ColumnFast fashion has ramped up the cycle of consumption to head spinning levels of (economic) efficiencies. Despite multinational corporations fueling boatloads of money into glossy marketing campaigns to keep us buying more, trends no longer represent an era of style and fashion, but one of profit. And now, the new trend is “conscious.”

Decades from now, when future generations look back on our times they will see profit was the trend. We can’t pinpoint a general style trend of the ’00s because the concept of fashion is so wrapped up in driving sales.

It wasn’t always that way. Looking back, fashionable style unraveled a rich history lesson. In all it’s grandeur, Style of the Decades was a lens to understand the zeitgeist of the times. The 1890s Gibson Girl, the 1920s rebellious flapper, the 1950s bourgeois housewife, the 1980s powersuit for work, and neon spandex for play — all allow us to sketch a silhouette and describe an era through fashion. Sure, we can certainly describe our era though fashion style, but today, instead of a silhouette, there would be a dollar sign.

Trends are tripping over themselves: Bell-bottoms to skinny jeans,  A-line dress to shift dress, above the ankle pant legs to palazzo pants, wedges to stilettos. The trend-mill of fashion is overwhelming, unfulfilling and has 99 problems — the overflowing closet being one.

What do we do with all this stuff? We put it in storage units. “There’s a lot of them. 2.35 billion — with a B — square feet in the United States, according to the Self Storage Association,” says Ira Glass in Act One of “This American Life: Contents Unknown.”

“That, in case you’re wondering, is 7.4 square feet of self storage for every man, woman, and child in this country, meaning all of us, all of us, could stand inside self storage at the same time.”

We are now surrounded with more stuff than ever before, but are undoubtedly less happy because of it. In the U.S., we spend three to four times more hours shopping than our counterparts in Europe do, says Annie Leonard of the Story of Stuff. Yet, we rank 17th in the World Happiness Report.

The newly published book, “Stuffocation” by James Wallman, closely examines the hard research and psychology on the ultra importance of why now we need to spend our money on experiences more than ever.

So if we know this stuff isn’t making us happier, why do we keep buying?

To understand we’ve got to look back. Throughout the 1950s, as consumerism began to run rampant, TV dinners, laundry machines and the hamburger swept the United States. The key to this wave of efficiency could not have changed family lives forever without the skilled help of the “Mad Men”; the men of advertising that oh-so-suavely sold us polished shit, and called it gold.

The psychology of advertising, both then and now, is so good it’s scary. Campaigns expertly poke and stroke our the deepest folds of our subconscious to sell us goods we don’t need. Just like over the decades we’ve slowly been sold the idea buying more clothes is better than buying well made clothes.

“No matter how contrary, rebellious or bloody-minded you are, it is a virtual impossibility to escape the constant, dedicated, ubiquitous onslaught of marketing, and the collective mindwarp it wreaks upon society, in subtle and pervasively corrupting ways.” says Olympian wordsmith and fiery writer Cintra Wilson. “The marketplace is now so devastatingly effective at turning our desires on and off that we virtually have no unpolluted pathways through which to experience love, sex, work, family, ambition, community, identity.”

Take Febreze for instance: During the first market testings of Febreze, nobody found a habitual continued use for the product. Procter & Gamble’s heads were spinning as to why this revolutionary product wasn’t of interest to consumers. How to get it to sell? They realizes they had to make Febreze part of the cleaning routine, and change people’s habits. So Febreze was advertised as the icing on the cake after you cleaned your house — the final touch, the cherry on top. It was a matter of leading the consumer in the right direction, to sell them the illusion of completion.

Now, sixty years since the peak era of “Mad Men”, the United States is trying to cling on to meaning again. On top of the skewed relationship between our happiness and accumulation of stuff, add on environmental degradation and climate change and we don’t know where to turn.

So, how are modern companies reacting to the dismay? The multinational corporations, fast fashion chains included, are soothing our frantic conflicted conscience with “conscious” products.

I can’t help but feel manipulated by H&M’s new Conscious Collection for hitting the soft spot of the emerging value-based customer. I found myself (a true anti-H&M-er) entertaining the idea I might buy a new pair of shoes from the new ‘conscious’ collection. WAKE UP. Its business is to play on our most subconscious desires. In this case — spend as little money as possible to look like you can afford better. Add on Miranda Kerr wearing a $4.95 T-shirt; the tattooed, toned David Beckman running in boxer briefs; and now the Conscious Collection, and you’ve whipped a pleasure sensory experience for everyone. H&M is capitalizing on the current atmosphere of the market to put itself ahead, and it is a great marketing strategy. But are its seven commitments enough? Do they address the systemic issues for fast fashion, or is it just a patchwork approach? I don’t think a fast fashion company like H&M can ever be sustainable.

Plus, H&M just took second place in Ethisphere’s Wold’s Most Ethical Companies for apparel in 2014! Do you agree?

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, right? And undoubtedly, our choices (our vote, our dollar, our decisions on where and how to shop) can affect directly thousands of people.

So what are companies like H&M’s modern solutions? Many are running conscious collections, yet still employing the same exploited workers to make the garments. Giving the buyers the illusion of providing them with greater values than are actually being given, and with little to no concrete social changes to their business structures.

I can hear the ad execs soothing me now:

You’re right darling, consumption is not helping us… the environment… or the poor people who put the crap together for no money or respect. But consumption is at the heart of America’s soul, isn’t it? So it’s easy, now shop over here, it’s made with a conscious.

Fast fashion wants us to keep buying clothes with the illusion that; a) new is better, and b) the new trends that spring up every two weeks are what you need to be cool, connected and authentic.

Let’s keep it real. If we know more things don’t make us happy, then DO something: Look into the tactical marketing campaigns of companies like H&M — are the seven commitments enough or is it just well-spoken lip-service?

Wilson said it best: “If you aren’t consciously using fashion to empower yourself, fashion is mostly likely using you to empower a brand.”

Keep in touch with Juliette on Twitter @spadesandsiLK

Related on Ecosalon:

7 Clues To Tell If Your Garment Is Really Sustainable: Eco Fashion Dissected

Popular Fast Fashion Brands Caught Selling Lead-Tainted Purses, Shoes and Accessories

Designers and Makers, This is for You: ‘Made in the USA’ Accelerator Program

image: pennuja

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ColumnIs H&M as conscious as it claims to be?

The notion of H&M as a sustainable fashion brand might strike you as an oxymoron. How can the Swedish retailer, best known for pioneering wasteful, disposable, trend-driven fast fashion, possibly claim to be socially responsible?

It might take time, but that is H&M’s aim, if the company’s latest Conscious Actions Report is any indication. The 93-page document outlines in detail H&M’s goals, actions, and progress toward becoming a more sustainable fashion brand. Along with the report, H&M recently released its full supplier list for the first time, a significant move toward greater transparency for the multi-billion dollar corporation. And then there’s H&M’s new Conscious Exclusive Collection, the latest in a line of fashionable capsule collections featuring eco-preferable fabrics, like organic cotton and recycled polyester.

According to CEO Karl-Johan Persson, H&M doesn’t just want to improve its own sustainability – it wants to create long-lasting systemic change in the fashion industry. “Our size gives us the opportunity to promote such change well beyond our own operations,” Persson says in the report. “Together with our millions of customers we can bring massive change – from improving the livelihood of a cotton farmer to how our customers care for the clothes they buy.”

But how does H&M’s words stack up against its actions? Last year, we launched Behind The Label with a look at H&M’s conscious efforts. This week, we return to see how far the company has come.

The Good

Some fashion brands launch capsule eco-collections, promote them to death, then call it a day. But for H&M, its Conscious Collections are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social responsibility efforts.

At the latest collection’s launch in New York City last week, I caught up with Caterina Midby, director of fashion and sustainability communications, to discuss how H&M incorporates sustainability into the design process. Turns out, the first step is having high expectations.

“We never start the design process by seeing what’s available,” said Midby. “We would rather design the garment, decide on how it looks, then go out and look… some of these fabrics have never been available on the market. It’s been up to us to request them and for our suppliers to develop them.”

Indeed, H&M’s size has allowed it to demand from suppliers what other brands can’t. But in that power lies great responsibility, which the company appears to be taking seriously. In its Conscious Actions Report, H&M identifies seven major areas of commitment:

1. Provide fashion for conscious consumers
2. Choose and reward responsible partners
3. Be ethical
4. Be climate smart
5. Reduce, reuse, recycle
6. Use natural resources responsibly
7. Strengthen communities

Alone, the commitments sound pretty innocuous. However, the Conscious Actions listed beneath each commitment reveal a strong understanding of the challenges facing the global apparel industry, as well as the extenuating factors that make those challenges difficult to overcome. For instance, under “Choose and reward responsible partners,” commitment number one is for H&M to be a good partner to suppliers, “by providing fair lead times, fair pricing, on-time payments and clear communication.” Too often, brands blame their suppliers when labor abuses occur. Here, H&M asserts that it, too, bears the responsibility to be a good partner.

Some other highlights from the report:

• For the second year in a row, H&M was the largest purchaser of organic cotton in the world – an amount totaling only 7.8 percent of its total cotton use, which is indicative of the power a brand has at H&M’s scale. The company’s goal is to convert entirely to more sustainably sourced cotton by 2020.
• In 2012, H&M became the first global retailer to start a system to collect and recycle old clothing. Customers now have the opportunity to drop old clothes, from any brand, in collection bins at H&M stores. H&M will then reuse and recycle those clothes in an effort to close the textile loop.
• Also this year, H&M launched a new three-year partnership with the World Water Fund to create new standards for water stewardship in the fashion industry, starting from the design of a garment all the way to advocating for public policy changes.

The Bad

It wasn’t too long ago that clothing was something that people valued. Garments cost a bit more, but they lasted for decades. If you ripped your shirt, you would mend it. You left the mall with one or two purchases, and you would wear them to pieces.

But today, you can find H&M shirts for $3 and jeans for $15. If you rip your shirt, you throw it away and buy a new one. You leave the mall with 15 purchases, and some you don’t even get around to wearing.

Through sophisticated marketing and merchandising, fast fashion brands like H&M have fundamentally changed the way that consumers approach shopping, leading many to consume more than they actually need and dispose of everything else. H&M’s rock-bottom pricing model has also had a profound effect on the rest of the fashion world, forcing other brands to lower their prices in order to compete. What this usually means is lower quality fabrics and production methods across the board, as well as lower wages for garment workers.

But when questioned about the (un)sustainability of its business model, H&M’s sustainability executives seem to shrug off the company’s responsibility. At an H&M- and Vogue-sponsored panel on conscious fashion last week, head of sustainability Helena Helmersson dodged the fast fashion question by saying, “For us it’s about reducing impact. Still we’re going to expand, so how do we reduce the impact and our footprint?”

Caterina Midby, who also sat on the panel, placed the onus for responsible consumption on the consumer: “It’s not how like it used to be when I started in the business, when trends change from one season to another,” she said. “Now it’s all about personal style. You don’t really need to renew your wardrobe every six to seven months. It’s really up to the consumer.”

The Questionable

H&M prides itself on democratizing fashion, on “bringing it to the masses,” if you will. It’s a lovely thought – who doesn’t love democracy? – but too often it leads to overconsumption. According to Elizabeth Cline, author of “Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Fast Fashion,” the average American purchases 68 garments and seven pairs of shoes each year. Compare that to 1929, when the average woman had just nine outfits total.

I place part of the blame on H&M for getting us to this point. Whether H&M wants to admit it or not, it’s due to its sophisticated marketing and merchandising engine that consumers now feel the need to buy more of what they don’t need.

That said, I am encouraged by H&M’s stated commitment to sustainability. One has only to visit HM.com or walk into one of its retail stores to see the marketing power that the company has put behind its Conscious campaign. The flora and fauna swathing spokeswoman Vanessa Paradis may be a bit overkill, but the message is pretty clear: H&M is going green, and it’s taking you with it.

If H&M was able to change the way we view the fashion calendar in the course of just a few decades, I hope that now, it will use its power to make us view fashion more responsibly. A brand of its scale has the ability not only to have a positive effect through its own behavior, but also to influence its peers and its customers. I hope it is conscious of that fact.

Images: H&M

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ColumnIs fast fashion giant H&M really making moves to become more sustainable, or is it all just greenwashing?

Editor’s Note: This is Jessica Marati’s first column for Behind The Label, which will explore whether brands claiming sustainable initiatives are going green – or just plain greenwashing.

It’s so easy to love and hate H&M. On the one hand, the Swedish fashion chain has played a significant role in democratizing fashion and bringing trends once reserved for the upper classes to the masses. On the other, H&M’s fast fashion model has accelerated the fashion cycle to its current frenetic pace, driving down prices and increasing pressure within the industry to produce more, quicker, with little regard to the people and environments involved.

In recent years, H&M has made efforts to be more transparent with its social responsibility efforts, releasing a hefty Conscious Actions Sustainability Report in 2010 that outlined its sustainability goals and action roadmap. The company also dabbled in small scale sustainable fashion campaigns like a capsule organic cotton line in 2007, a recycled fabric commitment in 2009, and an eco-fiber Garden Collection in 2010, none of which gained much notice.

In 2011, however, H&M stepped up its efforts with the release of a much-anticipated Conscious Collection, a white-hued line of separates made from organic cotton, Tencel®, and recycled polyester. In the fall, they followed up with a romantic floral line inspired by Swedish folklore as well as a holiday party collection. New lines for 2012 haven’t yet been announced, but it appears that H&M is folding its sustainability efforts into more of its products across the board.

But how much of this progress is part of an honest, dedicated commitment to doing good, and how much is just great greenwashing? Let’s have a look at some of the facts behind the marketing.

THE GOOD: In September, H&M surpassed Walmart as the world’s largest buyer of organic cotton, consuming more than 15,000 tonnes in 2010, an increase of 77 percent from the previous year. The milestone is linked to H&M’s aim to source all of its cotton from more sustainable sources by 2020. H&M is also a founding member of the Better Cotton Initiative, which introduces more sustainable practices at every step of the cotton production supply chain. In addition to organic cotton, H&M has also experimented with other eco-fibers, including recycled polyester, recycled polyamide, recycled plastic, organic linen, recycled cotton, recycled wool, Tencel®, and organic hemp.

THE BAD: Although H&M is a member of the Fair Labor Association, which aims to improve working conditions in factories, the company was recently hit with a slew of bad press after a series of mass fainting incidents at partner factories in Cambodia. An investigation from VICE TV explored the impoverished conditions under which many of the young female workers live. And that’s just one of many scandals: a Greenpeace report recently alleged that H&M-affiliated factories are discharging hazardous chemicals into rivers in China. In 2010, the German edition of the Financial Times reported that H&M was knowingly passing off genetically modified cotton as organic. That same year, it was discovered that an H&M store in Manhattan was destroying and discarding bags of excess merchandise. H&M representatives insisted that the incident was isolated, and that company policy is to donate unworn clothing to charity.

THE QUESTIONABLE: H&M’s corporate transparency about its steps toward sustainability are certainly laudable. However, it’s undeniable that H&M’s fast fashion model is in itself wildly unsustainable, with its focus on producing cheap disposable clothing for a world where tastes seem to change by the minute. As a pioneer of this business model, H&M is fast forwarding fashion trends, as well as driving down the costs of clothing to the delight of consumers but the detriment of competitors, including ones that operate more sustainably. One commitment the fast fashion giant might add to its action plan list is reversing that trend.

Images: H&M.

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