Ejercicio Grupo B - 3 · Inglés PAU Canarias Julio 2023

GRUPO B

How to quit fast fashion

For more than two decades, fast fashion brands have tempted us with the promise that a shiny new outfit will result in happiness. It is just enough time for most of us to recognise that happiness is not really what fast fashion delivers. But given how easy and cheap it is to buy, breaking up with fast fashion can be difficult. According to psychologist Chris Cheers, sometimes the first step to changing your behaviour is to notice the beliefs that are happening underneath it. Here, some people who have successfully stopped buying fast fashion share how they did it and how they stuck to their decision.

In 2019, Lauren Bravo, the author of How to Break Up with Fast Fashion, set herself a challenge: going the whole year without buying anything completely new. To help her, she also used a rule from her mum: before you buy anything, name at least three items in your wardrobe you would wear it with, and three (real) places or occasions you will wear it to.

Writer and podcaster Maggie Zhou says she avoids fast fashion by following several norms. “One is the ‘30 wears rule,’ where I ideally want to wear an item of clothing at least 30 times.” She has also made a conscious effort to put fast fashion brands out of sight and out of mind by changing her digital activity. That means unfollowing fast fashion brands and influencers on social media and unsubscribing from email lists.

Wendy Syfret, author of The Sunny Nihilist, takes a different approach: when she sees something she likes online, rather than buying it, she emails herself the link so she can consider it later. She says, “I know myself, and I know I’m not going to stop shopping. It is emotional, it is habitual. I can’t get rid of those impulses, but I can reduce them.”

The owner of the cake shops Jawbreaker the Baker, Nico Idour, used to buy a lot of fast fashion but has completely reformed his shopping habits since meeting his husband, designer Jason Hewitt. Hewitt changed Idour’s shopping habits by explaining the “realities of fast fashion” and the huge environmental costs of mass production and international shipping. He enjoys wearing clothes he loves and feels good in over and over again. Also, he has a rule that he has to try something on before he buys it, which stops him from making impulse purchases online.

The key to addressing and changing your consumer behaviour is to notice the thought and understand you don’t necessarily have to believe it. A useful exercise is following the thought to the end. If your brain is suggesting that you will be more popular or desirable wearing the new purchase, think about what happens in reality. Is a new pair of jeans actually going to make your life more meaningful?

Fragment adapted from The Guardian, November 2022

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