the dark phenomenon of Celebrities & Fast Fashion

Hey guys, what's up? Welcome back to one of my videos. It's your girl, Hannah. Today, I'm actually really excited to bring this video to you because I care very deeply about this topic and it's just something that every corner I turn, I keep seeing it and it keeps reminding me to not stop talking about it. I do wanna start off this video by saying I have actually seen some really good videos made by some of my favorite YouTubers and so I'm gonna link those down below, such as a video made by Salem Tover. Sorry if I say your name wrong. I love Mina and you'll see all these linked down below. So I did get a couple, you know, fun facts from their videos that I'm gonna have in this video as well. And then another thing I want to say before I get started is that this video is kindly sponsored by Ana Luisa. Ana Luisa, thank you so much for sponsoring this video. I am so happy to announce that I am an ambassador of Ana Luisa. So if you guys haven't heard of Ana Luisa before, then you are in luck because they're actually... Ran, hold on, let me get my cap. So they actually make jewelry that is so timeless and beautiful and all of it goes very well. As you can see, I am layering two of their necklaces together. It's actually a little sun and a crescent moon. And these gold hoops, by the way, like, I feel like everyone needs a nice sturdy, solid gold pair of hoops. They are actually having an amazing Black Friday sale, you guys, it's starting now. So you can hit the link down below and everything on their website is gonna be 60% off, which is amazing. Yeah, that's the biggest sale of the year. I honestly love their jewelry so much because it's so easy to wear. When I say that, I mean, like, a lot of necklaces keep sliding down to where the clasp is showing at the bottom. Well, these chains, I love them so much because they're actually not the same type of chain. They actually have little balls throughout it. So it helps to keep the charm where it's supposed to be. I really, really like that because I get so annoyed having to constantly adjust my necklaces throughout the day and all of their stuff goes so sweet together. So once you get a couple pieces from them, you'll start to see what I mean and you're just gonna love to wear them together. So, and they have jewelry, they have all types of jewelry. They have bracelets and rings as well. The thing I really love about them is they send their pieces individually in these cute little packages that have little buttons, really cute and different. And I'm just obsessed. Annalisa, it's so awesome. They're also completely carbon and water neutral, which is amazing. We all know carbon emissions are the worst for the environment. So that's a score there. Perfect for gift shopping too. If you guys are looking for a new piece of jewelry for someone special or a friend or literally anyone, the Annalisa is a perfect place to start. Annalisa, thank you so much again for working with me and I will have them linked down below for you guys. All right? All right. Okay, back to the video. Just to refresh your memory, fast fashion means brands like Shein, H&M, Forever 21. These are all brands that have really fast production. So meaning that they can design an item, design item. Usually they are taking from another smaller designer. Unfortunately, what they do is they can actually get a piece of clothing through really cheap costs of labor and cheap, cutting all the corners they possibly can, get it to the shelves within a week or in as little as three days, Shein can. That is completely unnatural. And to us, in these first world countries who only have $20, let's say, from our moms to go shopping, we have no idea. We're actually groomed to think that these cheap prices are the norm. And so when we see an item that is beautiful and at retail price for maybe a couple hundred dollars, because that's literally what it takes to pay the person who made that a living wage, to pay the designer who made that a decent amount for their hard work, we think that that's overpriced. And it's because we've grown up in this culture of fast fashion. So the reason why fast fashion actually came to be about was because of the internet, right? Before the internet, the general average person wouldn't be at the runways. And I'm talking about the 80s and the 90s, before the internet. Basically, we would see our celebrities sometimes wear things and we'd wanna wear what celebrities wear, like movie stars, like Jennifer Aniston, whatever she would wear, we'd wanna wear it. And that was only here and then when we could get them in public. So we didn't really see that much of the high-end fashion part, so we didn't have the internet. And then what happened was the internet came to be and people were able to click into any fashion show with high fashion, that's what's in at that moment. So since the internet came out and people were able to see this high-end fashion fast, and at that point, it was really just brick and mortar stores, but they actually struggled to transfer over to the internet space whenever the internet became really big because they had already put so much money into just the brick and mortar stores, they didn't know how to immediately just. So you get the point. Okay, so as the internet came to be about, it has put pressure and we as the public and as the consumers have put pressure on the fashion industry to meet our needs because we want to look like Kylie Jenner, right? That means these brands feel like they need to go and do whatever it takes to get things done fast. That means that they're not taking proper precautions to get rid of their waste ethically. They're going to third world countries. They're hiring people with little to no experience, children. I am a child labor survivor and forced marriage survivor. My name is Nasreen Sheikh. I come from very rural village on the border of India and Nepal. Most of the people are undocumented. My village was completely male dominated society. One of my cousin who was working in the sweatshops, he took me from the village to Kathmandu when I was around nine or 10 year old. When I came to the sweatshop for the first time, they teach me how to do the stitch just straight. And then I was keep practice, practice. I would do the blooming and I would wash the dishes or collecting the water, but mostly in the machine. And my machine was like higher than me. So we had to put other stack of clothes so I couldn't fit in the machine. In the sweatshop, six of us, four of them were adult, lived, worked, slept in 10 by 10 room without bed or bathroom or having access to even clean drinking water. We were paid less than $2 and forced to work almost 12 to 15 hours a day, pieces, 600 pieces. And we needed to finish that on time. And if we did not finish, we will not get paid at all. Child labor is still such a huge thing. Shein is such a big, freaking, get so heated on the inside. Every time I'm like at work and I'm like, oh my gosh, I love that. Or someone else around me is like, oh my gosh, I love that. And the first thing I hear is, oh my God, it was like so cheap on Shein. It was like five bucks on Shein. And I'm not getting mad at them. Let me make that clear. Because I know that that is a consumer who obviously is not in the place to go buy a sustainably made piece for a hundred dollars. I actually want to point my finger at the influencer or the celebrity who decided to do that brand deal with Shein that led them to see that Shein is so awesome. Like I'm pointing my fingers at the marketing that these rich people are doing. Think about all the way better sustainable brands that these huge influencers who are talking about Shein and getting paid off also by Shein to talk about them. Imagine they didn't support them anymore. Then it wouldn't nearly be as big of a thing as it is. And imagine TikTok didn't glorify having a different outfit every day and not, oh, you can't outfit repeat. You know, the obsession with these micro trends really is not helping either, right? Because trends actually used to, before the internet, trends used to last for like 20 or 30 years. And now trends will go by in like, in a span of three months. And it's so freaking sad because what that means is that people are constantly buying and then getting rid of. Secondhand shops too, Goodwills, Salvation Armies, they're getting filled up constantly every several months with new things and they have to get rid of things that were not bought. Those things go to the landfills and those things are mostly made of polyester because that's what fast fashion brands resort to. The fashion industry is on track to increase its carbon emissions 60% by 2030. That's thanks in part to ultra-fast fashion brands like Fashion Nova, Nasty Gal, Princess Polly, and Shine. To put it into context, producing polyester textiles emits about 706 million tons of greenhouse gases a year. It takes over 700 gallons of water to make just one cotton T-shirt. And cheaper synthetic fabrics cause even greater challenges since their plastic microfibers can never fully break down. Just take a look at this pair of jeans after the natural fibers have decomposed. We're literally living on a pile of plastic. And I think Nina said that, but basically, sure, those piles of clothes rotting on earth are not outside of your house, but it's outside of someone's house in Bangladesh. Let's be real, the top 1% could do so much, and could do so much to solve this. And I feel like, I think Nina said it, was that we are, you know, the lower class people are constantly almost gaslit to think that we're the problem. But yes, we can be a little bit better, right? Like we can go thrifting instead of giving our money directly to that fast fashion brand. And that's what I urge people to do constantly is please get into thrifting. If you haven't explored the joys of thrifting, please, please try it because it can leave you feeling so satisfied. And honestly, I feel even more enchanted when I find something at a thrift store because I feel like it found me too, like it was meant for me. The average person, right, gets rid of 80 pounds of clothes per year. And the industry is constantly producing billions of clothes per year. So you do the math. It's not going, well, pieces of plastic that we wear just to be accepted by society, which, you know, I don't blame, it's so natural to want to be accepted by society. That's why we follow trends, right? That's why people get rid of 80 pounds of clothes a year because it's out of style. Obviously, it is so natural to want to do what the cool people are doing and wear what the cool people are wearing. So it's up to them, right? And when I say cool people, I mean freaking Doja Cat. I mean Megan Thee Stallion. I mean, and I'm like upset over here because I love these people and I want to support them. And so it just makes me so upset to scroll through and see them constantly supporting them. I'm sure y'all know, you can probably think of someone that's famous on your Instagram feed right now who just shouted out like Fashion Nova. And it's like, dude, you know you're giving, by doing that, you're giving that company so much power and money. You're creating the trends. You are the famous person. So many other companies are actually now trying to follow Shein's pattern because guess what? Recently, they've had a huge skyrocket in sales just in the past couple of years. So in 2019, they went from $4.5 billion in sales to then doing 10 billion in sales in 2020, just a year later, bruh. And I, I'm guilty of being one of the micro-influencers that they work with, right? So like they don't just work with celebrities. They work with high influencers, you know, huge influencers, and then also micro-influencers because they want to reach out to all little pockets of society and infiltrate. Can I, can I, can I also just bring up the fact that they constantly steal artists' designs and it really irks me? Hey guys, unfortunately, it looks like the bad news bandits are back at it again. Please do not shop at Shein. Please shop the OG version on my website at odolliedearest.com. Thanks guys. Hi everyone, my name is Elisa. I own a small business and this is one of my designs. I made it like a couple of months ago, I think. And look at what happened. Yeah, so basically one of my followers sent me this. She installed my design and they didn't change anything. Like if you watch the colors, it's exactly the same order. I mean, this is so messed up. They're selling it for $12. It took me like a week to design and make it. And this past week, the same thing happened to four other small designers. Shein really does this on a regular basis. I mean, I've seen this happen so many times. I got home and I was like looking through my direct messages on Instagram and someone just sent me a link to Shein and was like, I think Shein stole your design. And they stole my design. I'm gonna show you guys. And this is what comes up when I hit that link. This top, it's a knockoff of my silk lace cami and they're selling it for $10. And it just blows my mind that Shein just like gets off the hook all the time for just copying small designers. And this is the original design. As someone who has their own designs and wants to release them into the world one day and knows how much it costs and how much time it takes to make a sustainable piece that is your own. Oh my God, if I released that and then I was met with Shein coming out with the same thing three days later, but cheaper and people are buying it, I could not imagine, oh my gosh, I could not imagine how upset I would be. And then, do y'all remember when that video of the bugs, literal creepy crawlies inside of the packaging from Shein that someone got? Yeah. Dear Shein, I have a problem. Here's my box of clothing that just came in the mail yesterday. Super excited, going on vacation. These are all vacation clothes. Start trying stuff on. Everything is cool, some stuff is fine, but today I opened the bag to this beach cover-up and what do I find? A bug. Do y'all see that? I know you see that. What is that, Shein? What is it? It's not supposed to be there. It's not a part of the clothing. I am disturbed. So Shein doesn't even take care of where they store clothes. Sounds like they don't even do a good job of cleaning a freaking building just to make sure that there's not that in it. It's sad because we are faced with the fact that there is no affordable, beautiful, quality piece of clothing that isn't gonna be under $30. You know, that's just the reality of it. It's gonna be hard to find that stuff and that is why I put so much important weight in thrifting. You guys, I started thrifting everything in 2018 and I can't even think of one thing in my closet that isn't thrifted. This is gonna sound weird and braggy, but I get compliments on the things I wear. I don't think that I have an outdated closet. I think if I do, by some people's terms, I don't care. I think that when I wear, I will still look back and like that. And if not, then I can, you know, clothing swaps are awesome. I've been wanting to do clothing swaps with my friends. So meaning bring a bunch of clothes, meet up with a friend, and then swap one piece for another. Of course, you can always, you know, give them, donate them to thrift stores and hopefully they get taken before they go straight to the landfill. And that's where I go whenever I need something quick to wear. I give myself a couple hours in one thrift store. I look through the whole thing. I have my strategies, okay? Girl, don't leave until you touch everything in that store. And I know that sounds exhausting, but you just get into it, okay? Put some earbuds in, like thrifting can be so fun. It really can. And I love like all of the upcycling that I see on TikTok. Like I see a lot of people who will make like an awesome, like two piece festival set out of like a blanket. And I'm just like, whoa, dude, I want to do that. Because trends go by in like three months now, they will come back in like three months. I feel like, you know, they are constantly coming and going. So when you have something that's a little out of style, I don't know. But also it's like out of style, it's such a gray area. Like who says, okay? I am so out of touch, I feel like, with like what she is like posted right now. I know that it's probably everything that Doja Cat has been wearing. Those things don't even last you like for a full two years now, dude. Like I have some and I've just got from Play-Doh's. Or the fast fashion items that I do have are my shittiest. And Salem brought up a good point that I liked, which was that unfortunately, a lot of people will take to the apps like Depop and Poshmark to profit off of these fast fashion items. Like for example, buying a ---- ton of Shein things for their low prices, and then marking it up to resell it on Poshmark and Depop. So then that creates this cycle for lower income people to having to stay giving money to these brands. Which honestly, that's why I say, stop going to Poshmark and Depop and just start going to in-store, your local thrift stores. Grab a friend, grab a buddy, say, let's go thrifting. I swear it will be fun. If you guys want me to make a thrift with me video, I can. It's just rough because usually they're playing copyrighted music in public places. Or maybe I'll do something on TikTok. Follow me on TikTok if you haven't. The goal here, right, is to find a wardrobe that you can call your own and you can keep recreating new outfits out of. I wear this shirt a lot. And if you work with me at Ulta, you know that I wear this shirt a lot. But I still, I always get compliments on it. And it's still just one of my favorite shirts that I own. And when you find pieces like that, that you really vibe with, and that you literally have a love affair with, it goes so much beyond, oh, this is so trendy right now. Like, this is the trend right now. You know, that's just how I feel about that. I just know I'm gonna, at this video, I'm gonna be like, Hannah, you're all over the place. But yeah, guys, moral of the story is stop putting your hard-earned money into the pockets of these fast fashion monsters who are basically just huge mass plastic producers. Hi. I'm filming. I mean, a lot of this is to blame. It's just the internet for making trend cycles go by a lot faster, creating micro-trends and rich people for working with them and promoting them when they literally could be educating their audience. So I hope that you guys enjoyed this video. Right now, a good thing that you could probably do is actually go comment all the celebrities and influencers who are promoting them and say, please educate yourself on fast fashion. Please stop supporting fast fashion. Please stop giving money to fast fashion. That'd be great. We need that. We need a movement to happen. And if us lower-class people have to freaking do that, our middle-class, not even lower-class, middle-class, lower-class people, everyone with the freaking 10%, that's in power. And maybe that's why, because they want to stay in power. But they can't be paying you that much money. I'm gonna bring this video to an end. But thank you guys so, so much for watching. Another big shout-out to Ana Luisa for sponsoring this video. Just a little reminder, 60% off, you guys. That's amazing for some nice, quality, jewelry-free that's made by a carbon-neutral and water-neutral company. I am a big fan. I just am. So, thank you guys so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs-up. It really helps me out a lot. And I will see you in my next video. Bye.