It’s a bold statement, but it definitely is true: capitalism destroyed the fashion industry. Whether you like it or not, this is not how we are supposed to consume clothing. We have no right to consume mindlessly at the expense of the only Planet we can exist on.
Capitalism’s impact on especially the European fashion industry since the 1980s has been profoundly destructive. Capitalism has affected the way we produce clothing, how we behave and think as consumers, and how our behaviour as consumer effects the environment. In case you hadn’t noticed, the effect is nothing short of catastrophic.
Many scientists have openly admitted that it’s already too late to turn the ship around. But there are also those, like me, who believe that there is still a sliver of hope out there! And if we wish to have any chance of maintaining our existence, we have to acknowledge where we need to do better. Because the industry has no reason to change unless we do!
In this article I will prove to you how capitalism is 100% responsible for the plight of the true fashion industry. In addition, I suggest you get acquainted with ethical brands bought by multinationals; aka, not ethical anymore.
NOTE that these points don’t just apply to the fashion industry, but to all kinds of consumerism.
How Capitalism Destroyed the Fashion Industry
It’s obvious that we can’t keep on going as we have done:
- doing shopping hauls just to showcase them on social media and then sending the clothes back
- buying cheap junk just because it’s ridiculously cheap
- having our wardrobes full of clothing with price tags still attached
- wearing a garment once and then tossing it.
In case you are ready to admit that capitalism destroyed the fashion industry, and want to do better for yourself and the planet, it’s time to reshift your mindset about shopping. We can, and should, all contribute to a better future. As the famous slogan goes, every little helps!
And if you are not yet ready to give up on your poisonous Shein and Temu hauls, at least consider these 11 points:
1. The fast fashion business model brainwashed us
The rise of fast fashion giants (like Zara and H&M) led to mass production of very cheap clothing. Very cheap often also means very poor quality. Cheap + bad quality = need to buy more constantly.
This business model prioritizes speed and low cost over quality instead of our right to quality clothing and proper craftsmanship. And that’s how fast fashion convinced us that fashion is disposable.
But clothes are not disposable! Every garment you buy will stay on this planet. Literally, as most of the clothes these days are made out of synthetic fabrics, basically plastic, which takes hundreds of years to degrade. This obviously contributes to environmental degradation via increased waste and pollution.
2. Capitalism doesn’t recognize human or workers’ rights
Minimizing costs means that something has to yield, right? This has led to many prestigious European fashion companies moving their production to countries with cheaper labour. These countries also conveniently don’t have labour laws to protect workers’ rights.
So, the way capitalism destroyed the fashion industry goes a lot deeper than just poor quality clothing. Garment manufacturing requires actual skills, craftsmanship and attention to detail. This is simply because it is still something that robots or AI can’t do!
Would you say that a skilled workforce is worth earning a living wage? Well, this is not the case in most countries where your cheap rags are made. Fast fashion business model is based on maintaining poor working conditions and exploitation in factories abroad.
When exploitation is the preferred business model, it also means that local industries and artisans everywhere else around the world are completely disregarded. Talk about disrespect!
The sad end result is the fact that we no longer understand how clothes are made because we are completely disconnected from the production process and its ethical implications. On purpose! It’s also known as brainwashing, which is the base of capitalism.
More on the topic: 40 Simple Everyday Tips to Fight Capitalism
3. Trends were made to destroy our unique sense of style
If you don’t care about the state of the environment or the rights of the people who make your clothes, would you give a damn about you yourself? Because those trends that you think make you acceptable in society were actually created to do the opposite: to control you.
Capitalism’s drive for profit uses the focus on trends and mass appeal to reduce the diversity and uniqueness of fashion. In practice this means that if you blindly follow trends, you’re part of the grey mass. For some this is totally fine, even preferred, but the lack of individual styles is a loss for each of us on a personal level.
More on the topic: Unique Style is Better Than Being ‘Trendy’ – Here’s Why!
As you ignore traditional and regional styles because you think global trends make you ‘stylish’, you’re actually not choosing how to dress yourself. Instead, you’re letting some old man in an office somewhere dictate to you how you should dress. As in, you’re not stylish, you’re just obedient.
The whole point of fashion originally was about cultural identity. This is what trends have killed! And it was done by diminishing the variety of fashion available and by putting pressure on designers to conform to mainstream designs. No originality allowed here!
Personally, that sounds like an absolute nightmare. It’s also wrong on so many levels. I’ve always made sure I don’t dress according to trends but according to what I like. Has that made me stick out like a fly in the milk? Absolutely. That’s the whole point!
4. Fashion industry is now major contributor to climate crisis
The capitalistic emphasis on fast production and low costs has led to extremely unsustainable practices, such as the use of harmful dyes and synthetic fabrics. These create an insane amount of toxic waste and pollution, which contribute greatly to the climate crisis.
Capitalism destroyed the fashion industry by making it one of the biggest contributors to environmental damage, including pollution, waste, and resource depletion. All of this affects our natural ecosystems and contributes to global warming.
It’s not nice to hear it, but by shopping fast fashion you are directly contributing to the climate crisis. You are also supporting criminal business operations, regardless of them being abroad. At this point it’s not different from supporting human trafficking.
5. Nobody respects quality or durability anymore
Adding everything up so far makes it clear that fast fashion’s focus on affordability has led to lower quality materials and construction. Basically clothing items are designed to be short-lived.
The point is to create a cycle of frequent purchasing and discarding of clothes. Which is actually completely idiotic if you stop and think about it: capitalism forces us into a cycle of creating more and more waste.
As the overall durability of clothing has dropped, it’s led to us consumers losing all sense of quality. We can’t even imagine a top that could survive several wears and multiple washes for years and years. But that is what clothes should be like! That’s what they used to be like.
The way capitalism destroyed the fashion industry was by convincing us it’s a great idea. But the more we buy and discard the more waste is piling up. In the meanwhile everything is sneakily getting more expensive while quality goes down: this is called enshittification and it’s done on purpose.
More about this topic: Quality Over Quantity: The Future of Fashion in 2025
6. Capitalism pushed luxury brands into fast fashion brands
The thing that sets luxury brands apart from most fashion brands is the fact that they are owned by the designers. They produce quality over quantity, which is reflected in the pricing. And the quality and detailing on, for example, luxury bags is supposed to be truly phenomenal.
But here’s the kicker: once a luxury brand goes public, it loses the luxury. Because when it goes public, the business model changes from quality to quantity. This is simply because the brand is no longer owned by the designer(s) but by stakeholders. And they don’t give a toss about the products or quality! They just want to make more profit.
More on the topic: Returning a Broken Luxury Bag – Here’s How It Went
The latest proof of luxury brands lowering themselves to the level of fast fashion brands came from Dior. Thanks to the fact that capitalism destroyed the fashion industry, Dior thought it needed to produce 5000 bags at an inhumane pace.
Corners were cut to achieve that because with actual artisans and proper craftsmanship that was impossible. So, Dior hired a ‘shadow factory’ in Italy to produce bags for a mere 53€ per bag. Those bags were then sold for over 4000€. Imagine paying that much for a fast fashion bag! What a scam.
7. Capitalism spits on intellectual property rights
If you’re an artist sharing your work online, you’re probably already familiar with this extremely unfair phenomena. The competitive nature of capitalism has increased instances of design plagiarism and intellectual property theft in the fashion industry.
Original designers and smaller brands often find their designs copied by larger corporations without proper credit or compensation. This completely undermines the original creativity and innovation, which deserves to be compensated royally.
There are plenty of examples of Shein stealing Western designers’ works and using them for its own gains. The designers, who did all the work, are left to lick their wounds.
8. Brand value is gone; hard for new names to enter the market
When capitalism destroyed the fashion industry, it wasn’t enough to just degrade the quality of our clothes. It went even further by making the role of brands obsolete.
Intense competition and the proliferation of cheap brands have saturated the market with numerous products and labels owned by just a few big names.
- The saturation has diluted brand value as a whole and reduced consumer loyalty.
- This makes it near impossible for new or niche brands to establish themselves.
- And for established brands it means that maintaining their market position gets a lot harder without constant innovation or heavy discounting.
The most pathetic result of this are certain “luxury brands” attempting to cut costs by moving their production from Europe to Asia. This obviously devalues the brand itself as their value originally came from extraordinary quality and craftsmanship. Now it’s all gone and so is the luxury.
9. Capitalism convinced us to consume mindlessly
Capitalism has promoted a culture of over-consumption and instant gratification in fashion. We’ve been brainwashed to think that cheap clothes are our right, not a privilege. This, of course, is NOT true!
The cultural shift happened in just two decades by encouraging us to frequently buy new items rather than invest in timeless pieces. This has led to a throwaway culture, where clothing is discarded after minimal use. This isn’t detrimental just to the planet but also to our mental health.
Instant gratification isn’t sustainable. It comes and goes in a snap of your fingers leaving us questioning our purchase decisions because we don’t actually appreciate any of the clothes we just ordered. And just like that we consumers are hooked and thus partly to blame for the fact that consumerism destroyed the fashion industry.
10. Valuable traditional craftsmanship is disappearing
The capitalistic emphasis on mass production has deleted our knowledge of traditional craftsmanship and artisanal skills. These skills are no longer passed down generations because we think they have become obsolete.
This is a massive issue for all of us, even though only few of us seem to understand the implications. Very soon there may come a time when knowing how to sew your own clothes is a life-skill. Don’t take those online stores for granted!
Many traditional techniques and local crafts have already been lost or significantly diminished. This leads to a decline in the quality and uniqueness of fashion products available in the market, as discussed earlier.
11. The social impact of capitalism: you think you can’t afford quality clothing
If you think that the fact that consumerism destroyed the fashion industry doesn’t affect you, think again. The widening of the ‘wealth gap’ has created a divide where a small group of people enjoys high-quality, expensive fashion, while the majority relies on affordable, mass-produced bad quality items.
The funny thing is that this divide is often imaginary, not realistic. Would you believe it if I told you that most people who order a shit-ton of shit of Shein and Temu are NOT poor? Well, it’s true! Most people doing shopping hauls there are in the middle class income bracket.
But many of them have been convinced that quality clothing isn’t worth it whereas cheap crap is… This has social implications, including class distinctions based on clothing. Or on a more worrying side people forgetting what income bracket they are actually in.
There was a time when being poor didn’t mean that you would have to look poor. But as capitalism destroyed the fashion industry that’s what we are now coming to: if you shop cheap, you look cheap. Now, is that a bad thing as such, that’s a conversation for another day.
Final Thoughts
While capitalism has enabled the growth and democratization of fashion, it has also driven the industry to ignore quality, sustainability, and ethical standards.
The push for profitability and efficiency often comes at the expense of the environment, traditional practices, and equitable labour standards. But it also comes at the expense of our individual style and our ability to express ourselves.
Even though capitalism destroyed the fashion industry, it doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t be a way back. We already know that a lot of the ultra fast fashion that comes from China is covered in toxic chemicals, which makes it dangerous for us to wear.
So, if we are able to make a reverse culture shift towards shopping better for our own sakes as much as the environment’s, maybe clothing production will see a swing towards better practices. The more clothing factories are re-established in Europe, the more their prices will come down.
That way we could re-establish high quality clothing, save traditional craftsmanship and boost European brands, which all constitute towards each of us being able to dress better and express ourselves more freely without harming anyone. Wouldn’t that be just brilliant? ♥
Follow me on Instagram and use #styleoutlandish to showcase your style! I’m always on the lookout for outfit inspiration. Get to know me better by listening to my podcast, Random Rambles. If you wish to work with me, check out my services here!
