Fast Fashion Comprehension Pack PDF

STAGE 3 Unit focus: Fashion Designers Text focus: Information Text Fast Fashion There’s no denying the fact that clothes are important. They keep us safe from the elements....

STAGE 3 Unit focus: Fashion Designers Text focus: Information Text Fast Fashion There’s no denying the fact that clothes are important. They keep us safe from the elements. Uniforms help people to identify help. Fashionable pieces help us to stand out. All of that comes at a cost. People who are passionate about fashion often want to be seen in the latest clothes. This might be to their friends or on social media. Many trendsetters don’t want to be seen in the same clothes twice. They make sure that they are always wearing something new. This has led to a trend called “Fast Fashion”. Fashion designers usually release two or three different lines of clothes each year. They might design different clothes for winter, summer and then possibly autumn. Fast fashion designers often produce a new range every month. Part of the problem is impatience. When a big designer puts on a fashion show, people want to buy the clothes quickly. It can take several months for those designs to hit the shops. Fast fashion brands realised that they could create their own versions immediately and sell them. Clothes don’t appear out of thin air. They are often made in large factories overseas. They are sometimes made using child labour or by people who aren’t paid a fair wage. Fast fashion companies are particularly guilty of these practices. When new clothes are produced so often, the amount of natural resources that they use goes up. They also produce a lot more damaging gases. When they are shipped over to your country for you to buy, they produce even more greenhouse gases. The more clothes that are produced the greater the damage to the environment. That’s not the end of the problem. Fast fashion clothes are poorly made because people aren’t expected to wear them many times. Even if you want to keep them for a while, they probably won’t last. When they are thrown away, they are either sent to landfills or donated. Donating clothes sounds like a good thing. It can actually be very A ding ro Rea und all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed e um C u r r ic ul Th http://www.literacyshedplus.com damaging. Over 100 billion items of clothing are sold by fast fashion chains each year. Only 1% are recycled. The others are either sent to a landfill or sent to other countries as donations. The other countries don’t really want them. Nearly half of the donations are too damaged to wear. They eventually get sent to a landfill in another country after producing even more greenhouse gases travelling there. Places like Ghana are particularly impacted by these practices. In the capital city of Accra, used clothing is blocking rivers. Overfull landfills reduce the habitats of wildlife and destroy communities. Local African clothing companies can’t compete with the prices of donated clothes. They are slowly going out of business. Whether you want to stay “on-trend” or not, it’s important to make informed choices about what you buy. VOCABULARY FOCUS 1. Which word in the first paragraph means “saying no to”. 2. Find and copy a word that describes somebody who other people want to copy. 3. Find and copy a phrase that means “out of nothing”. 4. What does “donated” mean? 5. If you make an “informed” choice, what does it mean? VIPERS QUESTIONS I Why do you think it is called “fast” fashion? R Where does most fast fashion end up? R Which country takes a lot of unwanted clothes? S How are donated clothes bad for the environment? S How might people be negatively affected when they make clothes? all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com