And maybe even more so, the sales?
It’s three years this August since I gave up conventionally produced fashion. Three years ago I decided to only buy sustainably produced fashion. Many of the items I subsequently bought (Veja shoes, Serendipity organics sweater, my Palmgrens bag) are still wardrobe favorites. The only time I cheated was when buying a pair of Chloe pants at the sales that winter (that in the end didn’t fit me and ended up with my sister). One and a half years ago, I decided I actually didn’t need any new clothes at all. The same month I traveled to London during the sales and found it really challenging to resist shopping. I decided to not even enter the big department stores to resist fashion shopping. Shopping abroad and the sales- getting expensive fashion cheap- is somehow so very hard to resist.
It also seems that fashion is more difficult to abstain from than other kinds of shopping. I recently finished the book ‘Not buying it’ by Judith Levine. Levine and her husband decide to only buy the very necessary goods (basically groceries) during a year. The book is a personal reflection on this experiment. They obviously save lots of money but also find certain types of socializing tricky. Interestingly, the only times Levine does cheat is in the fashion department. One time she cannot resist a second hand store when on vacation. She cheats a second time at the sales of her favorite fashion brand. Thus of all the kinds of consumption she has to abstain from- restaurants, books, interior design- fashion turns out to be the most difficult. And particularly when traveling and at the sales.
Funnily enough, Levine uses some grey area shopping strategies, just like me. In the book, friends buy her cinema tickets and give her presents, things she isn’t allowed to buy herself, since she has the shopping-ban. Similarly, I’m getting a year’s supply of Swedish Stockings nylon stockings for my birthday (so excited to try them!). These days when family wonders what I would like for my birthday, I tend to want something very specific in the wardrobe area. Is this cheating? It’s at least a grey area. And a way for family members to give me something I very much need as a gift.
Levine’s ‘Not buying it’ initiative was partly motivated by financial reasons but also has a political undertone. Unlike her, I don’t see anything wrong in paying someone for a service or a good as long as you can afford it and its production and consumption is environmentally and socially sustainable. My own shopping-ban is a way to stop my own overconsumption of fashion. To use what I own and get a manageable size wardrobe.
The general problem is really that so much of our consumption is not environmentally and socially sustainable. If we fix this, change production and end-of-life processes so that they are sustainable or even circular, I don’t see any reason to limit consumption.
If you are not politically against financial transactions and/or markets, there is nothing wrong with paying someone for providing you with a sustainable service or good.