LEONARD Lauder proposed the theory that it’s possible to tell from lipstick sales when the financial climate is in dire straights.
As the 2001 terrorist attacks deflated the American economy, the chairman of Estée Lauder Companies spotted that the company’s sales of lipsticks were on the increase, hypothesising that women still wanted to buy something luxurious to boost their mood but couldn’t afford or couldn’t justify the expense of shoes, bags and new clothes.
While there was always a question mark over the accuracy of Mr Lauder’s hypothesis, it surely is out the window completely as we fast forward nearly 20 years to a time where a woman can buy a whole new outfit – shoes included – for cheaper than a high end lipstick.
While lipstick may not be able to predict the state of the economy, it remains true that people, not just women, like to treat themselves to a little something nice. A flattering new item of clothing lifts the spirits, makes you feel good, is a bonding exercise with friends and dear God, as you survey the state of us at the moment, don’t we desperately need a boost to the mood?
Shopping is no longer about the cost to our wallets, however. It is about the cost to the environment. Some, by now well-kent side effects of fast, fast fashion: we send £140 million worth of clothes to landfill every year; microplastics from our washing machines end up as pollutants in the ocean; the fashion industry causes one million tonnes of waste every year; and it creates more carbon emissions than the aviation and shipping industries combined at 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Why? We have enough clothes.
My mum has some gorgeous items from the 1960s and 70s that I would love to add to my wardrobe. Will I be passing on an £8 Primark dress to future generations? Only if they’ve done something to offend me.
When my grandmother talked about shopping, it was the description of a complete experience. A trip into the city to a department store where the shopper would be deferred to and waited upon. A purchase was a treat to be cared for and nurtured; it would last for years.
Who has the time for hand-washing garments, though? Who has the patience for waiting for a shop assistant to nip round the back and check if there’s an item in your size? Fast fashion proliferates when everything is done at speed.
As we shift to a more cashless society – the UK Finance Payments Market Report published this month found debit cards were the single most-used payment method last year – contactless payments make it easier and faster to buy these cheap bits of throwaway cloth. There’s something far less psychologically impactful about tapping a card on a machine than there is about getting out a £20 note and handing it over. When the exchange of money for goods is fast and invisible, it might as well not be happening at all.
Then there’s the fact that young people have less money to spend. It’s one thing to say that we should save for a statement purchase of hand-stitched leather shoes or a handbag that will last a lifetime when there just isn’t that money to save.
An inaugural audit of intergenerational spending power from the Resolution Foundation thinktank this week shows 18 to 19-year-olds are spending less money on shoes and clothes in real terms than those of the same age in 2001. There is no figure for avocado toast. The study puts this down to soaring housing costs, saying young people are seven per cent poorer in real terms than their peers were at the millennium.
While there are plenty of problems with pitting generation against generation – poverty and disadvantage are experienced by all age groups and what good does fighting do anyway – a lack of disposable income and spending power is obviously going to affect how that money is spent.
Clothing brands are making nods towards change. Brand Boohoo has this week launched its first recycled clothing range, made with recycled polyester that had been destined for landfills and without environmentally unfriendly dyes or chemicals.
Yet the same day the range was launched, the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) issued a critical report on the fast fashion industry. And that report named Boohoo as an offender.
Along with the much-publicised suggestion of a 1p charge per garment on producers to fund better recycling of clothes, and a ban on incinerating or landfilling unsold stock, the EAC made 16 other suggestions. The Government has said it will adopt none of the policies.
It is easy to see why fast fashion has become so readily adopted and so difficult to break free from. But it is impossible to see why the Government – the same one that pledged to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 – isn’t stepping up to enforce changes in an industry that is now nudging up against the oil industry as one of the most polluting industries in the world.
Fast fashion needs some fast and hard policies – and it’s time for government to break the trend.
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