Clotheshorse Episode 254: "How (and why) I worked in fast fashion, part 2"

Host: Amanda Lee McCarty
Date: February 11, 2026

Episode Overview

In part two of her deeply personal series, Amanda Lee McCarty continues the story of her career in the fast fashion industry, focusing on how her upbringing as a people pleaser shaped her professional experiences and struggles, and offering a behind-the-scenes look at the uglier truths of fashion's supply chain, toxic workplaces, and the human cost of "business as usual." Amanda shares candid stories of abuse, burnout, and awakening—both personal and systemic—while reflecting on how her journey led her from corporate burnout to independent advocacy and consultancy in the slow fashion space.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. People Pleasing and Workplace Dynamics

(00:00–23:00)

• Amanda opens up about her lifelong pattern of people pleasing, originating from a traumatic and chaotic childhood:
  • Quote:
    “My home life was so chaotic…Adults were a source of unpredictable rage and punishment. And I figured out pretty fast that it was my job to anticipate anger before it happened and do everything I could to prevent it.” (07:35)
  • This behavior made her an ideal but easily exploited worker—never advocating for herself, never saying no, and thus prone to toxic relationships, both at work and home.
• She connects this to the fashion industry's predatory power dynamics, where employees are constantly reminded they are "lucky to be there."
• Amanda shares a chilling experience:
  • Quote:
    "An executive at Urban Outfitters...threw a rolling rack full of hangers and scarves at me in a meeting while I was literally presenting." (20:40)
• The concept of "throwing people under the bus" is explored as a common, fear-driven survival tactic in toxic fashion offices.
  • Quote:
    “When any mention of throwing anyone under any sort of public transportation comes up in conversation, I know that means that is a shitty place to work.” (23:15)

2. Workers’ Rights, Transparency & Garment Production

(23:01–57:50)

• Amanda details how, despite increasing public demand for transparency post–Rana Plaza (2013), most insiders (including herself) had little knowledge of the conditions where garments were made.
  • Quote:
    “Garment workers were just not something we discussed in any of the buying departments in my career.” (36:01)
• She reveals how most brands have little to no direct connection with factories, relying instead on layers of agents and intermediaries, clouding accountability and enabling plausible deniability.
  • Quote:
    “Very few brands actually know even the factory that is making stuff for them, much less who is making it or what their working conditions are like.” (40:50)
• Amanda dissects vendor compliance and audit practices as PR-driven smokescreens—meant to shield brands from liability rather than protect workers.
  • Quote:
    “Nordstrom’s code was the gold standard and that we didn’t have to worry. … But there wasn’t any actual documentation required…. It was just a smokescreen,” (46:20)
• The myth that "Made in USA" guarantees ethical production is demolished with first-hand accounts of wage theft and poor working conditions in LA factories.
  • Quote:
    “Exploitation, it knows no borders, okay? And the working conditions in LA are not better.” (51:49)

3. Burnout, Breaking Points, and Leaving Toxic Jobs

(57:51–01:22:00)

• Amanda describes her emotional breaking point at the feminist brand, culminating in a tearful morning in the car with her husband:
  • Quote:
    “I just started sobbing. I can't do this anymore. It makes me wish I was dead. I dream about being dead so I don't have to work here anymore.” (58:52)
• Quitting felt both liberating and guilt-inducing, highlighting the deep sense of responsibility to her team and anxiety about financial survival.
• Interviewing at Urban Outfitters again, she faces a demoralizing experience with the chief creative officer:
  • Quote:
    “Her disdain and disgust for me was so apparent that I thought about just walking out and catching the bus to the airport… How could I work in an environment where people felt that kind of behavior was acceptable?” (01:17:13)
• Despite strong misgivings, Amanda takes a "demotion" job at Urban’s new rental brand out of financial necessity—to pay her child's future college tuition.
  • Quote:
    “Sometimes you love someone so much that you will put yourself back into bad situations… because you know it will be so good for them.” (01:24:06)

4. The Reality of “Ethical” Branding and Systemic Disrespect

(01:22:01–01:45:00)

• Insight into how fashion executives disdain their own customers, considering them naive and easily manipulated by marketing and styling—even at “feminist” or supposedly ethical brands.
  • Quote:
    “None of the executives at any of these companies—except, once again, ModCloth—actually had any respect for their customers. The executives thought that the customers were stupid, desperate, and just didn’t know well enough to have standards.” (01:38:03)
• Executives themselves wear luxury brands, not products from their own company, which are derided as “cheapo creepo.”

5. Pandemic Shock and the Collapse of Ethical Facades

(01:45:01–02:11:00)

• Amanda recounts the chaos of March 2020. Fashion companies—including her own—cancel all manufacturing orders, devastating workers down the supply chain:
  • Quote:
    “Vendors and sales reps cried as I spoke with them. … I knew the effects… would ripple all the way to the bottom of the supply chain, meaning factory workers would not be paid and might even lose their jobs. It was sickening.” (01:54:52)
• Brands’ morality is exposed as “shareholder-driven” rather than human-centered.
  • Quote:
    “My entire career, my entire adult life basically… had been based on these really fucked up power dynamics where my employer always had all the power and... it was always this illusion that we had some freedom…. The fact of the matter was we had nothing and we were nothing.” (02:04:04)
• Amanda is furloughed, then permanently let go with minimal severance, even as Urban declares “surprise profits”—profits extracted from unpaid labor and canceled contracts during a global crisis.
  • Quote:
    “That profit was actually unpaid wages of retail workers, warehouse workers, corporate workers, and garment workers around the globe. That profit was money that was stolen from us all in the name of paying shareholders.” (02:10:50)

6. Rebuilding & Becoming an Independent Advocate

(02:11:01–End)

• With her career in corporate fashion ended, Amanda begins consulting for small, ethical brands, thanks to word-of-mouth recommendations—finally feeling free to refuse toxic relationships and corporate abuse.
  • Quote:
    “Something had fundamentally changed within me since 2020. And what had changed was that I no longer had tolerance for bad behavior from corporations. … I just couldn’t be a part of it, and I wouldn’t be a part of it.” (02:21:14)
• She offers realistic but sobering advice to listeners seeking an “exit ramp” from fashion: there’s no easy podcast-to-money pipeline, and freelance success depended on years of experience and connections.
• Amanda still grapples with financial anxiety and overwork, but feels fulfilled helping brands try to do things right, emphasizing that change is possible—but difficult and incremental.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On People Pleasing & Survival:
  “Growing up that way, learning these people pleasing behaviors, feeling constantly like you’re so lucky… primes you for a lot of toxic situations. It makes you the model employee because you will never advocate for yourself.” (13:10)
• On Industry Transparency:
  “So I would issue that order, that PO to the brand, and then the brand would place their own order with their factory or their overseas agent. … I would have no idea where that dress was actually being made or by whom.” (43:20)
• On Corporate Ethics:
  “These are brands that fundamentally do not respect you as a customer… and yet you all just keep showing up day after day to give them more of your money when you and the rest of the world all deserve so much better.” (02:09:00)
• On Her Own Evolution:
  “I think what it really was, it was the right time, and me finally having the confidence to recognize that I wasn’t lucky to be here. People were lucky to work with me.” (02:21:32)
• On the System:
  “We do the work that fuels these companies and then we turn back around and fuel it with our wallets. … This whole system that can’t exist without us thinks of all of us as disposable as columns on a spreadsheet.” (02:23:57)
• On Hope and Agency:
  “We need everyone to realize that we have the power in this system when we work all together against it. … Maybe someday this work won’t be important anymore because everyone will have figured it out and things will be changing.” (02:25:24)

Structure & Flow

• Amanda weaves personal narrative with a critical analysis of fashion industry systems, moving from childhood trauma to industry-wide abuses, and from personal breakdown to slow reclamation and purpose.
• Listeners get detailed, specific industry processes (e.g., how purchase orders and vendor layers work), leavened with vivid personal anecdotes.
• The tone vacillates between introspective vulnerability, humorous self-deprecation, righteous anger, and hope for systemic change.
• The episode’s conclusion circles back to Amanda’s current independent life, reinforcing the theme of self-worth, boundaries, and collective power, while acknowledging the ongoing struggle.

Timestamps for Major Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------------|---------------| | People pleasing & origins | 00:00–13:40 | | Workplace trauma & toxic power | 13:41–23:20 | | Industry transparency (garment workers) | 23:21–53:05 | | Vendor audits & smokescreens | 46:20–53:05 | | LA Fashion and ethical myths | 51:49–57:50 | | Emotional breaking point/quitting | 57:51–01:22:00| | Urban Outfitters job offer & motives | 01:22:01–01:28:00| | Industry contempt for customers | 01:38:03–01:45:00| | Pandemic response & mass cancellations | 01:45:01–02:11:00| | Being furloughed & industry profits | 02:10:50–02:13:40| | Starting Clotheshorse & a new life | 02:13:41–02:25:45|

Final Thoughts

This episode offers an unvarnished look behind the curtain of the fashion industry, revealing how personal survival strategies and systemic abuses intertwine, and why change—while slow and difficult—must and can come from within and without. Amanda leaves listeners with both hard-earned wisdom and a call to collective action, reminding us that “your money is as powerful as your vote,” and “we deserve so much better.”

For more:

• Amanda references previous episodes for deeper dives into specific topics (Rana Plaza, cause marketing, rental fashion)
• Follow Clotheshorse on major platforms and consider patron support if you value this work.