Overdressed: the Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion Pdf

Attention, Shoppers

Feb. viii, 2013

In her introduction to "Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Way," the journalist Elizabeth L. Cline recalls buying "vii pairs of $7 shoes" at Kmart. Regret follows, and soon subsequently, a wardrobe inventory. When Cline cleans out her cupboard she discovers, among other things, 61 tops, 60 T-shirts, 15 cardigans and hooded sweatshirts, 21 skirts and 20 pairs of shoes, most of which she never wore.

A quote from the former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland comes to mind: "Give 'em what they never knew they wanted." Fast-fashion retailers similar H&Thousand, Topshop and Forever 21 are great at hawking what we never knew nosotros wanted. Not merely that, they offer it at steadily reduced prices. Cline, who admits to being a "reformed fast-fashion junkie," notes that "because of low prices, chasing trends is at present a mass action, accessible to anyone with a few bucks to spare." Quality is no longer an issue, because yous need wearing apparel to last only "until the next trend comes along."

The wastefulness encouraged by buying cheap and chasing the trends is obvious, merely the subconscious costs are even more than galling. Cline contends that "disposable clothing" is damaging the environment, the economic system and even our souls, and she presents a dense and sobering skein of data to back up her thesis. Today, the United States makes merely 2 percent of the clothing its consumers buy, compared with roughly 50 pct in 1990; in 2010, Goodwill sold 163 million pounds of used wearing apparel and household items. Cline travels to Guangdong Province in China, a region crowded with fabric factories, and observes, "The air pollution was so thick I couldn't photo anything a quarter-mile off the highway — information technology was lost in the smog."

I antidote to this high-speed style Armageddon is "ho-hum fashion" — a concept, like "wearisome food," that is itself garnering tendency-worthy status. There is a rash of "upstanding mode" blogs and books on the subject (Lucy Siegle's "To Die For" comes to mind), and the movement is becoming so popular that even the global clothing giants take glommed on. H&M, for instance, at present has a "Conscious Collection," a line of organic cotton fiber fashions designed to entreatment to the conscientious client.

Cline adheres to the "wearisome" mantra — "make, alter and mend" — and advises u.s.a. to buy recycled, organic and locally produced clothing. She'south a persuasive advocate; when she writes that "sewing gives back a feeling of agency and self-sufficiency," I'm tempted to bring the Vocalist upward from the basement. Just she could have delved even deeper: why have so many consumers (including Cline) get hooked on fast style in the past decade? Is our lust for cheap clothing symptomatic of a larger malaise? What role do social media, which encourage relentless epitome consciousness, play in our shopping choices? Practice we believe that by continually acquiring and displaying what we wear, nosotros are creating an identity, an eternal brand of the self? And what'due south really going on in those agonizing "haul" videos, in which shoppers post reviews of their purchases on YouTube?

When Cline writes that "people crave connections to their stuff," she prompts another question: Have we somehow become disconnected from ourselves? If nosotros don't stop to consider this, nosotros may end up perpetually rushing out to buy more "stuff," never realizing what we truly demand, genuinely want and cannot afford to waste product.