I’ve got ten minutes, I want to talk about what you said here about alternatives to fast fashion.
Someone had a predictable go at me for being a hypocrite and class traitor in that post, because I mentioned that boycotting, while structurally ineffective to change the economic situation, is still good moral practice; I briefly noted that our household personally doesn’t buy fast fashion. (If you don’t say that sort of thing regularly and mechanically, it instantly becomes “elodie discourages people from boycotts in order to feel better about their own closet full of sweatshop clothes.”)
the inverse gotcha is of course, “if you don’t buy fast fashion, then you hate poor people, and don’t understand what it’s like to be poor and have no clothing options!” And this is what the person told me - that I’m malicious for not buying cheap things like a comrade, and that having a two-part stance on boycotts is violently hypocritical.
However, the next move in the chess game is for me to reply, “oh, sometimes I DO wish I could the sort of disposable income to afford fast fashion at all! But regrettably, I can’t - I just can’t justify £12.99 plus shipping for a single new top - so all of my clothes are secondhand from thrift stores, eBay or clothes swaps with the eco group. It would be nice to have fast fashion money! Is it nice?”
The alternatives mentioned above (swapping, buying secondhand, and caring less about keeping up with changing fashion) are the time-honoured traditional most efficient methods of getting dressed on a budget. They are the methods still practiced today by everyone that Shein doesn’t want - namely: men, elderly people, the uncool, large portions of low-income people, the crunchy crowd, people with small children, people with bodies that aren’t small straight rectangles, people without addresses, people with other things on their minds, frugal people, bargain hunters, and so on. The crunchy uncool old broke parents like me are not spending thousands of money on Rich People Ethical brands, nor are we spending much time optimising our online shopping baskets for the free shipping discount. No, we are all parsimoniously sharing the same five boxy, hideous Lucy and Yak fleeces in an endless circle at the clothing swap, like the three old women sharing one eyeball - and we’re only doing that because the eco group provides free tea - and Shein does not bother making clothes for us, and the people playing Tumblr gotcha games are unaware that people like us even exist, let alone are common in real life. Thus we reveal that fast fashion discourse gotchas are really just a set of rules that allow coolish youngish women to pick holes in each other - a form of rock/paper/scissors to establish bullying rights, which involves all players mutually forgetting the existence of uncool old people, secondhand items, and men.
In conclusion, you’re absolutely correct, these alternatives to fast fashion exist, are widely used, and are cheaper. The secondhand economy is cheaper than fast fashion. Swapping stuff is cheaper than fast fashion. Wearing “uncool” stuff is cheaper than buying fast fashion. Changing what makes stuff “cool” - i.e. wearing the stuff you have with confidence and panache, and sneering at the idea that you need to buy what other people tell you - is cheaper and more efficient than changing your wardrobe. This is a boycott people can practice without spending money. Oh my goodness.
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