Fast fashion vs. Trump: why women may pay more in the tariff wars

It's Been a Minute

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🗓️ 2 April 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

At the beginning of the year, Brittany spoke to ELLE Fashion Features Director and author, Véronique Hyland, about the growing trend of underconsumption content online. No-Buy January, buying secondhand, and mending old clothes seemed to be taking hold amongst some of the most popular influencers - even though the guiding principle of underconsumption is something we've been doing for a long time.

Then, Trump started implementing tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada - and now even the European Union. That made Brittany think: how would fast fashion be affected by this? And would underconsumption move from a hashtag to a lifestyle? To find out, The Indicator's Wailin Wong joins the show to break down how tariffs will affect Americans who love to shop... when the prices drop.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from MintMobile. MintMobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right.
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0:12.2	See for yourself at mintmobile.com slash switch.
0:18.7	Hello, hello. I'm Brittany loose, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
0:35.5	Two or three months ago, I went into my closet to do my routine purge.
0:40.6	Attempted it and failed many times.
0:43.6	But this last time, it actually worked.
0:49.0	Emma Chamberlain, who's one of the biggest influencers,
0:52.3	she became known in part for her thrift halls.
0:56.3	And she just threw out 95% of her wardrobe.
1:01.9	That is Veronique Highland.
1:03.8	Thank you for having me.
1:05.1	Fashion features director at Elle, an author of dress code,
1:08.8	unlocking fashion from the new look to millennial pink.
1:12.2	She's followed online fashion trends from mob wives to Vera Bradley's TikTok revival,
1:17.7	and after watching Emma Chamberlain's closet clean out, she noticed the latest shift in online fashion,
1:24.3	underconsumption. I was seeing people sometimes refer to it as underconsum consumption core, and I thought, well, this is something that a lot of people have been doing for a long time.
1:34.2	Because there are people who are doing no buy January or even no buy years.
1:40.0	And then there are sort of more low buy or shopyour closet, as we called it during the recession.
1:45.7	According to McKinsey & Company, from 2000 to 2014, clothing production doubled.
1:51.3	And the number of garments purchased per capita increased by about 60%.
1:55.9	That's in part due to the rise of fast fashion.
	...

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