Fashion Business Context 1 | Page 13

Ethical Issues -Fast Fashion Fast fashion not only has extremely harmful impacts on the environment but also on the factory workers who are poorly paid and have their health and safety put at risk in bad working conditions. An example of this is the Rana Plaza disaster of April 24th 2013 where 1,135 people were killed when the building collapsed. (Dhaka, 2016) This is now known as the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry worldwide and it sparked some vast changes in workplace laws and consumer behaviour. (Whistles, 2014b) One of the most heavily involved brands in the Rana Plaza disaster is the value market retailer Primark, who was on the front page of every major media outlet at the time. The total compensation that Primark had to pay out reached over $14m (Butler, 2014). High end high street brands such as All Saints should acknowledge this situation and realise that in order to avoid the negative stigma that will follow Primark for the foreseeable future they need to change how they are perceived. 12