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Comment by raman162 | Hacker News Reader

I believe that this answers my original question I made in a previous comment regarding the impact on environmental fast fashion. Sounds like it's better for the environment for someone to use rent the runway versus making a purchase at H&M.

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Maybe or maybe not. Making and moving four articles to H&M, then to the consumer who might wear them 5x each is not obviously worse than making one article, moving it to Rent the Runway and then moving it twice for each of 20 wearings.

Fashion industry produces 10% of world CO2 and consumes a ton of water in the process [1]. To get H&M pricing, you’re using extremely low pay workers which in the case of China, could easily be forced labor. You have to include the total picture to make a fair comparison.

[1] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/09/23/costo-m...

Thanks for sharing that link. It really is an eye opener.

Although, this number seems wrong. Is the entire fashion industry only valued at 2.4B?

> The fashion industry is key for economic development: it is valued at some USD 2.4 billion globally and directly employees 75 million people throughout its value chain.

I've never connected the Swedish clothing scene with fast-fashion. Do people buy things at H&M and wear them just 20 times? I associate it with very slowly changing sensible basics like hoodies that I'd buy and wear for three years.

I think a lot of fast fashion is sold with the expectation that it may only be worn 2-3 times.

Part of the thing with fast fashion like h&m is that their size and quality are so inconsistent you may buy 5 things and (generously) only wear 1 of them especially if you order online, and you may not even feel that it’s worth returning a couple $5-$8 t shirts.

That 1 article you like, you’re lucky if it lasts a full year

It depends a lot on how you dress. I'm not trying to prove a stereotype, but my girlfriend will buy from H&M and maybe wear a top 3-4x. She has a ton of outfits though so she may wear those tops over several years.

Me, on the other hand, bought 10 shirts from H&M of various colors and I wore them until the threads fell apart and you could see my skin. The shirts still lasted for a few years.

Both of our shirts ended up lasting about the same amount of time, but were used way differently

H&M is quintessential fast fashion. Not every item is created with that life cycle, such as basics, but many are.

Unfortunately things from H&M rarely last past the first 5 or 10 uses in any semblance of their original shape, size, and color (in my experience)

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