. They teach complicity. After fashion school, you're thrown into the industry. How the hell are you supposed to affect change? But the Harvard Business Review believes responsible business owners and supply chain managers can help factories reinvest into their mills and factories and create a sustainable, ethical, moral supply chain.

41:46The obvious fix seems for people to want less fashionable stuff. And we just, we know that's not going to freaking happen. So are there eco-conscious designers out there, or is that kind of also BS? There are several. It just takes research. Fashionerd.com introduced me to Spain's Ecoloft, which creates shoes from algae and recycled plastic as part of its Upcycling the Oceans collection. And through the World Economic Forum, I discovered an Amsterdam brand called Gumdrop. And this is so interesting. The brand collects gum to create a new type of rubber. They state 3.3 million pounds of gum end up on Amsterdam's paths every year.

42:25And it takes 2.2 pounds of gum to make four pair of shoes. That's amazing. So chewing gum to make shoes. I've never heard of this. That's incredible. Also, that is a lot of gum on the street, but also makes me feel a little weird about all the gum I've just swallowed over the years. You're rubber and I'm shoe. Pause for laughter. Yes. here in the u.s patagonia has made fleece jackets from recycled bottles since 1993 websites like mygreencloset.com list the many companies that offer free repairs trade-in deals and use surplus materials for zero waste fashion collections in the netherlands wintervok turns blankets and curtains into coats and jackets so there are options here i'm still blown away by the the chewing gum shoe thing but unfortunately i feel like with the way things go we're going to have a building full of women in Bangladesh chewing gum all day instead of sewing.

43:20No, no, no. Let's just, it's, you know what? The solution is everybody spit your gum onto the sidewalk. Let them come get it. No, bad idea. Okay. The fact of the matter is the consumer can do more than any designer. All you have to do is stop. Stop playing the fast fashion game. Buy quality, well-made clothes that will last for years. There are fashion icons leading the way. Rosario Dawson, Emma Watson, and Gwyneth Paltrow are a few names promoting brands and philosophies focused on sustainable fashion. Stella McCartney teamed up with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to launch a report on redesigning fashion's future.

43:54Guess has launched a wardrobe recycling program in the US. Levi's new collection uses 90 % less water, and they started a program that recycles old jeans into home insulation. So is recycling stuff in other ways that are not donating? Is that the answer essentially? Yes. Some argue recycling is itself energy intensive. Yeah, that's the question, right? Like, okay, does it then just use 8 ,000 trees to recycle a pair of jeans into a pair of jeans? Yeah, and it does nothing to address our throwaway culture. We might find an alternative in the clothing rental market. There are several apps and websites that allow a consumer to feel no guilt in wearing an outfit once because they rent the clothes and send them back.

44:35Yeah, I'm not renting my underwear, but I get it for suits and other stuff like that. Okay, what else can us as consumers do? Vogue Business says that by skipping one in six washing loads, washing half loads at below 30 degrees and substituting every sixth dryer usage with open air drying, we would reduce consumer emissions by more than half. Okay, but it's not practical to put the responsibility on the consumer's washing habits. You get a kid, he pees on you. You're not like, oh no, I'm skipping this. This is my skip load. I can't wear this thing now. We're like, oh, I need this tomorrow. I hope it dries outside in the rain and snow before then.

45:11Come on. It's not perfect. It's an imperfect system, especially if you have kids peeing on you, which is not a part of my life, probably a part of your life. Indeed. A much bigger part of my life than I actually would like at this point. Okay. So there's also upcycling, which is making clothes out of used materials and textiles. Some fashion brands are joining initiatives to cut back on textile production and grow cotton more sustainably. In March 2019, the United Nations launched the Alliance of Sustainable Fashion, which will coordinate efforts across agencies to make the industry less harmful.

45:43Man, fast fashion, this has totally changed our relationship with clothing, and it's just obviously not for the better. Get this, studies show that the smartest thing we can do is wear the same basic outfit every day. There's a great medium.com article about some of our greatest minds. Jobs, Zuckerberg, Einstein, Obama. They all have their signature looks. They know we are only capable of so many decisions a day. So eliminating all thought about fashion saves brainpower. I know Elizabeth Holmes was into that for a minute. I don't know if she's one of the greatest minds of our time, but certainly one of the greatest minds that's in federal prison right now.

46:18No, but it's totally true. If you don't have to think about what you're gonna wear every day, that frees up a lot of brainpower to think about other things. So look, if you want to look like everyone else, keep buying all the new trends. If you want to look smart, just wear the same thing every day. Well, now I got no freaking clue what I'm going to wear tomorrow. Thanks a lot, Michael. And thank you for suggesting this topic to us. This is, as usual, a fan idea submission. Topic suggestions are always welcome. Just email me, jordan at jordanharbinger.com. You can also DM me on the various social medias, but not TikTok, where I am currently banned.

46:52Anyway, once again, a reminder that the Stitcher app will no longer work for any podcasts as of August 29th, 2023. So if you're using the Stitcher app, time to switch. If you're on Android, Podcast Addict is a good one, CastBox. And if you're on iOS, I suggest Overcast or Apple Podcasts. The Stitcher app is going away, folks. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes. I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter or Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Michael Regilio is at Michael Regilio. We'll link to it in the show notes because nobody can spell Regilio.

47:26This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. And of course, for this one, Michael Regilio. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who needs to hear it. Maybe somebody who buys a lot of fast fashion, throwing a lot of stuff in the landfill.

47:54In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you wearing the same thing next time. If you're looking for another episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show to sink your teeth into, here's a trailer for our episode with Ken Peretti, an art forger who dodged both the FBI and the mafia and forged thousands of paintings. Very well, apparently, because he was never caught. Check out episode 282 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. He gave me a book on art forgery. I began to unlock the secrets. I was a storehouse of knowledge of how to create an illusion, present it to a experienced expert, manipulate his mind, and bring him to the inevitable conclusion that the painting is genuine.

48:50We flooded the market with my paintings, and I couldn't believe what I did. I couldn't believe it. Then the dominoes started falling, and eventually the FBI led to my door. They uncovered a mountain of evidence against me. But they never actually got you. Why did it go away? Why did you never get indicted? How are we having this conversation? I guess that's the greatest story of all. If you want to hear more about how Ken made millions forging art, dodged the mafia, and even the FBI, check out episode 282 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

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