LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD, DO GOOD, Part 4: Manipulated by the fashion industry?

An inspiring series on developing a style that expresses who you are, an enjoyable relationship with your clothes, and the rewarding satisfaction of making sustainable fashion choices.

By Helen Redfern, founder and creative director of Green Heart Collective and manager of the Green Heart shop on Gateshead High Street. Helen combines her passion for clothes with a passion for the health of this wonderful world in which we live. Speaking from her personal experience of exploring her own style, Helen aims to inspire others to develop the confidence to express their identity and values through what they wear in a fun and affirming way.

Part 4: Manipulated by the Fashion Industry

fashion
noun
a popular or the latest style of clothing, hair, decoration, or behaviour
Similar: vogue, trend, craze, rage, mania, mode, fad, fancy, current/latest style, latest thing, latest taste

Fashion is so seductive. I love people-watching, observing their outfits; flicking through magazines for style edits; scrolling through fashion show updates on social media. The whole fashion scene appeals to my sense of creativity and my appetite for change. However, there is also much that I hate about the fashion industry. I hate that I grew up believing I was fat, even though I have always been a UK12-16. No one looked like me on the adverts. I hate that I was fed a narrow image of beauty. I hate that the fashion industry has become a multi million pound industry, based on making people like you and me buy more and more new clothes with no regard to the damage caused to the planet.

“The fashion industry entices customers to buy volumes of on-trend clothing, usually of cheap quality at low prices. The rapid growth of the fashion industry can be traced to the advent of cheap clothing made from inexpensive synthetic materials derived from fossil fuels. Excessive production, poor quality textiles, low rates of use, reuse, and repair, and limited recycling mechanisms have turned the fashion industry into an environmentally and socially problematic industry”. -Fashion Revolution

I hate the greenwashing of those massive fashion brands that con us into believing that they really do care about people and planet and not just lining their pockets. The big names in the industry are good at what they do, of course they are. They’re experts in producing cheap clothes for a mass market, experts in merchandising, marketing, advertising. I hate that cheap clothing has become seen as disposable, worn once and then thrown away. The industry encourages this. I hate that fashion brands steal designs from individual designers who train hard and work hard to become amazing designers, only for their designs to be copied, mass-produced rapidly and sold across the globe for a fraction of what the design is worth. Read more about this here.

The fast fashion industry has ruined something beautiful and amazing. The history of fashion is a wonderful thing. When I was in Antwerp a few years ago, I visited the Madame Grès exhibition in Antwerp. I’d never seen anything like it before. Madame Grès (1903–1993) was a leading French couturier, best known for her floor-length draped Grecian goddess gowns. The ‘master of the wrapped and draped dress’ and the ‘queen of drapery’, her timeless designs took my breath away. Google her and you’ll see what I mean. I was gutted to miss the Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel exhibition at the V&A earlier this year. My friend Sarah went and the photos she shared of the iconic two piece tweed skirt suits and other pieces were amazing. I can only imagine what it would have been like to see them in person.

Fast fashion has done to haute couture what fast food has done to haute cuisine. We’ve sacrificed quality for quantity.

“Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became the centre of a growing industry that focused on making outfits from high-quality, expensive, often unusual fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable of sewers—often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques.” Source - Wikipedia

Just think about what we have lost: ‘high quality’, ‘unusual’, ‘extreme attention to detail’, ‘most experienced and capable’, ‘hand-executed’. For what? Mass-produced, ill-fitting, badly constructed, machine made, poor quality copies. Where’s the joy in that?

From someone who loves clothes, I must sound like I’m trying to put you off enjoying clothes. I’m really not. But how can we love the clothes we wear when we are constantly settling for the clothing equivalent of a Big Mac? Maybe in the moment, it’s a quick fix, a transitory moment of pleasure. But then comes the bad taste in the mouth and the empty feeling in the pit of the stomach. It doesn’t satisfy because it is not the real thing.

So what am I saying? Well, for me, there’s a difference between fashion and style. I’ve come to realise that we can be stylish without being fashionable. We do not have to be slaves to fashion. Fashion is an industry, a massive industry that is damaging the planet with its mass production and people all over the world with its manipulative messaging. And when we enter a shop or click on a TikTok video, we have to do so with our eyes wide open and our brains switched on, ready to evaluate the quality of fabric, design and finish before being sucked into the latest trend.

‘From the moment we set foot in a shop, click on a webpage or tap on a screen, we’re bombarded with psychological tactics. These tactics make it incredibly tricky to shop smart, but it is possible…’ Page 4, ‘Big Dress Energy’, Shakaila Forbes-Bell

Even when we buy preloved, quality of fabric, design and finish still matter. We’ll never feel amazing in an ill-fitting dress even if it was a bargain! It’s no surprise to me that the outfit I feel most amazing in is 50 years old. I’m not suggesting we hold out for an original Chanel suit, but I do think we all need to become more educated about the clothes that we wear. The industry has manipulated us for too long and robbed us of our confidence to trust our own intuition and know quality when we see it (even in the most surprising of places).

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!

So here are my twelve positive intentions that I will remind myself of every time I shop online or in person:

I will wear what colours I want
I will wear what colour combinations I want
I will create my own unique style
I will not be constrained by one era, decade, style
I will not be pigeon-holed
I will not be constrained by trends
I will trust my own intuition
I will wear what makes me happy
I will seek out beauty of design, finish and fabric
I will only ever buy preloved or upcycled
I will not begrudge spending money on second hand quality items that will last and that I love
I will remind myself of the ‘Big Mac’ analogy to embrace conscious shopping

Action Point:

Enter into clothes shopping with your eyes wide open. Do not be seduced by the influencers and advertising. Make up your own mind about quality of fabric, design and finish.

Write your own list of intentions and save it on your phone to look at every time you feel the urge to indulge in some retail therapy.

Shop smart, whatever that means for you!