Why it is so hard to create a sustainable closet and the first realisation you should have when trying
Photo by Hannah Morgan on Unsplash
Today we are told that the responsibility of the state of the world lays in the hands of the consumers. If we, consumers, would make the right choice, if we change our behaviour, the world would follow. Unfortunately, the reality is more complex than that. This idea comes from the neo liberal theory of the free market, but the market is everything from free. Regulation, taxes, information and other barriers and opportunities controls and adjusts the market.
In today’s global capital market, it is cheaper to massively produce clothes in a country where labour is cheap, regulations are poor and resources are within reach. A company will choose to sell their products with a higher purchase power and where you can make a good revenue and profit for the items you sell. The more collections you have, the more new products you can the supply market with the higher will the revenue be. We, consumers, have been fed with fast fashion now for some decades and this means that we have become used to clothes being relatively cheap, exchangeable and that our closets and styles should renew themselves more than once per season. This fast producer-consumer cycle has actually nothing to do with creativity and art that some would suggest fashion should be. Neither has it to do with meeting the needs of people. Clothes are in the first place suppose to keep us warm when it’s cold outside and protect us from sun when it’s hot outside. But of course, archeological findings suggest that clothes has always had a culture role to play. We dress to make an impression, to look good and to communicate regarding who we are and our wealth. However, in a time where clothes where expensive and access to material poor, you would carefully consider what you bought and you would choose something that was meant to last.
With fast fashion entering the scene and the strong market mechanism, where its actually today almost impossible to avoid marketing, the idea of buying clothes for a lifetime has become outdated. Instead we constantly renew ourselves. Every season comes with new trends and unfortunate are those who don’t keep up with the fashion scene of the month. We have been overwhelmed with marketing that the truth is we don’t even know our own preferences. We have lost the ability to identify how proper clothes should sit on our bodies. We used to know that when clothes were made by a tailor for our particular bodies. We have lost the ability to identify what colours we like, materials we prefer or the difference between materials that can breath compared to those who can’t. Because with fast fashion comes poor quality and we have forgotten how high quality materials feels.
The less you know about yourself the easier it is for the fashion companies to sell you there products. Therefore, the process of creating a more sustainable closet is so much deeper than just finding an organic material instead of a non organis material. It truly is about creating your own identify free from capitalism. It is truly about asking yourself, how would you dress and how would you like to feel in the clothes you wear if there were no fashion trends, show or marketing? What if no one told you? What would you tell yourself?
And of course, as a consumer you will make it easier for conscious brand to flourish and brands who don’t change their business model not to. But consumers can’t fix the market, only proper changes in our economic system and political wills to favour those businesses that are good for our planet and disfavours the harmful, can.
So next time you’re searching for a more sustainable brand or try to copy last seasonal trend on second hand, remember that it is the same pattern just in a different costume. A much nicer costume, but it won’t change the appearance. Instead try to ask yourself why you buy clothes in the first place and what they mean to you?
When we start to become more conscious and stop addressing ourselves as consumers, maybe also the world will be more conscious and stop addressing itself as only a market of companies growing their profit?