I love clothes but I don’t have many. I buy a few well-made designer pieces that I know I can wear a lot and not look like I’m wearing the same thing all the time. I mostly buy basics from pseudo vintage stores (more on that later), and try to avoid fast fashion brands. Apart from a few things from American Apparel and Uniqlo, oh and a knock-off Balenciaga riding hat from H&M, on the whole, there is a lot to lose from fast fashion.
1. Everyone looks the same. It’s not the individual clothes I object to, but the individuals who want to look like Lindsey Lohan or packaged reality TV D-listers.
2. Millions of tons of badly made clothes are thrown away by Americans each year, about 23.8 billion pounds of clothing and textiles ends up in U.S. landfills each year according to Levi’s and Goodwill, causing as much harm to the planet as the car industry, and much more harm to the people who make them.
3. While people have stopped investing in luxury brands, design houses have still tried to grow. Yohji Yamamoto is yet another brand to file for bankruptcy, making me wonder what the people responsible for running these companies are thinking – too slow to adapt and trying to grow too fast without the resources to support it?
Umair Haque of Havas Media Lab wrote The Generation M Manifesto, a genius break up letter to ‘old people who run the world’. Of the 12 irreconcilable reasons to break up, this one in particular resonated with me, “You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.â€
If you haven’t already, pay attention to Vivienne Westwood on BBC’s Jonathan Ross show sharing her own manifesto: “Buy less, choose well. Don’t buy things for the sake of it because then everyone looks alike….I offer no choice but to ask for the end of indiscriminate consumption. If you have to choose something, save up and choose well.â€
I even agree with Anna Wintour, (not a sentence I thought I’d hear myself say), who recently said, “I do feel an emphasis on quality and longevity and things that really last.†And to put her Manolo where her mouth is, (good job, who ever is doing your recession proof PR, Vogue), said, “I usually wear the same dress twenty times…I think it’s always fun to have something new, but it doesn’t mean that everything you already have in your closet has to be thrown out, you know? Recycle. It’s totally okay — I even recommend it.â€
So here’s a manifesto of my own: It’s called the ‘Stop Buying New Crap’ manifesto.
Buy used basics: Frankly they look better worn in and the fast fashion chains are knocking the cuts off anyway. And please don’t spend $1,573.00 on a Balmain ‘vintage inspired’ t-shirt when you can buy the real thing for a few bucks.
Buy timeless, one of a kind quality vintage, so you don’t look like everyone else: The proliferation of thrift and consignment masquerading as vintage has made it harder to find to the real thing. It’s easy to find very expensive vintage couture and very easy to find cheap vintage clothes, either because it is in fact thrift, because it’s what everyone else is wearing like lace dresses, ripped up denim, rocker T’s, cowboy boots and granny boots, or, it’s obviously dated by the trend of an era. Pucci, I respect it, but please, not now.
It is, however, difficult to find the kind of vintage everyone thinks they’ll find if they put in the time and effort; the well made, timeless or on-trend pieces that are easy to mix with contemporary looks and don’t cost vintage couture or contemporary Balmain prices for that matter. It’s out there – you just have to know where to look.
It might take time, but I guess that’s why they call it slow fashion.
Gill writes about the business of fashion for Mpdclick – a leading commercial online fashion trend forecasting service. To discover more, please visit www.mpdclick.com. She is the co-founder of The Joneses a creative brand and communications company in New York. You can contact Gill at gill@thejoneses-nyc.com
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Tell them how you feel Gill :)
November 6th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Always on top!
November 6th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.
http://twurl.nl/kzh37t
November 7th, 2009 at 5:08 am
An Australian fashion designer told me that fabric patterns are created seven years in advance by people who met annually to dictate the coming seasons. Top designers were then given first option to buy limited amounts of fabric, the next level of designers could choose larger quantities from another selection… and so on.
Any wonder cycles of fashion keep cropping up in predictable patterns… low waist, high waste?
As technology gets faster and makes creative tools available to people the fashion industry is all over the place (as can be seen on the streets). Fads aren’t sticking like they used to and celebrities are losing their influence… thumbs up to quality that does stick lasts a few generations.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:15 am
“Buy timeless, one of a kind quality vintage, so you don’t look like everyone else.”
This is exactly the type of garment I sell on my website. It’s not trendy, it’s classic. It’s not a dress from 10 years ago that has its hem cut off and is now incorrectly called “vintage”. It’s a simple basic dress or suit that was made 40 – 50 years ago and is of higher quality than any current designer piece you can buy today.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Very well said. It’s distressing to see everyone try to look the same by buying all the latest and greatest fashions – even if they are not appropriate for them.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Do you have any shop recommendations for these kinds of items?
November 8th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
It is said that there is no not beautiful female but the lazy female in the world..As long as you spend much time on yourself, every woman will be the most beautiful and fashionable .If you want to be more beautiful ,elegant as well as sexier,the stylish discount Christian Louboutin Shoes can help you do that. The Christian Louboutin Shoes are enough fashion and beautiful that lots of women all over the world fall in love them.Putting on the Christian Louboutin Shoes,every woman will become more beautiful ,confident.That is the reason why so many women like the Christian Louboutin Shoes.I am sure you will do that .
November 8th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
good
November 8th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
I love this article. We need to stop mindless consumption and consciously spend. Quality clothing, just like home products, arts or cars, is an investment.
November 9th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Your article is wonderful!Hold it.christian louboutin is my favourite,thanks.
en,we do not need to buy many designer garment but sometimes we can own one hehe.
November 9th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I agree with this article. There are so many people walking around with no real sense of style, just letting advertisements dictate what they will wear. I think challenging yourself to only buy quality items yet putting them together in an interesting way is much more exciting than looking like Forever 21 just exploded in your closet.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Amen.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:03 am
Bigmouth!! I partially agree with this article. many people just buy without thinking about the consequences of fast fashion but not everybody in designer or vintage clothes are well dressed or stylish and unique….just come down to supertrendy east London and you’ll see everybody wearing the same uniform. And please don’t forget that most of the people cannot afford designer clothes….
November 10th, 2009 at 9:15 am
High end designers make their money from a handful of clients, many of them in the Middle East, other money can be made from licensing their brands. When the money disappeared out of the couture & exclusive RTW market, designers with limited or niche appeal suffered.
It’s all very well for megabuck earning Diva Anna Wintour to say buy well and support the industry, but the average person on the street has no impact on these sales, when high end fashion may never, ever be in the scope of their reach financially.
This manifesto is fair enough for those with a fair bit of cash to splash, but have you considered that classic vintage pieces from designer labels are often still not affordable to all, whereas the High Street stores that are on trend are? And, in order for vintage to exist, someone must have spent the big bucks to purchase designer threads and on-sold them in the first place?
The bottom line is that the beautifully groomed person who may catch your eye is not necessarily dressed in the best. They usually have buckets of style and elan. They know their shape and personality, having the confidence to dress creatively and with savoir-faire. And they may have sourced the components from anywhere: thrift shop, high street or even their granny, sewn and or customised them to make the overall effect.
Like beauty, fashion comes from the inside.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:43 pm