Globalization has allowed for faster and cheaper garment production, leading consumers to act as if the clothes are disposable. This cheap and rapid outsourced production for readily available and inexpensive garments is called Fast Fashion and is seen as the “clothing equivalent to fast food” (Claudio pp. 2). Unfortunately, this idea of large amounts of clothing with low prices has become a dominant business model for countries like the United States. Fast fashion products are often knock-offs or items that mimic luxury fashion trends. Magazines and media have implanted the idea of “must-haves” and need to keep up with trends that fuel fast fashion in consumers' minds without mentioning the consequences on the environment and laborers.
Textile factories originating in Northern England in the late 1700s were the start of globalization and the rapid industrialization of garment making as it became the epicenter for clothing manufacturing. In these British factories, machines called spinning jennies accelerated production rates resulting in greater consumption of clothes across the next 250 years (Brooks pp. 8). Industrial capitalism, technological innovation, and faster production brought consumers from around the world into one world market economy. The problem with this was that these production practices used excessive amounts of water for cotton farming, synthetic fibers, and man-made plastics which polluted the environment.