Fast fashion – British men to lead solution to a global problem

"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.

 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?"

Why you shouldn't seek perfection if you want to be great

By Neil Patrick

This month, the saga of Jeremy Clarkson’s departure from the BBC has taken up a lot of headlines and divided the country more than the electioneering. The outlook for Cameron's job has been a lot less interesting than Clarkson's to many people.

The arguments have raged over whether or not he should have been disposed of by the BBC. In the left corner, his detractors say he’s an oaf who deserved to go as his offensive comments should not be acceptable for the BBC. Assaulting one of his producers during an argument over the food menu, cannot be tolerated by any employer. His supporters argue that the global popularity of the Top Gear brand cannot continue without him and that his non-PC and larkish antics bring a much needed dose of anarchy to a somewhat staid and cautious part of the media.

I feel no need to either spring to his defence nor to criticize him. I am sure that Jeremy Clarkson’s career will continue successfully and right now his biggest problem will be deciding which new contract with a rival media firm he will sign. The BBC has earned handsomely from his lengthy tenure and success, and in the greater scheme of things, they will carry on happily without him. Sure, they will suffer a revenue hit, but they will also have a lot less aggravation and fewer PR crises to wrestle with due to the absence of Clarkson’s consistent ability to always offend someone, somewhere, somehow.

This episode highlights something about great careers. Being perfect isn’t a requirement or even part of the recipe. In fact, the harder you try to be perfect, the more your distinctive essence is diluted.

We don’t have to look far for examples. Winston Churchill is often picked as the greatest Briton in history. Standing up alone to confront Hitler and his Nazi war machine when they had just crushed the whole of Europe was considered at the time by many to be as good as national suicide. Yet more than anything else, it was his leadership that inspired a steely resolve in Britain and the Commonwealth to resist whatever the cost.

Source: Library of Congress, Reproduction number LC-USW33-019093-C

Yet Churchill’s career was full of failures and uncomfortable details. As First Lord of the Admiralty, in the Frist World War, he was responsible for the catastrophe which unfolded at Gallipoli resulting in the deaths of over 56,000 troops from Britain, France, Australia, India and New Zealand. (My great uncle being one of them). The firestorm bombings by the RAF and USAF of Dresden resulted in the deaths of 25,000 civilians and prisoners of war, but very few German troops.

David Beckham is a perhaps the greatest golden boy of soccer Britain has ever produced. He’s more than just a good player, he’s a global brand, Hollywood A-lister and the face of countless commercials. He has dozens of endorsement contracts including Adidas, Armani, Disney, IBM and Coca Cola. Yet Beckham was the first England player ever to collect two red cards and the first England captain to be sent off. Beckham suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), which he says makes him "have everything in a straight line or everything has to be in pairs." Apparently this quest for symmetry causes him to throw things away from his fridge. No surprise then that his wife always looks underfed and unhappy.

Amy Winehouse’s dichotomous public image of critical and commercial success versus personal turmoil and use of drink and drugs was always controversial. The New Statesman called Winehouse "a filthy-mouthed, down-to-earth diva," while Newsweek called her "a perfect storm of sex kitten, raw talent and poor impulse control." Karen Heller with The Philadelphia Inquirer summarised the maelstrom this way:

“She's only 24 with six Grammy nominations, crashing headfirst into success and despair, with a co-dependent husband in jail, exhibitionist parents with questionable judgement, and the paparazzi documenting her emotional and physical distress. Meanwhile, a haute designer Karl Lagerfeld appropriates her dishevelled style and eating issues to market to the elite while proclaiming her the new Bardot.”

Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning on 23 July 2011.

My point is simple enough. No-one is perfect. That’s obvious. But if we accept the restraints that others require, we dilute or even discard our very essence. Clarkson would never have achieved success without offending someone. Beckham’s OCD creates a form of visual discipline which makes him think differently to normal players. Churchill could never have saved Britain without killing innocent people. There was a tragic inevitability that sooner or later Winehouse would kill herself.

A quest for perfection on other people’s terms is worse than pointless. It risks destroying our capacity to harness our full unique potential. The trick is to harness our imperfections in a way which delivers what people need rather than what they think they want.