Am I a slow fashion status seeker?
A journalist from a Swedish magazine called Syre rang me recently and asked me to comment on the recent consumer interest in minimalism, non-consumption and slow fashion. As I explained my thoughts, I started to reflect somewhat critically on my own interest in slow fashion. I wondered whether my interest is motivated by genuine concern for the environment or is slow fashion just a trend that I am jumping on?
Fashion vs slow fashion
“Fashion is the logic of planned obsolescence—not just the necessity for market survival, but the cycle of desire itself”
Slow fashion seeks to break the cycle of desire that Faurschou describes. It is the antithesis of fashion, which encourages us to become tired of things once they are no longer new or cutting edge. Slow fashion encourages us to have less and to value each item more. Proponents of slow fashion, like me, encourage repairing, repurposing, swapping, and buying preloved clothes rather than buying new ones. Slow fashion is better for the environment than fast fashion because it reduces the demand for raw materials and the pollution generated by new production. It is also ethically superior than fast fashion because it does not involve the exploitation of workers in its production processes.*
Is slow fashion just a trend?
But what if my interest in slow fashion is not what I think it is? What if it is simply a way to differentiate myself in a field where fashion has been democratised? Let me explain what I mean…
Georg Simmel theorised that fashion was all about differentiation and imitation. People of superior class used fashionable clothes as a way to distinguish themselves from lower class people, who had neither the money nor the knowledge to dress fashionably. When that knowledge trickled down, the people of the lower social class would imitate the dress of the upper classes and the upper classes would move on to a new trend in order to distinguish themselves.
Simmel wrote about fashion in 1895, so his theory might feel a bit out of date. Fashion doesn’t work exactly like this any more, even if we can still see hints of Simmel’s ideas in the way that celebrities wear outlandish things, which are then emulated by fast fashion brands. However, Simmel’s theory has got me thinking about slow fashion in a different light.
Simmels theory of fashion highlights that when things become available to everyone, those who wish to preserve some superior status must differentiate themselves. Fashion is an epistemic object. In the old days, knowledge and money were required to do it right. Nowadays, fashion has been democratised. Fast fashion has made it affordable for many more people to wear fashionable clothes and magazines and stores help them to put the items together in “correct” ways.
Superiority and status must then be demonstrated in another way. Complicating the objects of our consumption is one way in which we tend to do this. Think about how the production processes, packaging and language used to describe coffee and wine complicate what are basically fruit juices! People can then indicate superiority status by knowing what grape juice should be drunk with what kind of meat, for example. Slow fashion can be seen as a way of complicating fashion. Picking up the latest mini-dress from h&m is too easy. It is not enough to make me stand out from the crowd. Instead, I demonstrate my fashion superiority by knowing where to shop (second hand stores) and managing to find a fashionable item that is also ethical and sustainable.
I have convinced myself that my interest in slow fashion is about doing something good for the planet and its people but perhaps I am just finding a new way to differentiate myself, to make myself feel superior and to set myself apart from others.
Does it matter?
Perhaps, ultimately, it doesn’t matter exactly why I am doing the right thing, as long as I am doing it. Slow fashion is a better choice than fast fashion, even if it pumps my ego a little bit too, right? The question is whether slow fashion is a short-lived lifestyle trend or rather a social movement in the making. There are signs that many of us are becoming more aware of our harmful consumption patterns, but there are still a lot of people who have made little or no changes to their consumption habits. This is perhaps not very surprising. Habits developed over a lifetime are not changed overnight.
As I told the journalist at Syre, I have great confidence in the ability of humanity to make the changes it needs to make, but I do not think that individuals can do this alone. I think we must have the support of governments who are ready to make unpopular decisions and force us to change our behaviour.
Cover photo: @chrissie
* The ethicality of slow fashion is sometimes questioned by detractors who argue that people in developing countries would rather have a poorly paid job with bad conditions than no job at all. Personally, I think this is a very weak argument, especially since it is not unusual for manufacturers to move on when (if) workers are allowed to unionise and start to demand better pay or working conditions.
