From Fast Fashion to Global Control

The global fashion industry churns out over 100 billion garments a year — 10 times more clothes than there are people on the planet. But fast fashion isn’t just cheap clothing. It’s colonial supply chains, algorithmic manipulation, and a Race to the Bottom, designed to extract wealth from workers, water, and culture in the Global South — all to enrich a handful of corporations.

In a world where housing, healthcare, and stability are out of reach, buying cheap clothes can feel like the only form of relief available. We’re told fast fashion is “affordable and accessible,” but the truth is that the elites rely on this cycle to keep us buying, distracted, and silent, so the system continues unchecked.

In this enlightening episode of The Tea, Aja Barber — writer, stylist, and author of Consumed — exposes how fast fashion became colonialism 2.0, why overconsumption is an engineered obsession, and how our wardrobes are linked to the erosion of workers’ rights worldwide.

We uncover:

⚡ The Race to the Bottom — why fast fashion is exploitative by design

⚡ The recycling myth & how clothing waste ends up in the Global South

⚡ Algorithms that keep us consuming when we feel powerless

⚡ Fashion monopolies, union-busting & lost collective bargaining

⚡ How fast fashion erodes unique cultures and ideas

⚡ Greenwashing as a marketing trick

⚡ Why stop buying is the first radical step

As Aja puts it, there are no shortcuts: “We have to quit the high street, unsubscribe from the emails, unfollow the brands.” Our oppression is directly linked to the person who makes our clothes: “And once you see the system, you can’t unsee it.”

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AUDIO CREDITS

Presenter–Producer: Dr. Myriam François

Guest: Aja Barber

Senior Producer: Sara Farolfi

Producer: Nadège Bizimungu

Assistant Producer: Poppy Jacobs

Research: Martha Missingham and Katy Deboo

Video Editor: Max Bubnov

An MPWR Productions show.

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