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| "This is nice - it will look perfect in landfill" |
1 April 2019
By Neil Patrick
Clarkson, Clegg and Facebook unite to clean up...
Fast fashion is a big problem. According to the latest news, on average, people wear clothes just two and a half times before throwing them out. I am still trying to figure out how you can wear something half a time, but I’ll let you know after I’ve carried out some experiments.
Anyway I must be a statistical outlier - if I throw something out, it is likely only because I have spilled creosote all over it and the stains look like something unspeakably horrible has happened to me.
Fashion has been getting faster and faster for years. The fashion industry has created ever shorter cycles - winter and summer seasons have been replaced with lines which change every week or so. The original fashion put-down of ‘that’s so last year’ has become ‘that’s so last week’.
This is all made possible through the outsourcing of manufacture to factories in the third world with low pay, child labour and terrible working conditions. And the insatiable fashion addiction of millions. Fast fashion is to the planet what fast food is to health.
The environmental impact of making just one T-shirt is frightening. It uses enough water for one person to drink for two and a half years. Manmade fabrics take 200 years to degrade in landfill.
The principal consumer culprits of this combined speeding offence and environmental catastrophe are young and female – or at least those whose wardrobes are overflowing with cheap clothes from the likes of H&M, Zara and New Look. I know this to be true because I have a daughter and apparently, it’s important to buy a new outfit for every climate change demonstration she attends.
So I was pleased this week to hear about a new initiative to tackle the problem once and for all. A combination of celebrity influencer power and technology have come to the rescue.
If fashion is just too fast, it needs to be slowed down. For possibly the last time in history, this job needs a man. Ideally an old and fashion-proof one.
Step forward the man whose expertise on fashion and speed needs no introduction; Jeremy Clarkson. Apart from driving cars fast, nearly always without crashing them and only ever slightly injuring a few people with his bare hands, his fashion credentials are impeccable.
After eco-crime accessories Trinny and Susannah praised Clarkson's style as resembling that of a market trader i.e. an authentic provincial homme du jour, he was persuaded to appear on their fashion makeover show What Not to Wear. Here he was awarded their all-time worst dressed person award. He responded to their attempts at restyling him with due distain. Clarkson said he would rather eat his own hair than appear on the show again.
This week, as well as fumbling about a bit with Brexit, the government announced Clarkson’s appointment as Britain’s first Fast Fashion Tsar. He’s tasked with creating and implementing a road map to put a stop to the environmental destruction wrought by fast fashion.
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| Fast Fashion Tsar Clarkson arriving (late) for work yesterday |
Clarkson has already proven his green credentials on Top Gear and more recently The Grand Tour, where fuel economy is one of his top concerns:
"There's a gallon of fuel gone there, and another there...and yet another there. As a matter of fact, the only way this car could be less annoying to eco-mentalists is if its engine ran on sliced dolphin."
So his qualifications are pretty unquestionable. If young women addicted to fast fashion are the problem, the choice of antidote of an old man who wants everyone else to be slower and less stylish than him is inspired.
But one man, even one as accomplished and admired as Clarkson, cannot solve the problem alone. He needs technology. And this is where Facebook is stepping up to the challenge. Nick Clegg, former virtual deputy assistant prime minister and keen eco-mentalist himself, has spoken for the first time since his appointment in October 2018 as Vice-President, Global Affairs and Communications at Facebook. He’s announced that Facebook will launch a new app which monitors and reports the fashion speed of users. He said,
"Our new app FashBit, is definitely a good idea. I think. Yes it is a good idea um for sure. It gives users complete control over their fashion speed. So it’s like you know helping people which is a good thing.
Mark says it has digital stuff in it which is completely secure and which we only share with consent. Like location tracking that monitors the amount of time spent in fashion stores, and status updates to tell you if your fashion is getting dangerously fast. And it's free so everyone can use it. It’s a no brainer really."
Facebook Chief of Data Acquisition and Repurposing, Brent Beard said,
"We've gone granular on this. We're mega-passionate about the planet and all the things on it we can help leverage. FashBit is our ideation of high fiving the unicorns.
Our online fashion integration technology unpacks the number and fabric composition of clothing purchases. It gives fashion brands drill-downs to know who is shortfalling on clothing purchases, so they can buy more energy efficient and laser-targeted advertising to them. In the meanwhilst, Facebook users who are maxing out in the apparel vertical will have fashion ads replaced with environmental ads - pictures of cute animals and cool nature stuff encouraging them to buy smaller shoe sizes which enables smaller carbon footprints."
Asked about his new challenge, Clarkson was clearly ready to take up the gauntlet. He said,
"My message is simple – everyone who is not me should stop prattling on about it, roll their sleeves up and get busy saving the planet. I’ve been doing my bit for years.
I’ve been wearing these same jeans for over twenty years without a single malfunction and the boffins tell me that’s saved over 40 endangered species. Turtles are dying right now just so you can buy another bloody frock which doesn’t suit you anyway. Think about that while you’re browsing the interweb for your next outfit which will be in landfill faster than a Frenchman can drop his pants."
Fashion retailers and brands are yet to show unqualified support for this innovative approach, however. They believe self-regulation is adequate and have taken direct action by printing millions of T-Shirts with pictures of polar bears and slogans to help get the message across. Spokeshuman for the Clothing Retail Association of Producers (CRAP), Krystal Methany said:
"So, our members strive like endlessly to reduce their like footprint stuff yeah? They’re like so awesome you know and are like totally committed to sustainable, kind of inclusive business models? We print T-shirts with pictures of like elephants? And slogans which really make you stop and like um think? They've created like literally millions of jobs for poor and starving people who would otherwise have to eat uncool stuff like you know, soil? Yay! I should try that diet – no, no I’m only joking dot com. We hashtag adore them all."
Asked about the choice of Mr. Clarkson to lead this initiative, Ms. Methany said:
"Jeremy Clarkson said the exact car I have which is like a Mercedes sports car was ‘a pretty car for ugly people.’ That’s like literally a hate crime? So he’s you know like totally unadorable to me? He’s a gross old man who doesn’t get it that the fascist um fashion industry makes the world a more beautiful and peaceful place for sort of like everyone I know? You know?"
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