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Faster fashion, more wastage
by Angel Li
A wave of fast fashion has swept Hong Kong over the past few years with queues seen tailing outside clothing chains, but the success of the trendy business sparks concerns over the generation of unnecessary wastage.
In a survey conducted by the Friends
of the Earth in Hong Kong, 44 per cent
of the 618 interviewees threw away brand
new clothes, citing reasons including "no
longer like it", "outdated", "forgot that it
was bought" and "too many clothes to be
worn".
Delvin Cheng Chung-wang, project
officer of the green group that did the
survey in March 2005, said the wastage
problem, instead of improving, seemed
to have worsened over the last two years.
His group has often collected unwanted
new clothes with tags in plastic bags.
Salvation Army Hong Kong collected
120,000 kilograms of donated clothes,
both old and new ones, in September last
year, as heavy as about 24 adult African
elephants. The amount is a surge of 41
per cent compared to the figure in the
same month of the previous year.
Betty Lee Ka-man, who researches on brands and consumer behaviours at the City University of Hong Kong, attributed the clothes wastage problem to impulsive shopping. "Fast fashion companies like H&M make impulsive buying behaviour more serious," said the assistant professor of the university's Centre for Communication Research.
Long queues or crowds are often found
at H&M and Zara since the European
brands opened their first stores in Hong
Kong in March this year and in 2004
respectively.
Dr Lee said customers tended to snap items up because each design of clothes in fast fashion stores was not produced in bulk and might be sold out within a short period of time. The relatively low prices of clothing also encourage consumers to buy without second thoughts.
"We can wear the ‘unwearable' now," Dr Lee said, referring to the fact that people could now buy the once-expensive outfits at affordable prices with shops like Zara and Mango, both Spanish brands, having opened in the city.
But she considers H&M more influential in encouraging consumption because the Swedish fast fashion retailer features popular designers such as Stella McCartney and Viktor & Rolf.
A wedding dress of the Viktor & Rolf
collection designed for H&M, for example,
was priced at US$349 (about HK$2,722)
in the United States last year, whereas a
white dress with the Dutch designer duo
label was sold in fashion store I.T in
Hong Kong at HK$6,199.
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