The rise of low rise will be the death of us all.

With all the new fads and micro trends, the fashion world has become a mangled heap of cheaply and unethically made confusion. How did we get here?

Fashion has a rich and complex history that changes with culture and decade influenced by celebrities and current events. Now, with the rise of social media, trends are coming and going faster than ever before.

With so many different styles and aesthetics it can be very difficult to figure out your own personal style, and with this topsy-turvy approach, people will purchase cheap, “trendy” clothes from sketchy and unethical companies to avoid trapping themselves in a here-today, gone-later-today micro trend. Sustainability has been thrown out the window with this endless stream of new trends, because as soon as a trend is over, people will throw away those inexpensive and poorly made clothes or never wear them again.

Fashion is supposed to be about self expression and finding beauty in normal things. Bill Cunningham, the late fashion photographer, said that "Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life."

Fashion should not be boiled down to wearing the trendiest, cheapest thing you can find. Thrift shopping is a great, cost effective alternative to both fast fashion and overpriced sustainable fashion. There is a lot of variety in the clothes they sell, and recently, online thrift stores have been popping up everywhere.

Thrifting is inexpensive, and you can usually find higher quality items, sometimes there’s even quality designer items in thrift stores. It’s also a very environmentally friendly option as thrifting does not give money to big corporations and saves discarded clothing from going to landfills. There’s so many different types of clothing in thrift stores, from vintage to Y2K to emo, that anybody could find pieces that they’ll like.

The culture that surrounds fashion needs to shift. Instead of buying into brief fads, you should buy clothes that make you feel confident and happy. Buying from locally owned, trusted shops and thrift shopping can ensure that you’re buying quality items, and is a more ethical investment than fast fashion.

Take your foot off the fast fashion accelerator.