Let’s be honest here for a second: fast fashion is destroying our planet. Brands seem to only care about profit, while they exploit cheap laborers in developing countries, dump toxic waste into rivers, and fill our landfills with cheap clothing. They also trick people into buying their clothes by promoting overconsumption, unrealistic lifestyles, and unattainable beauty standards.
You know you deserve better than this, right? But maybe you don’t know exactly which brands are we talking about. If you’re hoping your favorite fast fashion brand isn’t on this list, I assure you, it probably is. Even though you may have heard about the improvements some of these brands are making, unfortunately, that’s only the bare minimum they’re doing, and that’s probably only for some good PR.
We’re in a climate crisis, and sorry but I’m not going to applaud a company that sells millions of items a day just because they introduced a tiny collection with sustainable materials. We’ve passed that years ago…
We need brands to do more, and there are great brands that are doing more! However, the following companies have failed to tackle the environmental crisis, and if we continue supporting them, we are also responsible for the damage and exploitation associated with them!
1. Nike
Nike sells 25 pairs of shoes a second. I did the math and that’s more than 2 million pairs a day! And that’s just the shoes? Can you imagine now how much waste does Nike create a day?
According to Greenpeace, Nike also uses toxic chemicals that aren’t only very damaging to the environment, but also hazardous to the workers.
A recent report reveals that between 2017 and 2019 around 80,000 Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been transferred from Xinjiang by the Chinese government to work in factories around the country in a way that strongly suggests forced labor.
Support these eco-friendly activewear brands and shop these vegan running shoes instead!
2. Victoria’s Secret
Victoria’s Secret has also been revealed to use toxic chemicals in that same Greenpeace report mentioned above.
In addition, the brand is not transparent about the factories it’s working with. The company also fails to provide a living wage to its garment workers.
Fortunately, women are already starting to turn away from Victoria’s Secret beauty standards and looking for other brands that represent women of different body types and skin colors.
Where to buy your intimates instead? 25+ Affordable Eco Underwear Brands Making You Feel Sexy And Comfy
3. Zara
Zara’s founder, 84-year old Amancio Ortega is the 6th richest person in the world. How does that money come from? Estimated by Public Eye, on a €26.67 hoodie, the company makes €4.20 pre-tax profit, while only pays €2.09 for the garment workers. You become a billionaire and can’t pay your workers a minimum wage? I don’t care how stylish your clothes are, Zara, I won’t support you!
But wait for a second, your designs are only stylish because you stole them from high-end designers… Congratulations on being the most unethical fashion brand in the world!
RELATED: The Lure Of New and Shiny: How Fast Fashion Is Harming People & The Planet
4. H&M
H&M is amongst the brands you can often hear great news about. That’s because they’re really good at greenwashing, aka making them look more sustainable and ethical than they really are.
The brand has a clothing recycling campaign which sounds great at first. But you know what’s better? Clothes that are actually good quality and you don’t have to discard them after a couple of months!
H&M also has a more sustainable Conscious Collection. But when you look at that collection, it uses more sustainable materials but blends them with other fabrics to keep the prices low. It gets problematic when you realize that fabric blends can’t be recycled which just contradicts the brand’s whole recycling campaign.
The other thing H&M is really great at is promises. They promise to change things (that sustainable brands are already doing by the way) in the long term, 5 or 10 years. This makes them look like they care, but when the time comes they fail to keep those promises. But nobody cares by then, or they’ll just make another promise and problem solved. Just to give you an example, in 2013, after the Rana Plaza collapse, H&M pledged to provide fair wages to its workers by 2018. As of 2022, the Swedish fast fashion retailer still isn’t able to guarantee a living wage or maintain safety regulations.
RELATED: Should Vegans Shop At H&M?
5. Fashion Nova
Fashion Nova has received the worst rating by Good On You. The brand scored ‘very poor’ on environmental impact, labor conditions, and animal welfare.
We have to admit, Fashion nova is very good at influencer marketing. But otherwise, it sells cheap clothing that was made by underpaid workers in Los Angeles in quantities our planet can’t support anymore.
RELATED: 10 Affordable & Trendy Sustainable Alternatives to Fast Fashion
6. Forever 21
Forever 21 is the first big fast fashion brand to go bankrupt in 2019. They are still in business, unfortunately, but they had to close more than 15000 stores worldwide.
Similarly to Fashion nova, Forever 21 is also known for its unethical LA factories. The garment workers at these brands earn based on the number of items they produce instead of earning an hourly rate. Which is not the problem. The problem is that they get such a little amount per garment that even an experienced seamstress can’t earn more than around 5-6 dollars per hour. Which is not a living wage.
7. Pretty Little Thing
Pretty Little Thing had its shoppers horrified when the brand announced on its website that the clothes may contain toxic chemicals that can cause cancer and birth defects. At least they were honest about it…
The brand also has a completely ridiculous sustainability page on its website. A brand’s sustainability page should showcase all the ways the brand is trying to be more sustainable. Instead of this, Pretty Little Thing decided to put all the responsibility on the consumers and give you a couple of very basic tips on how to care for your clothes. I agree that clothing care is important, but I find it outrageous when brands create huge amounts of waste, do nothing about it, and then tell you how to be more sustainable. We shouldn’t accept that as consumers anymore, and it shouldn’t have to be on us to undo all the damage these brands create!
Oh, wait, Pretty Little Thing has a sustainable collection made of recycled plastic bottles! Looks cool by the way! All the 24 styles. However, compared to the total of 15038 styles currently on their site, that 24 looks so small, exactly 0,0016%.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Pretty Little Thing is doing greenwashing at its finest!
8. Mango
Mango is rated “Not Good Enough” on Good On You. The company doesn’t disclose any of its suppliers, how much they pay to their workers, and what rights they provide them.
In terms of sustainability, the brand has very vague commitments. Mango even switched to a faster business model in the last 5 years and now reveals a new collection every two weeks.
9. Shein
The way Shein operates is kinda disgusting. They find popular designs from other retailers and make very cheap copies of them. Sometimes the item on the picture is the original, and what you get looks completely different. But who cares when a dress costs $8, right? Well, we should care because if their clothes look garbage, you won’t wear them, and they’ll probably end up in landfills. Shein’s business model is based on deceiving the people who shop from them and destroying the environment. And underpaid workers probably! We shouldn’t support a brand that does these kinds of things with our money!
10. ASOS
Asos is another fast-fashion retailer that sells cheap, bad quality clothing made of mostly polyester or other synthetic fabrics.
I used to shop at Asos and it’s just the worst. At least 50% of the time they messed up my order. Something was missing, I got something else, whatever, their delivery is a mess. Once I got a package that was meant for a complete stranger. At least their customer service is very nice. They’ll just send you another one, it doesn’t matter.
But it does matter actually! That’s so much textile waste and unnecessary plastic packaging.
I didn’t even keep those clothes for long, because the quality was so bad, and they looked very different on me than on the models on the website. Youtuber Justine Leconte had a very similar experience:
11. Topshop
Topshop is one of the biggest UK fast fashion brands. The company is owned by Philip Green who’s also the owner of Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge, and Evans. Green is the 1001th richest person in the world with a net worth of 2.1 billion dollars. He’s another billionaire who got rich at the expense of underpaid garment workers. But even the Topshop store cleaners earn reportedly less than a living wage.
The good news is, Topshop is struggling financially, and it might be the next fast-fashion giant to collapse. And the global pandemic didn’t help: according to Forbes, Topshop is fighting for survival and the owner, Philip Green is refusing to pay shop rents.
Do you live in the UK? Check out these brands instead: 30 Eco-Fashion Brands From The UK We Can’t Stop Talking About
12. Urban Outfitters
Urban Outfitters has been in the spotlight for so many controversies. I guess they try to be edgy with their designs, but many times it comes off as simply offensive.
The company’s CEO, Richard Hayne is obviously homophobic and has donated to anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion organizations. He also owns Anthropologie and Free People, by the way.
There was another scandal when Urban Outfitters workers were had to work on the weekend for free disguised as “training days”. A brand that tries to pull off things like this probably doesn’t care about the living wage and working conditions of its garment workers.
13. Bershka
Bershka is owned by Inditex, an umbrella company that also includes Zara, Pull & Bear, Stradivarius, and Oysho. All of these brands produce low-quality, ill-fitting clothes and depend on selling big quantities for a small price, fastly changing and unsustainable trends, and of course, underpaid labor. Which made Amancio Ortega the 6th richest person in the world (see at Zara) at the expense of the environment and exploited garment workers.
14. Primark
Primark clothes are famous for their extremely low prices and maybe even lower quality. Of course, the brand is rated as “Not Good Enough” on Good On You because of its huge carbon footprint, its incredible amount of waste production, its lack of transparency, and its use of unsustainable materials. Primark needs to be stopped if we want to have a greener future!
15. Stradivarius
Stradivarius is owned by Inditex, an umbrella company that also includes Zara, Pull & Bear, Bershka, and Oysho. All of these brands produce low-quality, ill-fitting clothes and depend on selling big quantities for a small price, fastly changing and unsustainable trends, and of course, underpaid labor. Which made Amancio Ortega the 6th richest person in the world (see at Zara) at the expense of the environment and exploited garment workers.
16. Pull & Bear
Pull & Bear is owned by Inditex, an umbrella company that also includes Zara, Stradivarius, Bershka, and Oysho. All of these brands produce low-quality, ill-fitting clothes and depend on selling big quantities for a small price, fastly changing and unsustainable trends, and of course, underpaid labor. Which made Amancio Ortega the 6th richest person in the world (see Zara) at the expense of the environment and exploited garment workers.
17. Boohoo
Boohoo is an online retailer with ridiculously low prices given the fact that the clothes are produced locally in the UK, in Leicester and Manchester. According to the Guardian, these UK workers earn illegally low wages that are less than a minimum wage. And there’s also the environmental cost of low-quality, cheap clothing, made with unsustainable materials in big quantities.
18. Missguided
When a brand sells bikinis for £1, you know there’s something fishy about them. For that price, you can’t produce a piece of garment ethically. The brand completely disregards workers’ rights and the current environmental crises by selling ultra-cheap, disposable fashion. Missguided is obviously very misguided because it hasn’t realized yet that fast fashion is not trendy anymore!
19. Riachuelo
Riachuelo is a Brazilian fast fashion brand that, just like the other fast fashion brands, makes cheap, low-quality clothing, with unsustainable materials, such a polyester, and nylon. The brand also takes advantage of workers earning less than a living wage.
20. Wish
On Wish, you can shop from different sellers from all around the world, but mainly from China. Which makes the prices go even lower because usually there are no middlemen involved. But it also makes Wish riskier than other fashion retailers. Wish only acts as a marketplace, so it doesn’t have to guarantee that the items are made ethically, nor that you really get what you ordered.
I’ve heard from friends who have experience with the site, that ordering from Wish is like gambling. Sometimes you get what you ordered, sometimes you don’t, but it is so cheap that you don’t even care.
21. AliExpress
AliExpress works basically the same way as Wish.
On AliExpress you can shop from different sellers from all around the world, but mainly from China. Which makes the prices go even lower because usually there are no middlemen involved. But it also makes AliExpress riskier than other fashion retailers. AliExpress only acts as a marketplace, so it doesn’t have to guarantee that the items are made ethically, nor that you really get what you ordered.
22. Zaful
Zaful is just like Shein.
The way Zaful operates is kinda disgusting. They find popular designs from other retailers and make very cheap copies of them. Sometimes the item on the picture is the original, and what you get looks completely different. But who cares when a dress costs $8, right? Well, we should care because if their clothes look garbage, you won’t wear them, and they’ll probably end up in landfills. Zaful’s business model is based on deceiving the people who shop from them and destroying the environment. And underpaid workers probably! We shouldn’t support a brand that does these kinds of things with our money!
23. Hollister
Hollister and its parent company, Abercombie & Fitch were the go-to brands for upper-class teenagers. Now both brands are struggling financially, and moving towards fast fashion to “stay relevant”. It seems like they are at least one decade behind the competition, because in 2020, in the midst of an environmental crisis, staying relevant would mean giving a f*uck about the environment!
24. Nasty Gal
As you might know from the #Girlboss book or TV show that Nasty Gal wasn’t always fast fashion. The company started out as a vintage reseller in 2006 but it quickly became an online retail giant. In 2016 the brand has filed for bankruptcy and has been bought by Boohoo the following year.
At first sight, Nasty Gal doesn’t look like a fast-fashion brand, because its prices are much higher than the average fast-fashion prices. And it seems like everything is on sale on their website all the time. So you think you get a good deal on high-end clothes, but actually, you just buy low-quality fast fashion at a normal price. The materials are cheap and synthetic, the fits are weird, and the clothes look much worse in real life than on the website.
25. Abercombie & Fitch
Hollister and its parent company, Abercombie & Fitch were the go-to brands for upper-class teenagers. Now both brands are struggling financially, and moving towards fast fashion to “stay relevant”. It seems like they are at least one decade behind the competition, because in 2020, in the midst of an environmental crisis, staying relevant would mean giving a f*uck about the environment!
26. Gymshark
Gymshark’s rating on Good On You is “Not Good Enough” because of the lack of sustainable textiles and worker empowerment initiatives.
The other problem with Gymshark is that it’s not inclusive at all. All their models and influencers are super fit women with tiny waists and big butts. And if your body doesn’t look like that? Well, no workout clothes for you then.
27. Anthropologie
Anthropologie doesn’t seem like fast fashion, it’s so much more expensive. But the brand still uses unsustainable materials such as polyester and doesn’t share any information about how their garments were made. Which is usually a sign of using sweatshops.
Anthropologie is owned by Urban Outfitters which is another red flag!
For Anthropology prices, you can easily find clothes that were made sustainably and ethically: Top Sustainable Fashion Brands to Buy in 2020
28. Brandy Melville
Brandy Melville is a fast-fashion brand with a 90s aesthetic and it’s very popular amongst teens. The brand mainly advertises on Instagram to its young audience and this is where it gets ugly. Almost all girls on their Instagram page are white, there is no racial inclusivity whatsoever. It also looks like Brandy Melville is literally fat-phobic! There are no girls who are larger than a size 4 featured on their page. Then I checked the website and realized: the brand only sells clothes in one size: small.
And of course, the clothes are cheap, have low quality, and were made in China in who knows what kind of conditions.
29. American Eagle Outfitters
Ironically, despite having “American” in the brand’s name, AEO manufactures its clothes overseas, mostly in China.
The brand was involved in multiple scandals a few years ago thanks to its supply chain practices. In 2015, for example, it has been revealed that the brand was still using sandblasting, a method for aging jeans, that is very dangerous, sometimes deadly to the workers.
American Eagle has pledged to improve both its supply chain and environmental impact a few years ago but hasn’t made any visible, significant progress so far.
30. Free People
Similarly to Anthropologie, Free People doesn’t seem like fast fashion, it’s so much more expensive. But the brand still uses unsustainable materials such as polyester and doesn’t share any information about how their garments were made. Which is usually a sign of using sweatshops.
Free People is owned by Urban Outfitters which is another red flag!
For Free People prices, you can easily find clothes that were made sustainably and ethically: Top Sustainable Fashion Brands to Buy in 2020
31. GAP
The American Gap was once one of the biggest fashion retailers in its home country. Since then the brand has become just another fast-fashion brand known for its cheap, but low-quality clothes.
Gap has made some efforts to tackle its enormous environmental footprint and improve its supply chain. However, according to Good On You, there’s still room for improvement, Gap has received an “It’s A Start” rating.
32. NA-KD
NA-KD has a sustainable line called NA-KD Reborn which looks very promising actually. It uses organic cotton, recycled cotton, recycled polyester, Ecovero™ viscose, and Tencel™ Lyocell. And it is also very affordable. However, other NA-KD collections are still unsustainable, but NA-KD tries to portray itself as a sustainable brand. Which is greenwashing.
NA-KD also sells clothing from other fast fashion brands that aren’t sustainable at all.
33. New Look
New Look is rated “Not Good Enough” on Good On You. Like many other brands, New Look is also trying to reduce its prices even more to combat plummeting sales.
An undercover reporter revealed that the brand pays £3 per hour to its garment workers in UK sweatshops.
Instead of focusing on making the company more sustainable and ethical, they seem to focus on greenwashing! New Look’s conscious collection, New Look Kind, is full of unsustainable materials, like acrylic, nylon, and polyester. Their main collection is even more unsustainable with a lot of synthetic textiles.
Which clothing materials are good and which aren’t? Textiles Ranked by Comfort, Environmental Impact & Animal Cruelty
34. Walmart
Walmart is one of the biggest US retailers and they are far from being ethical and sustainable. The quality of their clothes is so bad, they fall apart very quickly and they’ll be heading to the landfills in no time.
Walmart was one of the brands sourcing from Rana Plaza, the factory that collapsed in 2013 in Bangladesh and caused the death of more than a thousand people.
The owner of Walmart, Jim Walton, is the 8th richest person in the world. Another person who became a billionaire by producing overseas in sweatshops and destroying the environment with low-quality items.
35. Uniqlo
Uniqlo is a Japanese fashion brand. They have made some progress towards being more sustainable in the last couple of years. The brand is ranked “It’s A Start” on Good On You.
However, Uniqlo hasn’t made any effort to improve workers’ rights. The company’s suppliers don’t pay a living wage to their workers. And there are people who had made clothes for Uniqlo and hadn’t been paid at all.
A brand can back out of an order at any time. But if it doesn’t pay the factory, the factory can’t pay its workers…
36. River Island
In 2019 River Island had to recall clothes because they contained harmful amounts of toxic chemicals.
River Island states it pays a living wage throughout its supply chain, but an undercover reporter revealed that the brand pays £3 per hour to its garment workers in UK sweatshops.
37. Old Navy
Old Navy is owned by Gap. The brand is supposed to be a cheaper alternative to Gap. Just as Gap, Old Navy is also rated “It’s A Start” on Good On You. But let’s not forget that it’s a budget-friendly version of an already not so brilliant fast fashion brand. This means that Old Navy has even lower quality so it produces even more textile waste.
Thrifting is a better affordable option for you and for the planet too!
38. Target
Target can be a very dangerous place to shop. You go in to buy your groceries and other necessities. Then you notice that there are sandals for $7. You buy at least 2 pairs of them because they are so cute, and you just know they won’t last the whole summer. And now that you’re at the clothes section, you quickly grab 2 tops and a dress too…
Their cheap prices and the fact that their clothes don’t last that long will make you come back. Even though you’re buying budget fashion, you’ll end up paying more in the long term. And the tons of discarded clothing is terrible for the environment.
39. Oysho
Oysho is an underwear brand owned by Inditex, an umbrella company that also includes Zara, Stradivarius, Bershka, and Pull & Bear. All of these brands produce low-quality, ill-fitting clothes and depend on selling big quantities for a small price, fastly changing and unsustainable trends, and of course, underpaid labor. Which made Amancio Ortega the 6th richest person in the world (see at Zara) at the expense of the environment and exploited garment workers.
