“Fashion is Never Finished” – Mark Zuckerberg

In the reality based movie, The Social Network thats what Mark Zuckerberg says to his partner during the process of building Facebook. That it was like Fashion – it would never be finished. It would just perpetually evolve, fitting itself into the wants, needs and whims of its consumers in particular periods of time. It was ever flowing and ever transformative.

It’s been almost ten years since Facebook launched and its still a top internet service today. What happens to Facebook in times to come is unknown, but one thing is certain. The concept of networking socially within your peer group in the virtual space is here to stay. Whether its through Facebook or another better product is a different question. The fact is, the concept has been introduced and it has gone from being a great and novel idea to a necessary social tool. Its not impossible to live without it but now that we have it, its almost impossible wanting to go back.

Sometimes one can’t help but wonder, is fashion actually necessary? Its not, really. Clothes are necessary, right up there with food and shelter. But fancy and pretty clothes? Nope, not very much necessary at all.

Then what keeps Fashion going? Why isn’t it “finished” yet? Why is it ideated to be ever-present for the remaining of our existence, always evolving and changing forms?

Let’s think back to how fashion would have started. The Early Man living in caves, hunting animals and gathering fruit needed some form of protective layering to protect himself from the extremities of weather. Quite surely, clothing of the early man didn’t begin existing as a result of his vanity. It was a genuine need which was innovatively fulfilled by skinning the hides of animals they hunted and ate. How resourceful.

Eventually, caves that they lived in became huts. Huts became houses. Houses became apartments. Some houses became mansions.

Fruits and game became grains and produce and ham and bacon.

Beasts’ hides became H&M and Zara. Some became Armani and Prada.

Thats just man’s nature. Progress and evolution. Sometimes fueled by luxuries and facilities and yet often times ruled purely by his vanities.

So now that we are here, thank God, what then is the future of Fashion?

As strange as it seems, food and fashion industries have a lot in common in their nature, evolution, requirement and perhaps their future state of being. Both are need-based requirements, yet both are ruled by human greed and consumption.

Like you can survive on a very basic diet of grains, fruits and protein, you only need simple cotton or woolen clothing to protect your body against the environment.

Yet pleasure-driven existence has moved far beyond basics in to the land of glut. Fast Food chains and Fast Fashion chains. Both mass produced and made for excessive consumption.

That’s where we stand today. The bubble has been expanding ferociously with a mind of its own. It’s hard to say which way it will go – it could keep growing, especially through the new avenues of sales like ecommerce. Or it could stabilize and find an equilibrium at its current level, or it may contract. Although the last option seems unlikely, there are more and more people understanding the value in going back to selective quality instead of junk quantities. Mindlessness to mindfulness.

However, that remains a domain of the minority who have conditioned themselves to become resistant to the clever marketing tactics of retail giants and constant lure of shiny objects. The majority still finds it charming to eat and drink themselves silly on Saturday nights and become savage shoppers during sale seasons. And that they must, the economy depends on them. If we need producers for job creation, we needs consumers for revenue generation. And come on, we also need some fun.

But the thing is to do it responsibly. Don’t be ignorant, naively expecting your manufacturers and marketers to be morally upright businesses. We as consumers need to exercise knowledge based discretion. Spend your hard earned dollars with companies that treat them with respect. The ones that don’t chemically/genetically mess with your food and don’t exploit workers or far worse, kids to make your trendy clothes. Don’t be blind to your environment.

Consume all you wish – not mindlessly, but mindfully.