Li Edelkort exposes how the fashion industry has not evolved so much over the last years. Although there is an increasing production and demand for clothes, the methods used to design and sell fashion remain the same. A problem she highlights is the way fashion is taught at schools, where students all want to become famous designers rather than creating everyday clothes that are sustainable and fashion. She suggests schools should teach more about industrial fashion design as well as textile materials as there is not enough research being done concerning new types of materials that could be adopted in the industry. Last semester, I participated in the Trash Fashion Show and although I designed something that looked good and made out of trash, I still feel it was not that sustainable as the clothes I made could not be worn more than a few times and less be washed. When I was thinking about my design I was thinking about what kind of materials could replace fabric and still be wearable and practical, but I could not really come up with an idea, so I ended up using plastic. I have recently seen at some stores, more and more clothes made out of plastic, especially coats or jackets but I am not sure how these clothes can be washed or if they are actually useful. So I think doing more research on textiles and other materials would truly make fashion more sustainable.
Both Fletcher and Edelkort describe many problems concerning the fast-fashion industry such as the bad quality of the clothes, the low wages of people who make the clothes and how the marketing make people consume these clothes in great amounts. For instance, it is really questionable how the owner of Inditex, one of the biggest companies of fast-fashion, is one of the richest men on earth while people who actually make these clothes come from poor countries where often that is the only job that they can take even though the salaries are really low. We should move to a more slow-fashion industry where more small brands are supported and there is more awareness that companies can sell less at a higher price but with better quality and fairness to all people involved in the industry.