Second-hand platform ThredUp has released its Gen Z Fashion Report, which analyzes the often contradictory behavior of Gen Z consumers. This cohort professes concern for the environment, but its members are also the largest consumers of fast fashion. They wish to replace their fast fashion purchases with more sustainable consumer choices, but social circumstances are holding back this will.
As a result, a kind of inter-generational war has erupted as older consumers question Gen Z’s much-vaunted green credentials. However, one should not forget that Generation Z is the only generation that grew up with the combination of fast fashion and social media. Aggressive marketing, nasty algorithms and the daily bombardment of viral TikTok photos and Instagram outfits of the day are taking their toll, creating an insurmountable pressure on the younger generation to be trendy with every selfie.
Social media and fast fashion invented by millennials or older generations (Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Chris Xu, the founder of Shein, are both 38 years old, while Amancio Ortega, the founder of Zara, is 86 years old). purposefully designed to keep audiences hooked. According to recent data from ThredUp, one in three members of Gen Z admit to being addicted to fast fashion. The older generations basically blame the young for falling for the system they built. At the same time, young people in the United States go into debt for their studies. Sluggish wage growth and generally rising prices also mean that Generation Z is growing up with an unprecedented disadvantage in life compared to older generations. Who can blame them for reaching for cheap fashion?
ThredUp sets up a confession hotline for Gen Z when school starts
ThredUp hopes to convince them otherwise by aligning the platform with the StrangerThings-Actress Priah Ferguson has teamed up. She answers the phone on the new ‘Fast Fashion Confessional Hotline’, which aims to lure Generation Z away from fast fashion.
Of course, the statistics are alarming: 72 percent of US college students say they’ve shopped fast fashion in the past year, with more than two in five saying they buy clothes for occasions they’re likely to wear only once. 50 percent of students check out fast fashion offers on social media weekly and 40 percent scroll through fast fashion pages daily. However, nearly two-thirds of the fast fashion demographic say they want to buy more second-hand fashion and that sustainability is the top reason they want to stop buying fast fashion. With Chinese fast fashion retailer Shein reportedly launching nearly 10,000 new items a day and younger customers investing in their school wardrobes, the hotline comes at the perfect time. Their goal should be to equip Generation Z with the resources they need to finally stop fast fashion and adopt lasting and sustainable shopping habits.
In the United States, dial 1-855-THREDUP to reach the Fast Fashion Confessional Hotline. It offers callers the opportunity to confess their fast-fashion sins and get the support they need to make the switch to healthier shopping habits. On the other end of the line is Ferguson’s voice, who immediately puts callers at ease by offering her own fast fashion confession. On the phone, participants learn why fast fashion is so bad for the planet and how frugality can be an affordable, sustainable and fashion-conscious alternative. Those interested also have the opportunity to choose from a selection of second-hand fashion curated by Ferguson on the platform.
60 percent of all fast fashion items are thrown away in the same year they were made, reports ThredUp. This fall season, the average Gen Z member plans to purchase 12 new items of clothing. But if those new clothes were swapped out for second-hand clothes, the total could be almost 10 billion pounds of carbon savings. That is the equivalent of planting 116 million trees.
That would be a semester start with top grades.
This article was previously published on FashionUnited.uk. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ