On the one hand, thanks to an indulgent 25-year-long diet of advertisements, peer pressure, popular culture and magazines, I am adept at reading the “hidden codes” behind the clothes we all wear.
I learned from a very early age that wearing the wrong thing can land you in all sorts of trouble. One bright summer’s day, when I was 7 years old, the bullies in the playground battered me over my head with my bright green trainers that I loved, but had bought from a market rather than a sports shop. At this moment, I had the rather abrupt and startling realization that this fashion thing wasn’t a passing trend; it was here to stay and how I chose to react to it would forever shape my life. It was here that the confusion began.
Even at an early age, it seemed I had two choices: either to play the system – follow all the latest fashion trends and be thought of as stylish by all my friends – or, rebel, refuse to conform, and wear the green trainers; batterings be damned!
Consciously or unconsciously, every single child has to make this choice. Even when schools desperately clamp down and put uniforms in place, fashion has a way of seeping through in the little details, from shoelaces to bags to hairbands. The bullies have an eye for detail and will always find a way to separate the weak from the strong, the rich from the poor.
For many, conformity is bliss and those who choose to play the system: buying branded goods, following magazine tips for “Hot Hair.”, dutifully lowering their eyes when big, stilettoed Diana from year ten is coming down the corridor. They hope to God she won’t notice them, because they heard what she did to Tracy Evans last week for the crime of having a dodgy perm.
Who can blame them, really, for playing the game, and making their life at school just a tiny bit less hellish? While there has always been bullying as long as children have congregated and not all of it is fashion related, yet, I feel that the pressure on our mother and grandmother’s generations to look the same and blend in was not as intense as we have experienced thanks in part to the prevalence of advertising and dominance of global brands in the twenty first century.
Girls are targeted more ruthlessly by the media and fashion trends seem more fickle, changing at a bewildering speed. I recall midnight conversations at sleepovers with teenage girlfriends who urgently confessed deep insecurities about being ugly, the wrong size, and unworthy. In a healthy society, there simply should not be such a prevalent undercurrent of self-hatred in the psyche of young girls. They should be full of self-pride and vitality, not despair.
As for me, I did not, could not, and would not conform. Even at seven something did not sit right with me that anyone, however big and threatening, could pressure me into wearing something I didn’t want to. Moreover, it made me angry and defiant towards them. I clearly remember, standing in the playground with tears streaming, my head bruised, and confused as to why one shoe with a tick on it was better than one without.
This acute sense of the absurdity of the fashion industry has stuck with me into adulthood. So, at school I wore my hand-me-downs with pride, and in my teenage years, when I first became responsible for buying my own clothes, I made a point of shopping in charity shops and jumble sales. I felt so angry towards a system that caused so much misery. Although I didn’t have any political or analytical terms to criticize it in my vocabulary, I instinctively felt the injustice and stupidity of the industry.
Several years and many run-ins with Diana later, I escaped the school system and enrolled at university. There my relationship with clothes became even more complex. I was enrolled in a course that encompassed theory, politics and literature, and I learned for the first time about the systems that fed the injustices that I had only experienced on a very micro level.
Now with a focus on the macro, it blew my mind. I developed a political conscience, learning about feminism and other women’s complex relationships with the fashion industry. I read about capitalism and globalization and was shocked to read about the depth of the very real suffering that goes into production of the latest unnecessary fashion trends. In the West, we are mentally imprisoned by what Alain De Botton calls status anxiety and the compulsion to conform. On a more global scale there are sweat shop workers working 14-hour days with no breaks or rights, companies pillaging natural resources, animal experimentation, even widespread use of child labour. I just couldn’t see many good sides, and whatever you might say to me about a healthy consumer capitalist economy, I still don’t. We are slaves to the brand, and whilst the wheels of the fashion machine keep turning, so do the cogs of human misery, poverty and injustice that keep the whole thing ticking over. I am no economist. I don’t have all the answers to the global problems. I’m not denying that shopping for clothes can be enjoyable, or give you a sense of creativity and pleasure. All I can say is, as far as I’m concerned, count me out. For me, clothes are mostly functional things that keep me dry and warm in winter and cool in summer.
I do have a couple of “best” outfits and clothes suitable for smart occasions and going out. I live in the real world, I do regular stuff and my wardrobe reflects that – it isn’t particularly outlandish or strange. But I mostly buy second hand and I buy what I like rather than what is fashionable. I don’t read beauty magazines, I believe they only work to make you feel ugly.
I don’t wear makeup, I like my own face. I haven’t shaved in years, yet my husband worships my body. I recycle and pass on things and I gratefully receive it when people do the same for me. I don’t own anything branded, second hand or not because I believe I’m a person, and not a billboard. I don’t watch advertisement so I rarely even know what is cool and what isn’t.
If all this is the most unbelievable, mortifying thing you’ve ever heard, then know this: I can’t tell you my life is perfect, but I do feel free. I have a thriving body image and a guilt free conscience, and all this serves to make me a happier person in the long run.
Rejecting the fashion industry does not make my life any easier nor do I feel like I have the right to look down my nose at those who choose not to. The purpose of this article is not for me to guilt-trip everyone into making the same choices as myself.
But all the time I save not being a slave to fashion means that I actually have a lot more hours to do things that matter to me. As a small example: Shopping for clothes is a twice yearly rather than a weekly event for me, so that gives me so much more extra time, energy and space to read a book, take a walk in the rain, have fabulous sex or even write this story!
Think of all the precious time you daily give to the fashion industry, either by shopping, preening, talking, reading, or just thinking about it. Then think about what else you could achieve in that lost time. For me this is the whole crux of the issue. Any doubts I occasionally have concerning my choices and my way of life are resolved by asking myself these two simple questions: Are there not many more interesting and important things in the world than contemplating my own fingernails, hair, clothes, tan and makeup? If so, shouldn’t I, just possibly, be doing them?