Fashion plays such an important role in the society we live in today. Fashion trends are constantly changing. As a person who likes to keep up with those changes, it often can become expensive trying to have the latest pieces. Because of this most people are looking for affordable and easily accessible fashion. Without affordable fashion and stores that provide it, a lot of people would be unable to keep up with the trends they see on their social media platforms. When the media reports on affordable fashion, often it can be hard to determine what is news and what is opinion. This blog post will break down four articles and concepts surrounding affordable fashion.
One store that caters to affordable fashion is Forever 21. Forever 21 is known for its cheaper pieces and the concept of “fast-fashion”. Unfortunately for Forever 21, its rise to fame met a pretty hard fall when the brand had to file for bankruptcy. In this NBC news article title “Forever 21’s Business Model Was Way out of Fashion“, the author reports on things that led to the demise of Forever 21. One major aspect to the fall of Forever 21 was that it expanded it’s physical stores at a time when people were much more interested in online and smaller stores. This article provides a look into the business model Forever 21 used and the reasons it caused the store to have to file for bankruptcy. Because of this, this is a news article. It is in the NBC News section and the report is free from “advice” or “opinions” on the store itself. The author Martha C. White, was able to provide an unbiased look at the store which helps the reader to know that this was based on facts and not feelings.
Another aspect to affordable fashion is how its made. With stores like Forever 21 and Zara who are constantly pumping out new pieces, its hard to not wonder how much waste a company is contributing or whether they’re ethically creating their clothes. In the article “Zara’s Fast-Fashion Problems in Focus“, it highlights just that. Zara is similar to Forever 21 with the concept of fast fashion but climate activists have constantly pointed out that Zara has become extremely wasteful. This article written by Stephanie Müller again demonstrates reporting without bias. The facts about Zara are clearly laid out without any opinion or fluff. This article gets right to the point of showing the statistics as to why Zara is a pretty wasteful brand.
Opposite to news articles about affordable fashion are opinion articles. A BBC article title “Fast Fashion: Can it ever be ethical and cheap?” is similar to the previous article mentioned however it is clearly an opinion piece because in it, two people sit down to share their thoughts on the topic. This conversation is between a menswear fashion designer and a person who runs a fast fashion factory. They are in the business and are basically sharing their opinions on why they are right and what they are doing is right. This article has no statistics or facts, its just an article about opinions.
A different way that affordable fashion is portrayed in media is through lists. Articles like “The 19 Best Affordable Fashion Finds Under $100” is a great representation of an all opinion based article. The author of this article put together their 19 favorite affordable pieces but they might not be yours. Articles like these help to highlight affordable fashion pieces and normalize them but with little to no real facts or statistics. It is all about how the author feels about pieces and what they want you to wear. I actually struggled with finding articles that were real news stories on affordable fashion because most were like this. A lot of fashion articles in the media are often dictating what you should wear or how you should dress. This opinion article demonstrates just that.
After looking at how affordable fashion is portrayed in the news, it’s easy to see that you need to think critically when reading articles about this topic. If I were to rank these articles on their reliability, I would put the Forever 21 article first. Second would be the article about Zara and I would put the BBC article in third. In last place I would put the opinion list on affordable fashion finds. The first two articles actually provide me with factual insight into the affordable fashion brands that might help me decide whether or not I would patronize them. The BBC article was interesting and I learned a lot but it was based on two people who are in the industry’s opinions. The final article was just way too opinion based to take anything away from.
My biggest take away from writing this blog post is that affordable fashion can have many aspects to it in the news. Affordable fashion is something that is most likely not going anywhere any time soon. With these articles, they all help the reader to make more informed decisions on the topics they cover and open your eyes to how important affordable fashion is.
