"Fast Fashion vs. Sustainability: Navigating Norway’s Consumer Culture and the Path to Greener Fashion"

The fashion industry’s pursuit of fast fashion has inclined a culture of overconsumption especially among teenagers worldwide. Norway is no different. The minimum pay scheme in Norway allows teenagers to earn around 19 USD per hour, and due to the high living standards and fashion consciousness, they relentlessly buy clothing according to the current trends and styles. In a 2022 survey regarding the consumerism of clothes and shoes, it was found that the Norwegians bought over 50% higher number of clothes and shoes than the EU average (Jakobsen, 2023).

Norway doesn't have many textile manufacturing industries therefore there is a higher import of readymade clothes. These imported clothes are not always sourced sustainably or have ethical production practices back at their manufacturing industries abroad. When these imported clothing are not sold, they end up in incinerators along with the massive amounts of textile waste generated from students and homes. The cost of incinerating is much less compared to recycling them, this results in the influx of carbon rate causing global warming and degradation of air quality. (Used but not used up - what do we

know about textile waste?)

Norwegian wool: natural, renewable and innovative. (2025, January 30). Business Norway.

Although Norway has a high consumption rate, it has a growing sustainable fashion movement and is working its way for a greener fashion industry. Recently Norwegian clothing retailer brand Carlings had just launched its first digital collection with zero environmental impact (Fashion and textile design). A few other companies that promote sustainable fashion and ethical production practices are Fretex, Norwegian rain and Sustain Daily (Shokra Paris, 2023). These companies use natural materials such as organic cotton, old clothes and recycled plastic to make sure their clothes are reused, recycled and repurposed by the end of its journey (Shokra Paris, 2023). Other than that Norway has secondhand markets, and thrift shops (loppemarkeder), where people buy branded reused clothes and shoes. In addition to this, there are several donation boxes placed by red cross and Fretex all over Norway, encouraging people to circulate the clothes instead of incinerating them. This prompts us to think, whether the rate of consumerism and recycling are on par? if there is a significant difference between them, what factors contribute to this difference?

Bibiliography :-

1. Shokra Paris. (2023, May 10). Sustainable fashion in Norway: A movement

towards ethical and eco-friendly clothing. https://shokraparis.com/en-

no/blogs/infos/sustainable-fashion-in-norway-a-movement-towards-ethical-and-

eco-friendly-clothing

2. Jakobsen, S. E. (2023, July 11). Norwegians buy 50 per cent more clothes and

shoes than the average European. Sciencenorway.

https://www.sciencenorway.no/consumption-finans-sustainability/norwegians-

buy-50-per-cent-more-clothes-and-shoes-than-the-average-european/2219321

3. Kirsi Laitala, Mari Bjerck og Andreas Ytterstad. (n.d.). Intro: Fashion and textile

design. DOGA. https://doga.no/en/activities/design-and-architecture-in-

norway/design-in-norway/fashion-and-textile-design/

4. The textile industry in urgent need of change. Svanemerket. (2023, August 15).

https://svanemerket.no/nyheter/the-textile-industry-in-urgent-need-of-change/

5. Avfall Norge. (n.d.). Used but not used up - what do we know about textile

waste?. Avfall Norge. https://avfallnorge.no/kurs-og-arrangementer/brukt-men-

ikke-brukt-opp-hva-vet-vi-om-tekstilavfallet

6. Norwegian wool: natural, renewable and innovative. (2025, January 30). Businessnorway.com; Business Norway. https://businessnorway.com/articles/norwegian-wool-natural-renewable-and-innovative

Thrift, Think, Escape: Gamifying Sustainability with AI and Prompt Engineering.

As someone passionate about sustainability, I’ve always believed in the power of experiential learning. This belief led me to design an escape room activity that combined learning and fun to educate students about eco-fashion. Using prompt engineering with ChatGPT, I created a multi-level escape room, tested it with my school thrift club, and watched it become a roaring success. Here’s how I leveraged AI, refined my ideas, and developed an engaging activity that left participants inspired.  

Why an Escape Room?  

I began with a simple question:  

Prompt: "Suggest an interesting activity for middle and high schoolers to learn about eco-fashion."  

I got a detailed list of options which included donation drives, quizzes, upcycling activities and many more. Among the options provided, the idea of an escape room stood out. It offered the perfect mix of collaboration, problem-solving, and creativity while allowing students to engage deeply with eco-fashion topics.  

Step 1: Developing the Theme and Storyline  

Prompt: "Create a theme and storyline for an escape room about eco-fashion suitable for middle schoolers."  

Result: The storyline revolved around a fictional unethical fashion company, "Fast Fash Co." Participants had to transform the company into an eco-friendly brand by solving puzzles across three tables.  

Step 2: Structuring the Rooms  

Prompt: "Divide the escape room into three tables, each focusing on a specific eco-fashion-related topic. Include fun and educational activities for each room."  

This generated a draft for three rooms, but the activities required tweaking to be more accessible to middle and high school students.  

Room 1: Fast Fashion office: The Budget Dilemma  

For the first room, the initial activity idea was straightforward. Participants had to identify areas where a company should increase or decrease investments to adopt sustainable practices.  

Minimal refinement was needed for this prompt was needed, as it gave me exactly what i needed. I just asked it to add more decreased investments as those were less in number. 

Prompt: "List areas where companies need to increase or decrease investment to become sustainable in fashion."  

This generated lists like:  

- Increased Investments: Organic cotton, fair wages, biodegradable packaging.  

- Decreased Investments: Sweatshops, mass production, plastic packaging.  

I refined this into a card-based activity where students matched areas with "increase" or "decrease" arrows.  

Room 2: The Toxic Factory  

This room required more detailed prompts and iterations.  

Prompt 1: "What are the harmful chemicals used in fast fashion, and why are they harmful?"  

Result: A list of chemicals like formaldehyde, azo dyes, and chlorine bleach, along with their negative impacts.  

Prompt 2: "Suggest eco-friendly alternatives to these chemicals."  

Result: Alternatives like natural dyes, hydrogen peroxide, and water-based inks.  

Prompt 3: "Create an activity where students match harmful chemicals with eco-friendly alternatives. Include descriptions of each for clarity."  

Result: A matching game where students paired harmful chemicals with their alternatives, aided by descriptions of their uses, harms, and eco-friendly replacements.  

Room 3: The Sustainable Design Studio  

This room evolved significantly during the process.  

Prompt 1: "Where are eco-friendly raw materials like organic cotton and bamboo sourced globally?"  

Result: A list of materials and their countries of origin.  

Prompt 2: "Add clues about each country to make it easier for students to identify them."  

Result: Clues like “Home of pandas” for China (bamboo) and “Famous for Bollywood and spices” for India (organic cotton).  

I turned this into an activity where students are given eco friendly raw materials for which they had to choose the country from which it had to be sourced. To make it easier, I gave clues about each country as well.

Testing and Impact  

I tested the escape room with my school thrift club. Students were divided into three groups and rotated through the tables, solving puzzles collaboratively. The group that completed all tasks accurately in the least time was declared the winner.  

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive:  

- Students: "This activity was fun and made me think about eco-fashion in ways I haven't thought about before! Working with my teammates was fun too!"  

- Teachers: "The activity was innovative and deeply engaging to the students and saw great participation."  

Prompts Summary (along with a lot of tweaking at my end, but you get the idea!)

1. Activity Selection:  

   - "Suggest an interesting activity for middle and high schoolers to learn about eco-fashion."  

2. Theme and Storyline:  

   - "Create a theme and storyline for an escape room about eco-fashion suitable for middle schoolers."  

3. Room 1 (Budget Dilemma):  

   - "List areas where companies need to increase or decrease investment to become sustainable in fashion."  

4. Room 2 (Toxic Factory):  

   - "What are the harmful chemicals used in fast fashion, and why are they harmful?"  

   - "Suggest eco-friendly alternatives to these chemicals."  

   - "Create an activity where students match harmful chemicals with eco-friendly alternatives. Include descriptions of each for clarity."  

5. Room 3 (Sustainable Design Studio):  

   - "Where are eco-friendly raw materials like organic cotton and bamboo sourced globally?"  

   - "Add clues about each country to make it easier for students to identify them."  

Conclusion  

Designing this escape room was an incredible learning journey. I have simplified many of the prompts here, but I guess this gives you an idea about my journey. Prompt engineering helped me brainstorm and refine ideas, and testing the activity in my school thrift club brought the concept to life. The success of this escape room showed me the power of interactive learning in spreading awareness about eco-fashion.  

If you’re looking for an innovative way to inspire change, why not try this escape room yourself?  

Head here to my site youth4ecofashion where you can get all the details, materials and printables needed to conduct this interesting activity in your school or community! 

Eco-Fashion in Indonesia

By now it is prominent, that fashion is an art form used to express one's self-identity and creativity. It is a platform people use to invent and inspire, but the world of fashion is dominated by fast fashion brands. What these brands do is essentially give people the means to express themselves at a cheap price. This cheap price equates to poor-quality clothing that lasts up to 10 months at the very most. 

Fast fashion is a term used to detail the fast trends in the fashion community that come to pass as quickly as they came, this is part of the reason why the quality of fast fashion garments is so low. These clothes are only meant to last as long as they trend, which isn’t a considerably long amount of time. Because of this, out of the 100 billion garments produced, 92 million tonnes end up in landfills yearly. Fast fashion contributes to 20% of the world’s water waste, 10% of microplastics in our waters, and is set to increase 50% of global emissions in 2030.

So, the question now is “How can we fix this growing problem?” and the answer to that would be through eco-fashion. Eco-fashion or sustainable fashion refers to the collective efforts of the fashion community to decrease the negative impact this supposed art form has had on our planet. This term could also be used to refer to the manufacturing process of a garment, in the case that it was made with the environment and worker conditions kept in mind. 

Indonesia, or Jakarta to be more specific, embraces eco-fashion through the use of its various local or smaller clothing brands. Online shopping is prominent within Indonesia with 230 million people out of its 270 million population being avid internet users, and small businesses very frequently take advantage of this by establishing their shops on apps such as Shoppee and Tokopedia instead of having a physical shop. 

Indonesia’s small businesses -much like other smaller brands- are considerably more sustainable than fast fashion giants such as Shein or H&M. Smaller clothing brands are more likely to ethically produce their garments in smaller quantities due to the sheer size of their business. Production in smaller quantities reduces waste as it reduces the risk of overstocking which also contributes to the problem.

Another way Indonesia embraces sustainable fashion is through the growing popularity of thrifting. The younger generation seems to be the ones leading this trend in the fashion community. Thrifted clothes have become more popular arguably due to their Westernization. This authentic vintage 2000s clothing style has become the recent trend, and because the trend lies within the authenticity of its time, fast fashion simply cannot replicate it. 

The rise of thrifting in Indonesia stems from 2000s clothing but has since grown to replace the uniformity that Indonesian teens and others all around the world once followed. Thrifting allows individuals to have that sense of individuality emanate simply from the clothes they wear, this personality which was diminished the moment fast fashion gradually began to take over. But with thrifting, we can gain that personality back through the interesting and creative garments made in the 2000s, these pieces do not have the same exact style, and the personalities of these garments vary drastically, unlike most fast fashion clothing items. And unlike fast fashion garments, thrifted clothing or vintage clothing was made to last. This is because, during the period these older garments were made, manufacturers actually focused on the quality of their clothing. Meaning, that these older pieces were made out of natural fibers instead of synthetic fibers which is considerably cheaper but lasts a shorter amount of time.