Fast Fashion x Designer: Accessibility or Exploitative Marketing?

Love it or leave it, designer collaborations aren’t going anywhere. In fact, they are sought after. The major collab that had everyone buzzing in 2023 was H&M x Mugler, which launched in May 2023 and within 24 hours was almost completely sold out. Perhaps this goes without saying, H&M is a fast fashion brand. Fast fashion brands mass-produce garments in unsafe working conditions, under threats of violence and job loss in, largely, the global south. But the exploitation doesn’t stop there. What many consumers don’t understand, and this is by design and lack of transparency in supply chains, is that in order to keep prices low, brands pay their garment workers poverty wages. What’s more, is that these practices grossly exploit the environment. The United States alone accounts for 11.3 million tons of textile waste per year. Which is the equivalent of about 81.5 pounds of clothing thrown away per American per year.

Designer Drops, Fast Fashion Fever: Why Collabs?

So, let’s talk about it. Or more appropriately, let’s talk about high-low fashion collaborations in general. 

We’ll start with, why? Why collaborate at all? Why would a fashion house, a designer brand, sully their name by collaborating with a fast fashion brand? Especially when they put up such a fuss about exclusivity that they often damage their excess and unsold garments and goods by quite literally slashing and burning them. But collaborating with a fast fashion brand that sells cheap garments is totally acceptable and within their exclusivity framework? Questions abound.

While many designers and fast fashion brands will champion accessibility as the primary focus of collaboration collections, we all know the truth, right? Greed. Well, bolstered profit through cross-promotion and thus, greed. But as with all things in the fashion industry, the real answer is far more complex and nuanced.

A Brief History of Fast Fashion x Designer Collabs

H&M might be the most recognized for their high-low designer collabs, but they aren’t the first. Target introduced its first high-low collaboration with renowned architect Michael Graves in 1999. But their fashion designer collabs began with Stephen Sprouse in 2002 and really took off with Isaac Mizrahi in 2003.

Perhaps Target’s 2011 collaboration with Missoni is the perfect example of why fashion houses partner with fast fashion brands or big box stores. Through what they called their Designer Collaboration Initiative, Target’s partnership with Missoni outpaced any Cyber Monday or Black Friday online traffic up until that point. This partnership wasn’t restricted to just clothing, the collection featured 400 products across departments. The overwhelming demand crashed the Target website several times and the collection sold out within a few days.  

It wasn’t just Target and H&M that were testing the waters and building a collaboration empire. If you’re not in the streetwear scene, you might have missed all the collaborations that are an inherent piece of the puzzle. Collaborations in streetwear have been a long-standing staple. And much like the streetwear aesthetic, designer collaborations have been commodified outside of the community that was responsible for creating it. 

This should go without saying, but a strong, well-thought-out collaboration leverages the creative and elemental gifts of both parties. The resulting collaboration should look like a fusing of the brands or designers. The two should play together nicely, highlighting each other’s strengths while playing to the compatibility of the two. Streetwear collaborations were, and in many aspects still are, the blueprint for all collaborations.

Read the full article at Green and Beyond.