The Golden Age of individualism

Spoiler alert: it's not now. Getting judgey with it. And then veering off into more judginess about brands lack of transparency and customers' complacence with it. Plus guilt-tripping myself a little.

My beloved Etro jacket.

I blame Pinterest, to be honest. Whenever I attempt to use it I find it just keeps endlessly serving the same thing up, and whenever anyone mentions it, my heart slightly sinks. Something that may be a generational thing, and is probably down to coming to social media in my forties rather than at a young age, is that I don’t understand the appeal of individual viral items rather than trends - why does anyone want what everyone else has? I feel as though that is very alien to my generation (cusp of Boomer/Gen X), and also fits so badly with the much-vaunted concept of personal style.

I was born in 1963 and so my formative memories of clothes are of growing up in the 70s, and by the end of the decade I was a punk, much to the dismay and bemusement of my small Italian town (as a movement, Punk did not gain a lot of traction in Italy - the concept of actually wanting to look authentically poor being anathema to Italian sensibilities). My father was a teacher at an international school, and so our family had less disposable income than a lot of my classmates. My parents’ stock answer to plaintive queries why we didn’t go skiing every weekend/holiday outside Italy etc, was, “We’re not everybody else”. This did rather come back to bite them when I was a punk, and they would (also plaintively) ask why I couldn’t be like everyone else? and I would reply that they had carefully told me all my life that I wasn’t everyone else, and here I was, stroppily asserting my individuality.

I’m not suggesting everyone ran around being gloriously impervious to what everyone else was doing - far from it. Trends - especially I think in Italy - would have such a stranglehold that my school ended up having to change the colour of the school uniform because at one point it was physically impossible to get hold of grey clothing (this was before the days of cheap flights, or ordering online. It was a very, very, long time ago). As a teenager in Italy in the late seventies, you picked a side, and that dictated your style. Fascists wore bright, trendy clothes and listened to disco. Communists wore jeans and clogs and listened to rock music. I suppose there may have been people who didn’t feel as though they had any political affiliation, but everyone else would have assigned them one based on their footwear.

And obviously, when I was a punk, I looked like one. I wore a lot of black with a studded belt and a leather jacket, and I sported a rather good mohican. But my jacket and my belt were handed on (very infra dig to buy your rags new), and everything else was homemade, hand-mutilated, shared with friends, second-hand. You could like someone’s look and try to emulate it, but you couldn’t replicate it, because everything everyone wore was unique, and that was the point.

Times change and the internet happened, and suddenly from only being able to buy in person (although there were always a few catalogues around), to being able to order from catalogues over the phone, to shops with websites! and then even dtc! we got to now, where everything is always available all the time and you can have it tomorrow, or even today in some cases. Which means that every time anyone likes something, or is paid to like it, or likes it and is paid as a bonus, they can post it online and everyone else can see it and like the same thing, and suddenly it’s cool to want what everyone else has?

While at the same time, the ether sags under the weight of all the people wondering how to acquire personal style, and looking to other people to help them locate it. And the problem here is that in all the enormity of the internet, with all the people on it saying what they like, it all becomes overwhelming, and everyone’s attention narrows in on the same thing, which they are bombarded with from all their favourite people because it’s gone viral because everyone is overwhelmed and needs other people to make their choices for them.

From my generation’s point of view, this is just… strange. Why do you want exactly the same thing that everyone else has? Why do you want the empty validation of wearing the exact something that someone else has chosen (or had chosen for them)? Why are you so scared of the judgement of others that you can only want what has already been pre-approved?

In my no-doubt rose-tinted view of trends of the olden days, the whole idea behind it was that you took a trend and then tweaked it to make it yours. A trend was an idea, not one particular object, and you went out and found the version of it that you most liked. Nobody went out and bought the exact same thing from the exact same shop as everyone else, unless they were seriously insecure.

And isn’t that it? First we had fast fashion dropping pretty things made out of plastic every two seconds, making everyone panic that what they bought yesterday was already out of date. now we have influencers telling everyone what is cool and desirable, making everyone panic that they might not have the cool and desirable things everyone else has. And honestly, when you’re 14 and want the same shoes as everyone else, that’s ok.

But what it says about you as an adult is “I like what thousands of other people like!” and “I can afford this, and everyone knows how much it costs, so I’m making a statement about my wealth, not my taste!” And part of the problem with this is not fashion, or wanting to shop, or craving beautiful things, it is that marketing goes for the jugular. It negs and gaslights us - you need this! All the cool girls have it and if you don’t, they won’t want to be friends with you! (side note: being “cool” used to be defined as unusual and unique, standout. Now it is focused on bland conformity. Why?)

Not buying anything does give one very many opportunities for self-righteousness, and you can bet I grab them all. One is the chance to really think about my values, and how my shopping habits align with them. Pretty much, I believe we should:

• shop with brands and small companies working to minimise their impact on the planet and maximise quality of life for those who assist in the creation of the products

• prioritise brands and small companies promoting the use of natural materials

• only buy what e know to be useful and/or believe to be beautiful, and aim to keep for the foreseeable future

And one of my resolutions when I shop again is to check out the information available on the brands’ sustainability goals, because this is a very big bugbear of mine. It drives me completely insane when brands or influencers blithely claim that sustainability is very important to them, or even that they are indeed sustainable, while backing it up with a gaping hole. It’s not enough to earnestly state that you care very much, when you aren’t making any discernible effort. And it’s not enough, influencers, to point your audience to brands making no effort either. A quick glance at the websites of brands that instantly sprang to my mind¹ was interesting - basically, if a brand hasn’t got its About page up at the top of the website, they have nothing to say about how they are putting your money to offsetting their damage. And not surprisingly, the Scandinavians come out top when it comes to giving a flying fuck about humanity and its future.

But even as I think grandly about my values, I know I have blind spots. I have a beautiful, beautiful jaquard Etro jacket, which is my pride and joy. I got it from Vestiaire, years ago, and will definitely have it forever. It is gorgeously cut, and the quality is superb, but it’s largely man-made fibres (acetate, some viscose, wool and cotton). Given a chance, in theory I’d buy my whole wardrobe from Etro because I absolutely love the clothes. But if there is any information anywhere on their website on sustainability or ethics, it’s not visible to the naked eye. So I buy into their aesthetic to the extent that I just can’t rule out my desire for one of their cashmere shawls.

SIlk and cashmere Etro shawl

although I suspect if I was going to indulge, I’d end up choosing one from Liberty (not necessarily the one below).

Wool-silk Liberty scarf

Liberty at least aspires to do good, and also always share information about how their products are made, as well as their community involvement, but they are such an emotional brand/shop/entity/mothership for me that I find it hard to be as rigid and uncompromising in my stance as I like to think I could be.

And there are other brands I find myself not even consciously excusing. Max Mara, M&S, Uniqlo: Max Mara is forever! Marks is an institution! Uniqlo just does such reliable basics! … But the polyester! And the lack of transparency!

I think this is what we do, collectively, with both luxury brands, and with whatever is being peddled to us on social media - we suspend our values and pretend the clothes themselves have a value to us above the suffering that may have been caused to make them. We don’t want to hold brands accountable because we want the cute t-shirt that everyone else thinks is cute because god knows, it’s not easy to get hold of a t-shirt is it? Oh wait…

And then there’s the other bit. If I’m buying a little bin for my bathroom, do I search out the perfect ethical and sustainable solution, or do I get one from a (chain store) down the road, telling myself self-righteously that I’m doing the right thing by shopping locally, even though it’s too cheap to be made ethically, and it’s plastic?

I wish I was more perfect. I wish I knew I was going to live by my values and not bypass the due diligence every time I want something. But this shopping pause is helping. By letting me sit with what I have, I realise how much I don’t need (bathroom bins notwithstanding). I hope it will remind me of my values next time I shop, but I don’t mind the guilt if I don’t. I don’t think it is the shopper’s job to have to scour every website for proof of good intent (at the very least, rather than indifference), but I do think it’s the shopper’s job to remember that they have agency. I don’t think that by boycotting marketplaces selling shitty products probably made by slave labour, I am denting their profits in the slightest. But I do think that my being part of a collective effort will make a difference eventually. I don’t think I should cut myself slack here, because I am in a position to look around and find the best alternative for many things I choose to buy (and I absolutely recognise that not everyone is), and that niggling guilt I feel when I take the easy or lazy way out is a reminder to do better next time.

And of course, I know there is a balance to be struck. There are times when I am in a position to make good choices, often when I’m buying something I don’t actually need and times when I have an ethically imperfect solution which works perfectly for my needs. I looked up my favourite footwear brand on the good on you website, and it didn’t come up covered in glory. But, I am drawn to its heritage identity, and I love the aesthetics of the product, which is also incredibly comfortable for my tricky feet. I don’t plan on buying from any other footwear brand, and I will proclaim the comfort and quality of the product from the rooftops. My search for the perfect footwear for my feet has been extensive, and I’m not about to abandon it and start over. And at the same time, I’m not planning on buying any more footwear over the next few years.

This is not something I feel guilty about. I do feel guilty enough about other potential home related purchases - particularly in the context of a no-buy - that it effectively puts the brakes on me. Guilt sometimes gets to the places that willpower can’t reach.

1. Brands I love

Skall Studio - lots of info, good on you says good.

Asket - so much info, good on you says good

Rifò - all about the good stuff, good on you says great

Artknit - more B Corp knitwear, good on you says good

Grenson - built to last and full of good intentions but good on you says not good enough

Liberty - lots of striving, less hard facts

Intimissimi - good on you says it’s a start

Toast - good on you says it’s a start

Brands I hear about

Toteme sustainability report (B Corp certified), good on you says it’s a start

Khaite - not a word, good on you says we avoid

The Row - crickets, good on you says we avoid

Tibi - deep silence, good on you says not good enough

Phoebe Philo - paying lipservice, but not much in the way of hard facts, good on you says not good enough

Leset - you can help, but what about them? good on you says we avoid