Fast Fashion Gets Faster. But It Has An Incredible Opportunity to Make a Change for the Better

Prototypes in the fashion industry used to be considered essential. But with the rise of 3-D rendering of clothing designs, they're quickly becoming obsolete. 

​That's the focus of this article, which I read with great interest earlier this week. 

My immediate response was "Great. Another way for fast fashion to get even faster. And cheaper, and lower quality. Another way to destroy the planet, faster." And it's quite likely that a lot of fashion brands will use the technology exactly in this way. 

My second thought was that there's a lot of opportunity here - less cost and less waste being chief among them. Fashion brands can (and are beginning to) market using 3-D renderings that are so good, it's hard to tell they only exist on the screen. They can then decide whether there's enough consumer demand to go forward with a design, rather than spending the time, money, and resources on producing garments that just sit on shelves. 

Given the fashion industry's current trajectory, it seems like the cost and waste reduction benefits of this technology will be overshadowed by the moremoremore mentality. Fashion brands eager to revive dwindling profits will use everything in their power to get back on top. But a few brands will hopefully grasp that more and better aren't the same thing. That they can gain more profit by streamlining their processes to produce(and waste) less, while selling substantially all of their stock every season.