There is something almost irresistible about a $10 shirt.
Maybe you wear it twice. Maybe it survives one semester. Maybe another trend takes its place before you even get that far. At that price, replacing it hardly feels consequential.
I remember seeing that mentality firsthand as a student at Sacred Heart. At the end of the academic year, perfectly good clothes, sometimes things that looked as though they had barely been worn, would end up discarded during move-out. When clothing is cheap enough, it becomes easy to think of it as disposable.
That feeling is precisely what makes fast fashion work.
For two years, researchers at the Ramos Research Institute examined the fast-fashion industry from three directions: its business model and global supply chains, government regulation, and finally the psychology and behavior of the consumers who keep it moving. What emerged was a simple conclusion: cheap clothing carries costs that never appear on the price tag.
The modern fashion cycle bears little resemblance to the traditional seasonal model. Some fast-fashion retailers now operate around more than 50 “micro-seasons” a year, constantly introducing new products and creating another reason to buy. Social media accelerates that cycle.
Influencers, viral aesthetics and fear of missing out can make last month’s clothes feel obsolete even when they are perfectly usable.
Then there are the costs we rarely see.
The industry consumes extraordinary amounts of water and generates enormous quantities of textile waste and pollution. Its global supply chains also place the people making our clothing thousands of miles away from the consumers buying it, making the environmental and human consequences easy to ignore.
It would be convenient to make this entirely the consumer’s responsibility. Buy less. Thrift more. Stop ordering massive clothing hauls.
Those things help. They are also insufficient.
Our research ultimately recommended a combination of consumer education, corporate accountability and public policy, including stronger transparency requirements, protections against misleading environmental claims and greater use of extended producer responsibility, which places more responsibility on manufacturers for what happens to their products at the end of their useful lives.
Consumers still have considerable power, though.
I have come to enjoy secondhand shopping, particularly while traveling in Europe. I have found vintage and name-brand pieces from Ralph Lauren to Giorgio Armani at prices far below what I might pay for them new. The point is hardly that everyone should start buying luxury clothing. It is that quality already exists, often at accessible prices, and a well-made piece can remain in your closet for years rather than weeks. Our research similarly found growing opportunities in secondhand markets as an alternative to the constant churn of fast fashion.
So before the next Shein haul, stop for a moment. Ask whether you actually want everything in your cart, how often you will wear it and whether that same money could buy something designed to last.
If it happens to be your parents’ money, they may appreciate the question too.
And someday, perhaps instead of throwing that shirt away during move-out, you might own something worth keeping, repairing or even passing down.
A $10 shirt may feel cheap. Someone, somewhere, is still paying the rest of the bill.
Alejandro J. Ramos ’23 is the founding executive director of the Ramos Research Institute, a doctoral student at Vanderbilt University, and a member of the Sacred Heart University Alumni Association Board of Directors.
