Let’s Dress Up But Be Lite
Moving away from the trap of femverstising and embracing conscious consumption
Locked down at home, including on the weekends, in this pandemic can be mentally draining. Hence, my friend and I decided to occupy ourselves by decluttering our closets. Apart from being therapeutic, it was a revelation too. I never realized I had so many clothes and yet nothing to wear. Parallely, my friend complained that all her twice worn clothes are old now and suggested that we make shopping our priority post lockdown. We are not alone on this. Women and clothing is a complicated love story fed by the self-serving cupid — read fashion industry.
According to a UNECE report, an average consumer purchases 60% more clothes now than in 2000. Still, the lifetime of each garment has halved. And surprisingly or not so surprisingly, 40% of our clothes in the wardrobe are never worn (Fashion and the SDGs, 2018). What’s more, one in seven women considers it a fashion faux-pas to be photographed in the same attire twice. Often I wonder what led women into this poor consumption pattern? What are its after-effects? Can it even be countered? These are all complex and highly intertwined questions that begs the understanding of the behavioural and psychological parameters which led to the existing consumption pattern and the resulting environmental ill-effects.
Talking about behaviour, the contemporary consumption pattern of women is primarily shaped by the stories that the media sell. Femvertising has become an effective story where brands market through female empowerment advertisements. While on the surface, femvertising appears to promote higher purchasing power and the ability to make fashion choices as a sign of empowerment, it is nothing but a marketing tool gift wrapped with women empowerment stories. It only appeals to the individual female economy and has little to do with the collective feminist movements.
And analysing intricate details about femvertising brands would prove such ads are nothing less than lip service. When Dove campaigned for #Real Beauty, which increased its sales from 2.4 billion to 5 billion in that decade, Unilever its parent company continued to promote Axe, through utterly misogynist ads. Many such brands ride on the current feminist movements and promote consumerism that translates to an increase in sales, rather than converting women’s rights into one of its core philosophies. And corporations continue to adopt this working strategy. A 2019 report on the fashion industry reveals that the term “Feminism” was expected to appear 6.3 times more in the retailer website than it did in 2016.
Now, one might wonder how companies translate femvertising into increased consumption. Brands do this by repeatedly tapping into the female insecurities as a target area to sell women empowerment as their marketing plan. For instance, last year, Max launched “Behen! Kuch Bhi Pehen!” (Sister! Wear whatever you choose!) campaign displaying an array of female empowerment quoted t-shirts, “Fearless Female,” “Selfhood,” to choose from to be empowered. Brands advance these women empowerment narrative by portraying that women lack confidence and self-esteem, and it can be undoubtedly achieved by consuming their (or more of their) products. Such stories are counterintuitive. They promote the notion of building confidence through material choices, especially clothes, always urging women to alter their appearance instead of fighting against such conservative societal norms.
Are we all driven only by the external social nudges that affects our behaviour? Nope, human psychology has a part to play in our consumption decisions too. Our innate psychology favours fast fashion, resulting in a preference for non-durable clothes for a lower price than durable clothes. A neuro-scientific study establishes that when a person decides to buy something new, the pleasure region is invoked, treating consumption as a reward. Conversely, the price of the product invokes the pain region in the brain. The final decision on whether or not to purchase depends on the degree of pleasure or pain experienced. Fast fashion wins this game as it reduces the degree of pain endured, urging a person to make an unsustainable consumption decision. Simultaneously, it is also treated as a reward by the brain, facilitating its repetition.
Both this behavioural and the psychological factors has led to a pile of clothes demanding more storage spaces, which could be an insignificant side effect compared to the environmental hazards it creates. According to UNECE, the production of one t-shirt requires 2700 litres of water — the amount a person drinks for 900 days. Not only water consumption, but the fashion industry has also assaulted the environment on multiple fronts such as soil degradation, the release of microfibers into oceans, carbon emissions, dumping of clothes in landfills, and many more. What’s more alarming is that this environmental exploitation is likely to increase significantly with the global middle-class population estimated to increase to 5.4 billion in 2030, a 3 billion rise from where it was in 2015, creating an unprecedented spike in consumption.
Such superfluous consumerism, promoted through femvertising, and psychologically preferable fast fashion is alarmingly unsustainable and hence needs an immediate check. Two possible ways of negating it is by advancing narratives that nudge i) women consumers towards sustainable clothing and consumption pattern and ii) companies towards a sustainable business model.
Avoiding fast fashion and embracing sustainable consumption is a two-step journey to be made by consumers, that includes identification and action. The first step is to identify sustainable products and many pro-sustainable organisations are making it more accessible day by day. For example, an android app called ‘Good On You’ has come up with an ethical rating for most clothing brands facilitating the identification of sustainable products.
While there is an increased voice for sustainability amongst consumers now, a recent HBR survey reveals that out of 65% people who express a positive attitude towards purpose-driven sustainable consumerism, only 26% actually do so. There is an urgent need to reduce this intention-action gap by promoting sustainable consumerism and environmental consciousness amongst consumers in creative and unconventional ways. For instance, creation of large-scale societal nudging techniques such as social sustainability card or the introduction of an app that is credited in terms of cash proportional to the sustainability contribution. Such push will also increase the psychological reward associated with sustainable consumption.
On the other hand, it is also crucial for the customers to understand that preferring sustainable clothing alone cannot bring a positive impact unless it is coupled with an extended usage. A survey by an organic clothing brand found that only 25% of the purchased organic clothes were used regularly by their customers, resulting in wastage of the remaining 75% of organic resources. Such a change in the consumption material without a change in the inessential consumption pattern does little for the environment. However, the good part is nearly 44% of customers in a fashion survey believed that sustainable consumption patterns such as preowned, refurbished, and rental clothes would become more relevant in the coming years that will moderately rectify the past reckless consumption behaviour.
Falling in line, few companies have already started campaigning their sustainable business model, such as H&M Conscious that recycles garments, Zara committing to 100% organic clothes by 2050, and fashion start-ups such as Reformation adopting sustainability as its core philosophy. However, Levis Waterless Denim Collection, which increased Levi’s sale by 20%, cautions us to be conscious enough to avoid sustainability as the next marketing tool after femvertising for companies to increase consumption.
Hence, sustainability in terms of clothing, consumption pattern, and business model should be the mantra for the creation of an environmentally conscious post-pandemic fashion industry.
Read Objectivity in Journalism by Nidhi Tiwari
Works Cited
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Paul, Maggie. Brands Must Stop Pushing Consumerism Under the Garb of Women Empowerment. The Wire. 2019. https://thewire.in/labour/womens-day-fashion-clothes-freedom-choice
Svensson, Vigga. Consumer Culture: The Day Your Baby’s Wardrobe Became Better Than Yours. Tedx Talks. 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v4Pf5Dt8Hg&list=PLcVKbJsdr51n_1DphFtk9Edi-zIFf-g_e&index=5
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The State of Fashion 2019. McKinsey & Company and BOF. 2018. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Retail/Our Insights/The influence of woke consumers on fashion/The-State-of-Fashion-2019.ashx
The State of Fashion 2020. McKinsey & Company and BOF. 2019. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Retail/Our%20Insights/The%20state%20of%20fashion%202020%20Navigating%20uncertainty/The-State-of-Fashion-2020-final.ashx
White, Katherine et al. The Elusive Green Consumer. Harvard Business Review. 2019. https://hbr.org/2019/07/the-elusive-green-consumer
Curtis, Cara. ‘Femvertising’ does nothing for Feminism. The Next Web. 2018. https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2018/12/19/femvertising-does-nothing-for-feminism/
Fashion and the SDGs. UNECE. 2018. https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/RCM_Website/RFSD_2018_Side_event_sustainable_fashion.pdf
H&M Conscious: Sustainable fashion through recycled clothes. H&M. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4xnyr2mCuI
Levi’s Waterless. Levis Malaysia. 2014. https://www.behance.net/gallery/17792417/Campaign-Levis-Waterless
About the Author: Vinithra is an Engineer and Liberal Studies graduate who is an amateur writer deeply drawn to feminist causes.
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