Fashionable Progress

I like change. I like getting rid of stuff and clutter. I try not to have stuff and clutter in the first place, but it just accumulates like dust. I had never considered this may be part of a governmental pan to increase spending and national morale. I never thought my love for shopping was something that I was provoked to enjoy by my society.

After watching “The Story of Stuff” (http://www.storyofstuff.com/) This quote from “retail analysis” Victor Lebow after World War II from the “Story of Stuff” left me gawking at the screen: “our enormously productive economy. . . demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. . . we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerated rate”.

I see this in the world around me.

I also think this coincides with L. Marx’s (1987), “Does improved technology mean progress?”. Why are we, as a society, so consumed by consumerism? The NEED for progress, and the need to buy the new compliment each other. We need to ask ourselves WHY : ”when the introduction of some new labor-saving technology is proposed, it is useful to ask what the purpose of this new technology is. Only by questioning the assumption that innovation represents progress can we being to judge its worth” (Marx, 11).

I was particularly hurt with Annie Leonard’s theory of fashion. She asserted that the flux of styles: when skinny heels are in and chunky heels are out and when chunky heels are in and skinny heels are out, is a sure way to know who is IN and who is OUT. The progression of styles and NEW.

But this is not necessarily fashion-- the way people choose to style themselves with clothing-- but more a reflection of the economic system where it is possible to make money off of clothing by trying to get everyone to want the latest, greatest, newest shirt, short and shoes.

However, this severely thrashes what style is all about. Style is about wearing chunky heels, even if they are out. The person who wears skinny heels just because they are in is not fashionable at all.

Vintage is in. Flea market finds and garage sell digs are fiend by many a fashion bloggers and aspiring fashionistas. This promotes recycling-- it is cool to say you found something truly unique at the Goodwill.

But companies are getting wise to this shift and trying to sell garments that look washed and worn but only because of the factory process it went through.

Perhaps, if everyone was concerned with defining his or her own style, we could help the world and reduce mindless consumerism.

I guess this is still buying but maybe in a better way.

We all make decisions about what we wear every single day. Even thinking that you don’t care what you wear and just put on whatever, is an example of how you choose to show yourself to the world.

A way to decrease the wastefulness and overwhelmingness of trying to keep up with a trend is by focusing more on our individuality and try to find ways to express this in the most unique way possible. Individuals need to define their own trends.

So then, instead of going to the closest big brand store that churns out the same “unique” shirt-- people may find themselves looking for clothes that were once worn in another time and place.

Stuff is the byproduct of progress.