Overdressed
In the 2006 film version of
The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly,
played by Meryl Streep, scolds her unattractive assistant
for imagining that high fashion doesn't affect her.
Priestly explains how the deep blue color of
the assistant's sweater descended
over the years from fashion shows to department stores
and to the bargain bin in which
the poor girl doubtless found her garment.
This top-down conception of the fashion business
couldn't be more out of date or at odds
with the feverish world described in Overdressed,
Elizabeth Cline's three-year indictment of "fast fashion."
In the last decade or so, advances in technology
have allowed mass-market labels such as Zara,
H&M, and Uniqlo to react to trends more quickly
and anticipate demand more precisely.
Quicker turnarounds mean less wasted inventory,
more frequent releases, and more profit.
These labels encourage style-conscious consumers
to see clothes as disposable
---meant to last only a wash or two,
although they don't advertise that
---and to renew their wardrobe every few weeks.
By offering on-trend items at dirt-cheap prices,
Cline argues, these brands have hijacked fashion cycles,
shaking an industry long accustomed to a seasonal pace.
The victims of this revolution, of course,
are not limited to designers. For H&M to offer
a $5.95 knit miniskirt in all its 2,300-plus stores
around the world,
it must rely on low-wage overseas labor,
order in volumes that strain natural resources,
and use massive amounts of harmful chemicals.
Overdressed is the fashion world's answer
to consumer-activist bestsellers
like Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.
"Mass-produced clothing, like fast food,
fills a hunger and need, yet is non-durable and wasteful,"
Cline argues. Americans, she finds,
buy roughly 20 billion garments a year
---about 64 items per person
---and no matter how much they give away,
this excess leads to waste.
Towards the end of Overdressed,
Cline introduces her ideal, a Brooklyn woman
named Sarah Kate Beaumont,
who since 2008 has made all of her own clothes
---and beautifully. But as Cline is the first to note,
it took Beaumont decades to perfect her craft;
her example can't be knocked off.
Though several fast-fashion companies
have made efforts to curb their impact on
labor and the environment---including H&M,
with its green Conscious Collection line
---Cline believes lasting change can
only be effected by the customer.
She exhibits the idealism common to
many advocates of sustainability,
be it in food or in energy.
Vanity is a constant; people will only
start shopping more sustainably
when they can't afford not to.