The Cost of Fast Furniture (Video)

What is the Cost of Fast Furniture?

Fast food. Fast fashion. Fast furniture?

Across the world, consumers have rejected fast food and fast fashion as the slow movement emerged.

People are demanding something better! Better for themselves, better for workers, and better for the earth.

As we increasingly face 2-day shipped furniture, assembly-required, and a race to the bottom in furniture pricing and quality, it might be time to ask: is this really what we want? What is Fast Furniture costing us?

Interested in the emerging slow furniture movement?

Learn more at the Slow Furniture Movement page on DutchCrafters.

Fast Food, Fast Fashion, Fast Furniture

It’s easy to draw parallels between fast food, fast fashion and fast furniture.

Fast Food

For the unfamiliar, the slow food movement emerged in Europe in the late 1900s as a response to Fast Food restaurants opening and squeezing out established, locally-owned restaurants. As they rejected fast food’s negative impact on health, the environment, family life, and local business, they began to call it the Slow Food Movement. As the Slow Food Movement spread around the world, it merged with similar philosophies about a range of other industries.

Fast Fashion

Fashion, or the garment industry, joined in the early 2000s when “Fast Fashion” became all the rage. Garments made at the lowest price possible, with little regard for the source of the materials, the treatment of workers, or even the quality of the clothing. Trends and low prices mattered above all else. But shocking news stories such as the Dhaka Garment Factory Collapse of 2013 caught the world off-guard, revealing the hidden costs of fashion. When the Slow Fashion Movement called for boycotts of fast fashion companies, it made a real impact and continues to make an impact in 2019 as dozens of massive fast fashion companies go bankrupt.

Fast Furniture

It’s now 2019; we at DutchCrafters always pay attention to what’s happening in the furniture industry. And we are very concerned with an all-too-familiar trend emerging in our industry. With each year, we see more and more assembly-required furniture: the trendy new product with online shoppers. It’s cheap, lightweight, and unlikely to last due to poor materials and weak construction techniques. Paperboard, cardboard, and plastic do not make for a durable product. It’s used for a year, two years, three years, and then thrown in the landfill. But beyond the environmental impact of this waste, the shockingly low prices mean poor treatment of workers and a poor experience for the buyer! Do we need to see another factory collapse just to realize we need a change?

The True Costs of Fast Furniture

Fast food threatened to become the dominant dining choice in the world. Fast fashion threatened to push the quality clothing manufacturers out of business. But what happened instead?  

The Slow Food movement emerged to promote farm-to-table food sources and family dinners. The Slow Fashion movement rejected fast fashion’s unsafe working conditions and low-quality garments.  

So, as we see this trend toward 2-day shipped furniture, assembly-required, and a race to the bottom in furniture pricing, we ask again: is this really what we want? What is Fast Furniture costing us?” 

Join the Slow Furniture Movement

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