Shopping in 2022 is as convenient and carefree as possible. With a quick scroll or double-tap, you can buy almost anything anywhere, anytime. The fashion industry is notorious for its constant stream of new products, and the rise of fast fashion over the past two decades has given consumers an insatiable appetite for new clothes all the time. Companies are desperate to meet the ever-increasing demand and have aggressively mass-produced. But how much does it cost?

This is one of the basic questions Alyssa Hardy answers in her new book Worn Out: How Our Clothing Cover Up Fashion’s Sins. The book, she explains, is a byproduct of two factors. It’s her natural curiosity for less-discussed aspects of fashion, and a series of personal reflections that began during her tenure as editor of Teenage Vogue.

“I was writing a lot about brands and shopping, obviously for a younger audience, so I started to see the bigger picture of how fashion affects people,” Hardy, 33, told POPSUGAR. Women are a big part of the clothing industry.Women are the majority in the world.It was a very interesting part of the fashion industry, but I didn’t talk about it in my job. .

“With Worn Out, Hardy steps into a natural extension of her journalism work: the ultimate deep dive into what our clothes look like. For real Made, Hardy takes great care to put the voices of the people who keep the industry moving. However, Hardy maintains that fashion is not a personal matter. Throughout the book, combining her own reporting with her personal anecdotes, she argues that sustainability issues in fashion must be coordinated at the corporate level.

“Within fashion, it’s a matter of where the money is,” says Hardy. “Consumption is being driven by these very clever marketing campaigns. They’re still working, even when they look silly…and they’re being researched…”

Retailers can advertise dramatically inadequate so-called sustainability efforts. One of his recent examples is Kourtney’s Kardashian’s Boohoo collaboration with Barker, who has been named the brand’s “Sustainability Ambassador.” The reality TV star confirmed her decision to take on the role, promising to reveal how the clothes in her collection are considered more sustainable than Boohoo’s typical offerings. She has not yet done so.

“When you look at things like fast fashion, it’s clear that people are following trends, but at the end of the day, what people want is pretty clothes,” says Hardy. “It’s all about loving clothes. I believe that if we can bring it out of everyone, we can combine this love of clothes with the understanding that there is someone behind it.” to make them understand that [it] Help you feel that way — and you might be able to change your mindset a bit. ”

Read ahead to read Hardy’s conversation with POPSUGAR’s Contributing Senior Fashion Editor, Mekita Rivas, about the downsides of the logomania trend, the surprising role of subcontractors in the fashion supply chain, and more.