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Introduction SINCE THE INVENTION of the mechanical loom nearly two and a half centuries ago, fashion has been a dirty, unscrupulous business that has exploited humans and Earth alike to harvest bountiful profits. Slavery, child labor, and prison labor have all been integral parts of the supply chain at one time or another—including today. On occasion, society righted the wrongs, through legislation or labor union pressure. But trade deals, globalization, and greed have undercut those good works. Up until the late 1970s, the United States produced at least 70 percent of the apparel that Americans purchased. And—thanks to the New Deal—for much of the twentieth century, brands and manufacturers were expected to adhere to strict national labor laws. But in the late 1980s, a new segment of the apparel business cropped up: “fast fashion,” the production of trendy, inexpensive garments in vast amounts at lightning speed in subcontracted factories, to be hawked in thousands of chain stores. To keep the prices low, fast-fashion brands slashed manufacturing costs—and the cheapest labor was available in the world’s poorest countries. Offshoring caught on across the industry, just as globalization was unfurling. Though it started as a small corner of the business, fast fashion’s astounding success was so enviable it soon reset the rhythm for how clothing—from luxury to athletic wear—was and is conceived, advertised, and sold. The impact was dramatic: in the last thirty years, fashion has grown from a $500 billion trade, primarily domestically produced, to a $2.4-trillion-ayear global behemoth.

Contents It’s been a terrible year for fashion sales —unless they’re online

7-8

Yes, Shopping Can Be Addictive

10 - 13

Online shopping addiction should be recognised as a mental health condition

16 - 17

An interview with a self proclaimed online shopping addict

18 - 19

9 Things Everyone Should Know About Sustainable Fashion

22 - 25

It’s been a terrible year for fashion sales... unless they’re online

By Marc Bain

July 17, 2020

In the US and Europe, fashion has been among the categories hit hardest by Covid-19. In May, sales at US clothing and accessories shops were down 62.4% (pdf) compared to last year, while the 19-country Euro area said retail sales of clothing, textiles, and footwear were 50.5% below their 2019 level (pdf) for the month.

Many shoppers have curbed discretionary purchases, but even those who want to spend have found non-essential stores shuttered. Undeterred, they’ve turned to e-commerce, where online retailers are happily satisfying their desire for new clothes.

Zalando, a Berlin-based company that bills itself as Europe’s largest online fashion retailer, reported on July 15 that its gross merchandise sales grew as much as 34% in the recent quarter, which it credited to shoppers buying more digitally. It said it had more than 3 million new customers and updated its guidance for the year to reflect that it now expects gross merchandise sales to rise by up to 25%.

It’s not alone in seeing a sales bump:

- Asos, an online fashion retailer based in the UK, said sales in the four months through June 30 climbed 10% despite the pandemic, driven largely by growth in the EU along with rises in the US and some other markets too.

- Boohoo, an online fast-fashion company also headquartered in the UK, reported a 45% rise in sales in the three months through May 31. (It’s recently come under fire after allegations surfaced of labor abuses at a UK factory said to be making its clothes.)

- Vestiaire Collective, a resale marketplace for luxury fashion online that’s based in France but sells globally, said the number of items customers bought on its site jumped 119% in May compared to last year.

Online fashion retailers Revolve and Farfetch also reported growth in their recent quarters, though they only ran through March 31 so more recent months aren’t reflected.

Despite shoppers having to handle clothes to really know how they fit and feel, they’ve generally taken to buying clothes online more quickly than some other categories. Research firm Forrester has estimated e-commerce makes up about twice as much of fashion’s sales as it does for retail overall.

Now experts predict the pandemic and the behavioral changes it’s causing will only accelerate shoppers buying more of their clothes digitally. It’s a tailwind for online-only retailers, which generally haven’t suffered the same downturn as competitors that still rely on stores for most of their sales. It’s also likely to push those competitors to invest more in building up their digital operations.

The tide of new online shoppers hasn’t lifted all companies, however.

In a business update yesterday (pdf), luxury firm Richemont said sales for its “online distributors” division, made up of online luxury fashion hub Yoox Net-a-Porter and its Watchfinder site, fell 42% in the quarter. It pointed to its fulfillment centers having to close temporarily as the main reason for the drop. TheRealReal, an online luxury reseller based in the US, also saw its business stumble (pdf) recently and blamed shelter-in-place orders that limited its operations. Otherwise it said demand was healthy in April and May. As long as they can keep their operations open, fashion’s big online players look better positioned to weather the pandemic and its after-effects, especially if they sell clothes for lounging around the house.

Words MELISSA DAHL

Photography

Yes, Shopping Can Be Addictive

“There’s a reason that your New Year’s budget is so hard to keep ...”

Yes, Shopping Can Be Addictive

BY MELISSA DAHL

JAN 6, 2017

By now the notion of “retail therapy” has become a modern cliché. And yet it’s the rare popular idea that is actually backed by scientific evidence.

As usual, the brain chemical to credit or blame for our pleasure—in this case, the pleasure of shopping—is dopamine. The neurotransmitter surges when you’re considering buying something new—anticipating a reward, in other words. Sales, by the way, give us an even harder kick. “We’re constantly comparing what we expect with what we actually perceive,” says Columbia University professor of neurobiology David Sulzer. So when an unforeseen benefit enters our cognitive field—30 percent off!—the dopamine really spikes.

The biological point isn’t to land you in debtor’s prison; dopamine encourages exploration by rewarding us when we stumble upon something salutary. This chemical response is commonly called “shopper’s high,” Sulzer says, likening it to the rush that can come with drinking or gambling.

I nterestingly, your brain calculates how buying an object of desire will feel before you consciously consider whether to purchase it. Uma Karmarkar, a neuroscientist and assistant professor at Harvard Business School, gives this example: Perhaps you’ve set a strict budget for yourself after New Year’s, but then you encounter something delectable and zap— your neurological flares go off, best-laid plans be damned.

O H

H

O

N

H

H While you can’t see inside your own brain as you ponder a $900 leather jacket, researchers like Karmarkar can. In an illuminating 2007 study, neuroscientists scanned people’s brains as they considered a range of products and noted, first, that a region called the nucleus accumbens—aka, the pleasure center—showed more activity.

That’s to be expected, but here’s where things get interesting. When the study volunteers were given prices for the items, the part of their prefrontal cortex associated with executive functioning, particularly decision-making, lit up, as did the insula, an area implicated in processing pain. And subjects with the busiest insulas were most likely to decide against the purchase. It’s a nerdy way to think about something you know intuitively: There are times when the pain of parting with your hard-earned cash outweighs the pleasure of new stuff. Put another way, spending really can hurt.

For some people, though, the immediate gratification of shopping always seems to outweigh the reckoning of suffering. A new area of psychological research focuses on shopping addiction, a surprisingly controversial concept, according to UCLA neuropsychologist Robert Bilder, PhD. Not so long ago, excessive shopping was understood to be a compulsion; now experts like Bilder argue that it’s an addiction. To call something an addiction suggests that “developing a tolerance” for it is possible,

Bilder says—that “it requires a larger dose to get the same effect. You find yourself needing more and more.”

The culprit, according to other brain-imaging studies, such as a 2010 report in Science, may be faulty dopamine receptors: Those who tend toward impulsivity experience a bigger release of the neurotransmitter than the rest of us, which leads them to crave another hit.

So how to break an addictive cycle? In a 2015 survey of 23,537 adults published in Frontiers in Psychology, Bilder and his colleagues found that those who met the criteria for shopping addiction were also more likely to have symptoms of depression or anxiety. To that end, he recommends cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy, or perhaps antidepressants (though they haven’t yet been proven effective for shopping addiction).

Of course, not every shopper is a junkie. The key is, know thyself. A 2014 study in Applied Research in Quality of Life that summarized the research on happiness and consumerism noted, for example: “Luxury consumption positively affects an individual’s subjective well-being.” Still, guess what science says will make you even happier? Giving your money away.

Online shopping addiction should be recognised as a mental health condition

by CATRIONA HARVEY-JENNER

NOV 15, 2019

There’s a fine line between having a love of online shopping, and having an addiction to it. And according to psychotherapists, an addiction to buying goods off the internet should be classified as a mental health condition.

The

term

BSD

-

which

stands

for

‘buying-

shopping disorder’ - has long been in existence, but as the digital age facilitates shopping at the drop of a hat (or the tap of a button), experts warn that it is “taking on a new meaning”, according to a Mail Online report.

“It really is time to recognise BSD as separate mental health condition and to accumulate further knowledge about BSD on the Internet,” Dr Astrid Müller,

a

psychotherapist

at

Hannover

Medical

School in Germany, told the publication. In a small study published in the Comprehensive Psychiatry journal, Müller researched the condition, analysing 122 patients who had sought help for their online shopping addictions. What emerged was a higher-than-usual rate of depression and anxiety among those who were addicted to buying online.

With shops now largely being ‘24-hour’ due to the nature of websites and apps facilitating purchases at any time of day (or night), the experts fear online BSD is becoming increasingly common.

BSD is not currently recognised as a disorder in its own right, but instead as part of a wider

category

called

‘other

specified

impulse control disorder’. This is known to have serious mental effects, according to the German researchers.

The condition works in a cycle of having extreme

cravings

to

purchase,

which

feeds off a feeling of satisfaction when money is spent. Health website Very Well Mind describes the characteristics of an addiction to shopping as a “preoccupation with

shopping

for

unneeded

items”,

“spending a great deal of time doing research on coveted items and/or shopping for unneeded items”, and “difficulty resisting the purchase of unneeded items”.

The risks, as with any addiction, are great; debt, loss of self-control, and deprioritisation of fundamental things like family and work being just some.

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“We hope that our results showing that the prevalence of addictive online shopping among treatment-seeking patients with BSD

will

encourage

future

research...

and specific treatment concepts,” said psychotherapist Dr Müller.

“Buy less.

Choose well.

Make it last.

Quality, not quantity.

Everybody’s buying far too many clothes.

- Vivienne Westwood

9 Things Everyone Should Know About Sustainable Fashion

BY EMILY CHAN

19 APRIL 2021

9 Things Everyone Should Know About Sustainable Fashion

BY EMILY CHAN

19 APRIL 2021

Buy less and buy better It may be a cliche, but the mantra “buy less and buy better” is key when you consider that a staggering 100bn garments are being produced globally every year. Before making a purchase, sustainability consultancy Eco-Age’s chief brand officer Harriet Vocking advises that you ask yourself three all-important questions: “What are you buying and why? What do you really need? Will you wear it at least 30 times?”

Invest in sustainable fashion brands Buying better can also mean supporting designers who are promoting sustainable practices, including the likes of Collina Strada, Chopova Lowena and Bode, who all use upcycled textiles in their designs. Narrowing your search for specific items can also help, whether that’s seeking out brands producing activewear more sustainably (such as Girlfriend Collective and Indigo Luna), swimwear (including Stay Wild Swim and Natasha Tonic) or denim (Outland Denim and Re/Done).

Shop secondhand and vintage With secondhand and vintage now increasingly accessible thanks to sites such as The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective and Depop, consider buying pre-loved items when looking to add to your wardrobe. Not only will you extend the life of these garments and reduce the environmental impact of your wardrobe as a result, you can also find one-of-a-kind pieces that no one else will own. Look to the likes of Rihanna and Bella Hadid – both vintage aficionados – for inspiration here.

Know your materials Understanding the impact of materials is crucial when it comes to making more sustainable purchases. A good rule of thumb is to avoid virgin synthetics such as polyester – which makes up 55 per cent of clothes globally – as these are derived from fossil fuels and take years to break down. Not all natural materials are made the same: organic cotton, for example, uses significantly less water than conventional cotton and doesn’t use harmful pesticides.

9 Things Everyone Should Know About Sustainable Fashion

Ask who made your clothes With the pandemic highlighting the extreme difficulties faced by garment workers around the world, it’s essential that the people who make our clothes are paid a fair wage and have safe working conditions. Seek out brands who openly disclose information about their factories and their policies around wages and working conditions.

Support brands who have a positive impact Eco-minded brands such as Mara Hoffman and Sheep Inc are starting to consider how fashion can have a positive impact on the environment rather than just reducing its impact. Regenerative agriculture – farming practices such as no-tilling and growing cover crops – is a growing trend within fashion that aims to restore soil health and biodiversity.

Reduce your water footprint Given that the production of textile uses an astonishing 93bn cubic metres of water annually – the equivalent to 37m Olympic swimming pools – we should all be more conscious about the water footprint of our clothes. As mentioned previously, organic cotton uses significantly less water than conventional cotton (91 per cent less, according to one study), while the use of low-water dyes also reduces water consumption.

9 Things Everyone Should Know About Sustainable Fashion

Ensure your clothes have a second life When clearing out your closet, being conscious about how you dispose of your clothes will help stop them from ending up in landfill.

Re-selling your clothes or organising a clothes swap is the best way to ensure they’ll have a second life, as well as donating to charities and organisations that are looking for used clothing. For worn-out pieces that can no longer be repaired for reused, look for recycling schemes specifically for those items, where possible.

Take care of your clothes Extending the life of your clothes is crucial when it comes to lowering the environmental footprint of your garments, and ensuring they don’t end up clogging landfill sites after just one or two wears. Ensure your clothes last as long as possible by not overwashing them (which will also lower your CO2 emissions and water consumption), as well as repairing them instead of throwing them out.

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