Fashion has always been an integral part of our lives. Moreover, each fashion trend reflects its own historical epoch, as it is partially influenced by socio-cultural phenomena. By glancing into the history of fashion, we can identify the most important fashion patterns and understand how different processes in people’s lives have influenced fashion trends and the world in general. In this case, fashion is a factor that predetermines many changes in various areas of public life and affects the nature and individual features of human activity.
In retrospect, it’s possible to track how social transformation has influenced the change and spread of fashion and, conversely, how fashion standards were a decisive factor in certain social trends. In modern society, fashion is not only art and a way of self-expression but also a means by which you can build your own huge fashion empire, set your rules in the fashion world, and become a giant in the sales and marketing industry. But let’s take a closer look at the fashion industry and see how this industry affects each of us.
Philosophy of Consumerism
Modern fashion has become available to everyone, and the mass market can literally be found at all the stores and boutiques. The cost of such products is affordable, thanks to the cheap raw materials and the conveyor type of production. Low-cost products create high demand and, therefore, become very popular among all segments of the population. Thanks to promotions, discounts, and the right marketing campaigns, people are willing to buy stylish and, at the same time, inexpensive clothing and shoes. The life of such goods is short-term, and consumers come back, again and again, to buy fashionable things at affordable prices.
This is how consumerism, a new phenomenon in the fashion world, has emerged. The philosophy of consumerism is simple – the more you buy, the happier you become. In other words, low-price brands will provide you with a “unique” opportunity to enjoy all the benefits of technological progress and abundant choice. This theory is based on human psychology as consumerism has both social and psychological background. Consumers sincerely believe that the more goods they can buy, the higher their status in society. The purchased product doesn’t bring positive emotions and enjoyment; this is the act of buying that makes people feel good.
Critics of consumerism believe that human happiness is dependent on the level of consumption, and consumerism becomes the purpose and meaning of life. But to be honest, it is a completely wrong opinion that a person’s status is determined by the number of clothes in their closet.
Fast Fashion
Popular brands perfectly understand the advantages of consumerism for them and support this trend, creating special psychological techniques that make people spend a lot of money buying their goods. This has led to the emergence of a new concept in the industry called fast fashion, which goes hand-in-hand with consumerism. Fast fashion implies instant adaptation to new trends and copying successful fashion market segments and supplying them to the mass production market. Mass-market brands are aimed at updating the assortment several times a season. Some people compare it to fast food and think that it offends the very notion of fashion.
Brands like Zara, Mango, TopShop, Benetton, Gap, H&M, and many others made fast fashion an integral part of their brands’ identity. For example, Zara, a well-known trade brand in the world of the mass market, focuses on the exclusivity of the product, releasing new collections once a week, and thus causes consumers to buy their product here and now.
When comparing expensive brands headed by one designer, Zara has a team of more than 200 designers. Why do they need so many employees? The answer is simple; their goal is to reduce the creation time of a new collection from six months, as is often the case with well-known brands, to 2 weeks and launch it as fast as possible. Zara produces 12,000 new designs every year and does not spend much money on advertising, taking advantage of the product’s exclusivity, which will be replaced in a week or two.
Manufacturers promptly update the assortment and offer fashionable clothes at low prices, changing their assortment much more often than the main classic seasonal collections are produced. It should be mentioned that fast fashion is rapidly depleting natural resources, and its production has a harmful impact on the environment.
Ecological Disaster and Eco Tendencies
As we already know, fast fashion encourages the production of low-quality garments. The manufacturing of clothing, footwear, and accessories is still noticeably harmful to nature. Textile production has become the main cause of pollution of soil and water resources of the planet. It includes the processing of raw materials with pesticides and chemicals that get into the water when growing cotton and coloring fabrics and the emission of harmful gases due to the production of synthetics and transportation of ready-made products.
Considering that the production of clothing has doubled in the last 15 years, cotton and polyester now make up 85% of the raw materials, and both are far from being environmentally friendly. Consumption of garments has increased by 60% compared to 15 years ago, while non-fashionable clothes are discarded, resulting in a large amount of non-biodegradable textile waste.
What consumers can do to reduce the mass consumption of cheap goods is to buy wisely and not chase the “fashionable” new mass-market trends. They can become the driving force that can change the whole conception of consumerism. Simply put, we can buy less often and give preference to high-quality goods, choose items of responsible manufacturers or buy vintage rather than new things, pay attention to the fabric composition and utilize the clothes we don’t need.
Give preference to organic cotton over non-organic cotton. Choose local producers: this will not only help the local economy but also reduce its negative impact on the environment by eliminating international shipping. Also, look for brands that specialize in ethical and eco-friendly production.
Some well-known high-fashion brands also follow this tendency. Levi’s and Calvin Klein produce their clothes from high-quality materials that have withstood the time. Timberland chooses the recycled materials to produce its shoes and promotes the global environmental movement Path of Service, which actively draws attention to ecology problems. Adidas and Burberry have officially announced that they intend to reduce plastic use and replace it with eco-materials by 2025. Also, many luxury brands like Giorgio Armani, Versace, Michael Kors, Gucci, Burberry, and Tommy Hilfiger refused to use natural fur in their collections.
But will eco-friendly fashion become our new philosophy? We will see…
