The year is 2010. The fall season is upon us all. This means back to school shopping and the hopeful wish of some new additions to our wardrobes. Infinity scarves, extra skinny jeans, and waterfall cardigans are all the rage in the flash sale sections. The big red and yellow signs pull us to the irresistibly tempting marked down prices. I remember begging my mom for anything to revamp my closet in order to stay cool and with the trends. I was 8 years old and desperate to keep my look updated.
Fast forward 10 years later, it seems the only constant with the display racks are the price tags and sale signs, along with the crowds of people working towards the same goal: to stay trendy.
Clothing has been regarded as an extension of ourselves or another way to express our individuality. Whether we are aware of it or not, the clothes we wear have intimate connections with how we feel about ourselves and how we relate to the world around us. Our wardrobes help us feel confident and presentable but they're also a tool used to perpetuate self-consciousness and confusion. The growing fast fashion industry takes advantage of this duality and can be used to exploit the mental health of their consumers. In an article for the FirsPost, Ruchita Chandrasker writes how “consumer spending depends heavily on manipulative marketing techniques employed by advertisers” (Chandrashekar, 2021). Essentially, advertisements rely heavily on the emotions they can provoke from their audience. In turn, as consumers, we buy on the basis of our emotions. As trends continuously change, so do our attitudes and feelings towards clothes. Before, all I desired was to own a pair of sequined knee-high Converse shoes. Now, I can’t imagine a time where I would ever need to wear them, despite the fact that they were one of the coolest shoes I had ever seen in middle school.
The fast fashion industry knows the need for conformity and the urge to have a sense of belonging, exploiting this to increase sales. I felt pressure to stay trendy since I was young, and I’m sure I am not the only one. It feels good to buy clothes. Every time I have fixation on a knit scarf, chunky black boots, or whatever trending item, I feel that this nagging feeling of consumer satisfaction will be soothed by buying whatever I want. It seems like every other week, there is a trending item that I would love to own but do not have. When I finish a hard task, I tell myself that I deserve to purchase something new. But let’s ignore the fact that I can award myself, it always seems like my go-to celebration to purchase a new jacket, or skirt, or dress, or shoes, or earrings, or some sweater. If I purchase something new, I will feel better. What we call: retail therapy.
Fast fashion has fabricated this illusion of retail therapy as a valid way of feeling better simply because we can own a new item that we see on billboards, magazines, Instagram accounts, and so on. Fast fashion creates the problem of feeling insecure about our wardrobes because we do not have the latest trends and offers us the solution of buying more and more, all the while never truly satisfying our need to look “fashionable” according to the current standards. It is a never ending cycle of keeping up with the trends, despite the ever changing standard of what the trends are. We are expected to keep up with an unreachable trendy lifestyle and seemingly looked down on when we can not.
I have slowly shifted my energy on purchasing less as well as solely purchasing second-hand in order to protect my mental health. Although it is not a perfect solution, thrifting allows me to still want new clothes without the pressure of needing new clothes. Retail therapy provided me with a temporary fix while thrifting has welcomed me into a community that openly converses about the dangers of fast fashion and the enthusiasm of feeling good in our clothes that we already own. There is a beauty and skill in the ability to put life back into used clothes that were thought to be useless by someone else. Thrifting and second-hand purchasing plays an integral role in slowing down our personal fast fashion habits but also protecting ourselves from the endless cycle that is retail therapy in a fast fashion system. In a world that insists we stay trendy or be deemed unfashionable, I encourage you to take a step back from your closet and reflect on your reasoning behind purchasing: is it for yourself or for others?
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