Fast fashion and crochet

While we’re on the topic of crochet:

Please know that, unlike knitting, crochet cannot be manufactured by machines. This has a few consequences.

Labour exploitation:

Labour exploitation is rampant in the fast fashion industry: without it, the industry simply would not exist.

This means that if you see a genuine crocheted piece in a fast fashion shop, it was made by hand by someone who was paid peanuts for their labour, if paid at all.

Fibre crafts are very labour-intensive. This is why crocheted/hand-knitted items by indie designers are priced the way they are: you’re notjust paying forthe materials. You’re also paying for the hours that were needed to design and make the item. Even if the designer were to price those hours at minimum wage, they still add up.

Fast fashion strives to manufacture items as cheaply as possible. A lot of different things make up the final priceyou pay at a shop, such as design, materials, shipping, packaging, marketing,… Labouris only a fraction of that price, and garment workers rarely get paid a living wage as to keep the prices down.

Take this seven part TikTok breakdown of a crocheted Target bikini top by Drea’s Hook, for example. After replicating part of the top, she estimates it would take about 3 hours to crochet the full item by hand (and it was crocheted by hand). That doesn’t even account for the materials, the labour needed to sew the lining and the tag, the design, shipping, stock photos,… Yet it only costs $22. If the person who crocheted the top was paidat all, it can hardly have been more than a few cents.

Stolen designs:

On top of labour exploitation, there’s been multiple scandals regarding fast fashion brands stealing designs by independent crochet artists such as Knots & VibesorLoupystudio, among others.

Design theft not only profits off the work done by the original designer withoutany form of compensation in return, it also devaluesthe work needed to make an item.

Theaverage person doesn’t know how much work goes into making clothes. When fast fashion brands knock off original designs and sell them for a fraction of the price, it propagates the idea that the original item was priced unfairly. After all, why would someone charge €250 for a sweater when you can buy a similar one for €15 at H&M? This way, the industrykeeps getting away with exploitingits workers while indie designers struggle to get by.

Caneveryoneafford to pay that €250? No, of course not. Even that €15 sweater can be a big financial hit if you’re on a budget, and we all need clothes to keep us warm in winter. But practical issues aside, I think we can all agree that everyone deserves fair compensation for their work.

Conclusion:

People often assumetheir clothes have been made by machines. This is a logical assumption given the average fast fashion price tag, but unfortunately it’s a wrongone.

Sure, we’ve got sewing and knitting machines and all other kinds of mechanical helps, but someone still has to work those machines. When an item has to be made by hand, like crochet, it will take longer. If the price tag doesn’t reflect this extra labour, then neither will the worker’s wage.

This blog will never shame anyone for buying fast fashion. Even if you’re aware of the problems within the industry, there’s plenty of valid reasons why quitting just isn’t an option for most of us. We’re stuck in a broken system that we cannot change overnight, and not everyone has access to alternatives.

That doesn’t mean we can’t chip away at it.Educating yourself about these issues is a big first step. It makes us more conscious about the clothes we wear and the labour and resources that went into making them, which in turn motivates us to take action. If more people were aware of these problems, the industry would be much less likely to get away with them.