Our vanity enslaves us
Millions of tons of oil cross continents and seas to end up in the cramped closets of Western citizens. Polyester in all its forms, synthetic fibers that can only be destroyed by burning, fabrics treated with toxic substances that poison rivers, plants, animals, and people. We live in oil, we sleep in oil, we sweat oil. Many of these garments, presented as attractive and desirable in the physical and virtual windows of stores, are not so different from garbage bags. But so cute, so shiny. Mass advertising makes us deposit all our longings for beauty and seduction into this unsustainable, ugly, and uncomfortable packaging. We attribute countless meanings to clothing, linked to personality, sexual attraction, and status (now masked with words like style, glamor either good taste), romantic and professional success, and above all, we believe that our individuality resides there, the unique expression of who we are. Except that, with a glance at the daily catwalk of any city street, it turns out we're all dressed the same: we're nothing more than obedient soldiers of the powerful army of the fashion system.
During the pandemic, it seemed a new way of consuming was bound to emerge. When global production stopped, we realized the absurdity of our compulsive behaviors. At home, and freed from social pressures, we shed our high heels and useless clothing. We embraced comfortable tracksuits and discovered that we think, feel, and are freer when nothing is constricting us. Perhaps the feminist revolution should begin with sneakers crushing our feet.
The fashion industry is one of the most polluting on the planet. The report on used clothing The article in this newspaper last Sunday is just one facet of the enormous problem that drains a portion of Western consumers' salaries by making them compulsively buy clothes they don't need, of poor quality, and designed to be discarded far faster than they can be made. We deposit our unwanted clothes in clothing donation bins, convinced we're giving them a second life, but what's being made today is, in most cases, labeled junk. If anything is worthwhile in secondhand stores, it's the older garments, from a time when production still adhered to minimum quality standards. But quality in clothing and its recognition are also a lost cultural practice. Older women, many of whom grew up in homes where the entire family made their own clothes, understand the composition of fibers and their suitability for each season and situation. They can recognize well-cut patterns, quality stitching, and the details that make clothes last for years. Which is how we were sustainable before: not by recycling, but by taking care of things.
The even darker side of fashion and its perverse expansion (which leads many to admire the men who have amassed monstrous wealth through this system) is the situation of the workers who make our clothes. In this throwaway culture, in falling into the trap of sales and constant change, there is, of course, no regard for the time of the people who make it all possible. We buy and throw away, and in doing so, we feed the machinery of labor exploitation on the other side of the world (or right here, in Morocco or Turkey). Even the poorest of the poor in the West participates, knowingly or unknowingly, in the deplorable working conditions of people even poorer than themselves. But they look so cute.