Eco-Friendly and Fair

Preface – introduction from the editors

Carolin Becker-Leifhold and Mark Heuer

One need not look hard and long to find evidence of the “make, take, waste” paradigm in the textile industry. The fast fashion business model thrives on the “buy now or lose out” marketing approach on steroids fed by social media, and also on the seediness of corrupt governments with lax enforcement of labor, environmental and safety regulations. Indeed, fast fashion serves well as the poster child for the “race to the bottom” with its global inequities between developed and developing economies redolent of colonialism. The increasing annual revenues of fast fashion retailers correlates with the growth of massive ecological, as well as social, problems in the world’s ...