Maybe Just Stop Buying Shit
In her recent article “Prada Doesn’t Want You to Change the World- It Just Wants You to Look Nice,” Rachel Tashjian claims that “Lately it feels like we are being sold something at every moment of our lives. I don’t just mean pants… or whatever, but big ideas. Philosophies. Values. Principles!” and she goes on to praise Prada’s Fall/Winter 2020 show on its lack of values, philosophies, and principles. Read it for yourself, but the thesis of her article is that you don’t have to change the world with every purchase you make and that clothing shouldn’t have some higher purpose. It should just be nice to look at and nice to wear. While she was not explicitly responding to brand’s efforts to reduce climate change--aside from a slight dig at shirts being sold to help fight wildfires in Australia--it was most certainly implied. I’m not entirely surprised that Rachel holds this belief-- after all, all her female friends own Dries shorts and she most likely wrote it from the Ivory Content Tower of Condé Nast. The upper, upper class don’t have to worry about the impact their purchases have on the planet, they’ll be fine either way. I happen to think this opinion is not only wrong, but dangerous. It’s the kind of regressive and apathetic thinking that has led us to a time where continents are burning and species are going extinct before they’re even discovered. To quote Robert Swan: “the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else is going to save it”. In today’s world clothing should have some greater purpose. Nay, clothing needs to have some higher purpose. Through hundreds of years of fossil fuel use, overproduction, overpopulation, and reckless consumption we have arrived at a time where simply buying pretty things is no longer good enough.
Think about it this way-- the fashion industry generates around 92 million tons of waste every year. That’s 4% of the world's trash from clothing alone and even worse, from clothing we don’t need. The industry produces around 150 billion garments each year. If you’re incapable of doing basic math, that’s 20 items of clothing per person every year. Are you going to tell me that we should be buying things that don’t have some sort of higher purpose? Art and beauty have their place in society, but not to the point that they’re actively contributing to the death of every living being on this planet. Now, in case you haven’t realized it yet, that’s where we're headed.
Rachel does make several excellent points. It does feel as though every brand is selling us on some philosophy or principle and that can be overwhelming at times. Sustainability is the buzzword of the year. Every brand, from H&M to LVMH, is constantly telling us how “ethical” and “sustainable” they are. The natural response to information overload and an uncertain future is to wallow in helplessness and confusion. Human beings tend to adopt a new equilibrium of anxiety and apathy when faced with existential dread. We’re all stupid little deer in the metaphorical headlights that are the death of our planet. However, I would argue that the correct response to constantly being sold something is not to shut out the world and cultivate your little garden like a slightly better dressed Candide, but rather to carefully analyze the information you’re receiving and make conscious efforts to better the world with your money.
Rachel says that we have a propensity to over-ascribe meaning and value to everything we do. I get it, I read The Stranger, too. Really, the thing about nihilism is it’s fucking stupid, and I’d even say selfish. Sure, the universe is vast and complex and incomprehensible and as a society we will never be able to agree on a common purpose, but rather than looking at the fact that there can’t possibly be reason and meaning to life as an excuse to do nothing, live, and eventually die, look at it as an opportunity to create your own meaning and purpose. To be honest with you, I’m baffled by the fact that I’m even writing this article. If we continue to throw our money at brands who are doing nothing about climate change, we’re saying that our ability to purchase pretty things comes before the ability for workers to make a living wage, for our children and grandchildren to live on a hospitable planet, for billions of people to have access to clean water and food.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t buy things. If you must cop more jawnz (and who can blame you), buy second hand. I guarantee there are multiple thrift stores within 15 miles of wherever you may be (and my fellow JTTB writer Arturo just wrote a fantastic guide to thrifting). There are over 1.6 million listings on Grailed. If you can’t possibly fathom the idea of wearing clothes another man has touched because you’re better than the rest of us and can afford to survive the impending global food crisis; look to brands like Patagonia, Noah, Eden Power Corp, and Petrified Good, brands that are working to reduce the impact of the fashion industry on the planet.
It can be hard to tell which brands truly are making an effort to change and which ones are simply greenwashing sometimes, but it’s not impossible. Instead of being a bystander, do some research, vote with your wallet, and let the fashion industry know that their current practices are not acceptable anymore. Or maybe just stop buying shit.
*The author would like to note that this article is not intended to be an attack on Rachel Tashjian, but rather to shine a light on how out of touch the fashion industry and the elites of the media are when it comes to the conversation around sustainability and fashion.*
