English Version | Less is so much more

13 Apr 2023
By Mariana Silva

The fashion industry is begging for an urgent revolution. A systems change focused on valuing the environment and people, where creativity has space - and time - to flourish. It's time to put an end to the incessant whirl of weekly collections and garments with expiration dates. It's time to do less, much less.

The fashion industry is begging for an urgent revolution. A systems change focused on valuing the environment and people, where creativity has space - and time - to flourish. It's time to put an end to the incessant whirl of weekly collections and garments with expiration dates. It's time to do less, much less.

There could not have been a more ironic beginning to my research journey for this article. I began by entering three keywords into a search engine ("degrowth in fashion"), in order to understand the contemporary perspectives on this topic. However, the platform itself tried to correct me by asking, "Did you mean growth in fashion"? No, I didn't. The subject that brings us here today is degrowth. It is true that the term does not yet have a settled place in our vocabulary, but its importance gains volume every time it is presented as a solution - the ultimate solution, some say - for the sustainability of the fashion industry. Many solutions already exist, although most of them bring their own problems. We began by replacing synthetic fabrics with natural options, and soon voices were raised to discuss the high spendings of water in cotton production. Synthetic fibers were created to replace fur and leather, often associated with animal cruelty, but these did not last long, as plastic began to melt in our hands just as we were leaving the store. Workers' rights were defended, proposing an increase in wages, but the vast majority opposed it, saying that they would not bear the consequent increase in prices (or would companies not like the decrease in profits?). As a famous popular expression adapted to the problems of the 21st century would say: there is no sustainability without a catch.

Still, we know that something has to be done. We know it because we already feel the spring heat in mid-February and, after all, climate change is not just a problem on paper. We know this because it is officially ten years since the collapse of Rana Plaza (on April 24, 2013, an eight-story commercial building collapsed, eventually causing more than 1,100 deaths and 2,500 injuries; the garment factories there belonged to well-known brands in the Western world), and we still cannot get the images of the thousands of dead workers out of our heads. The fashion industry urgently needs a revolution, one that shakes the system from head to toe. And if not for the social and environmental problems associated with it, then for creativity in the industry, which also seems to be in danger of extinction. No matter what the reasons are, we all agree: it is time to do something different. It is time to do less.

It was André Gorz who, in 1972, coined the term "degrowth" (a direct translation of "décroissance"). The French philosopher was in a debate of the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur when he posed the following question: "Is the earth’s balance, for which no-growth – or even degrowth – of material production is a necessary condition, compatible with the survival of the capitalist system?" We will answer this later. What is important to realize is that, first, degrowth is not a new concept and, second, that its birth is not linked to fashion. This association results from the contemporary definitions that have been attributed to it. We highlight that of Jason Hickel, anthropologist, and author of Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2020): "Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being."

What does this mean for the fashion industry? "It means stopping creating 'fashion' and starting to create clothing. It means resurrecting the ritual of identity, untethered from capitalism. It is a revolution in the structures of production and in the way the individual understands their identity and celebrates it in their body as art, instead of giving in to the incessant search for the self in external objects. In practice, it is a reconquest of community time and space for the exaltation of creativity, both of those who create and those who wear." These words belong to Salomé Areias, coordinator of Fashion Revolution Portugal and a PhD student at CENSE (Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research), where she investigates the reduction of fashion consumption and its relationship with altered states of conscious. When we asked the researcher how a concept as abstract as degrowth could take place in the real world, we realize that the answers are so varied that they can range from human well-being, for example, through "improving the balance between personal and professional life (which can begin by reducing the work week)", to the very structure of fashion, by extinguishing "the dictatorship of the production calendar to make room for scientific research, design with purpose and co-creation with users."

Among the comprehensive examples of degrowth pointed out by Salomé Areias, it highlights the fact that, unlike many sustainability policies advocated today, the blame - and therefore the need for change - does not fall on the consumer. Instead, it focuses on governments - through actions such as "the redistribution of wealth (…), creating common spaces, collaboration and cooperativism to support SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises], regulating purchase prices from suppliers, enabling fair trading, holding companies accountable for their entire production chain and their waste" - and on businesses, which have a crucial role to play, namely "building sorting and treatment systems for discarded textiles to redistribute as raw materials, facilitating access to [mental] health care, and ending aggressive advertising." According to Salomé Areias, "people don't have the power to save our future with their individual consumption (also because there are far more clothes are produced than bought). If there is a decrease, citizens must be protected in the process of readjusting their consumption (both for more and for less) and supported in doing so with access to mental health care and time for activities in nature, community interaction, and acceptance of their identity.”

This does not mean, however, that the consumer can do nothing more than sit back and wait for change to happen. Before being consumers, we are citizens - and our responsibility lies in exercising the rights that define this role. The coordinator of Fashion Revolution Portugal stresses the importance of actions such as "voting, participating in protests and civil disobedience actions, creating and signing petitions, participating in public consultations, joining movements for social and climate justice, seeking to know more and opening dialogue within the family, professional and among friends. Regarding fashion-related behaviors, one of the most significant habits is to "avoid discarding clothing." "No one will explode if we keep clothes at home until a happy destination naturally arises for each of the garments”, remarks Salomé Areias. For those who have a closer relationship with the textile and clothing industry, "it helps to understand how far you are free to go to contradict a boss, confront a supplier, or call out a colleague." She continues, "In Portugal, I think it's urgent to give factory workers a dignified life and dispel this myth that Portuguese factories are the paradise of sustainable production, when, let's admit it, they are the paradise for labor exploitation painted as European Union." 

Some people call it utopia. This idea that it is possible to slow down that which, in the last two centuries, has done nothing but grow. And it can be a utopia, yes - at least in an economic, social, and political system governed by capitalism (as Gorz questioned in 1972). "There are several views worth knowing about capitalism without growth, based on the idea that capitalism is not designed to grow infinitely. These essays remind us how the overwhelming majority of clothing businesses are not focused on growth, but simply on paying expenses to suppliers, employees, and investing a small portion to expand the business. Perhaps this makes sense at a time of transition and is a valid discussion." Salomé Areias believes, however, that these kinds of essays say more about the "nature of the human being" than "about the advantages of capitalism." The expert highlights: "The human being wants to be. Humans want to be accepted, to feel that they belong to something bigger, and this makes them express themselves and create. There are very interesting analyses about how capitalism (and colonialism) considered having before being and forced society to feel that it needs to produce things, to have things, to be things. In fashion this is obvious, and it was very easy to get tangled up in compulsive cycles, because adornment is the object most intimate to our being and therefore the most desired by narcissism for the objectification of self." Concepts like degrowth imply, in this sense, a complete modification of a system, of a set of beliefs, of a way of thinking, and not just the easing of a tiny part of the problems, as we have seen happen in recent years.

Another common criticism of the degrowth theory has to do with the negative short-term impacts, which are very far from the human and social well-being that the movement seeks to promote. By breaking the cycle of economic growth in a radical way, we would be facing a recession at all levels, with the loss of jobs, income, and consumption, especially among the communities that already suffer the most at this level. We must not forget that the contemporary fashion industry is dependent on a production chain located in developing countries, whose economies, albeit unevenly, fluctuate with the growth of the sector. Would it be possible to make a transition without such consequences? For Salomé Areias, "transition is just that: ensuring that radical changes are made in harmony, guaranteeing that no one is left behind. "I think that one of the first steps is to ensure the bargaining power of the economies most affected by the liberalization of markets. Minimum purchase prices (to factories) should be regulated and the companies that have profited most for decades from monopolizing textile suppliers should be held accountable for this transition, so that these countries resurrect their local textile economy and no longer rely on modern slavery." In the opinion of the Fashion Revolution Portugal coordinator, degrowth also involves addressing a colonial past, which still dictates power dynamics in clothing production chains today. "Degrowth in the textile industry is not about producing fewer clothes and abandoning historical responsibility over the economies that were exploited, whether these are the countries of manufacturing, of raw material extraction, and of dumping 'donated' clothes. The fashion industry has to go through a deep process of decolonization (...). The solution is not to produce within the European Union and pretend that the past is history, and the chaos of the world has nothing to do with us.”

With this idea in mind, we can conclude that decrease is really a utopia, at least if we expect companies to voluntarily adopt the actions described by Salomé Areias. Change will not come through the good will of the billionaire corporations that for decades have profited from this system. Change will only come through legislation which, in turn, will have to be shaped by pressure resulting from social movements. "Degrowth has to be massively applied by people (those who of course make the textile organizations) but if it is not the law or civil disobedience pushing the revolution, it is structurally complex for these institutions to be conscious. A company has no conscience, only the people who work there can have one. Those at the top protect their privilege. And the others find refuge in the fact that they are just doing their job because they have mouths to feed," reports the researcher. Adopting this logic, one realizes that the transition will have to be driven by "a legal reform that structurally changes organizations and where people feel free to intervene politically in their daily lives." 

Sounds complex, doesn't it? If there is one thing history has taught us, it is that revolutions take work. But also that sometimes it only takes a small change to act as a trigger for a systemic quake. Even so, degrowth is not as far off as it may seem. According to Salomé Areias, the concept "is not openly around the Assembly sessions, but there is an emergence of bills in that direction: four-day [work] weeks, work-life balance, recognition of informal caregivers, domestic work, parental leave, etc." And until the law advances, until companies embrace reforming projects, until society takes on a mentality of collective revolution, what can we do? We give the word to the coordinator of the Fashion Revolution Portugal: "Knowing oneself and defining one's own freedom to act against the system is an exercise of activist resistance, because when we maintain zones of inaction in the awareness of a privilege, we are consenting and enabling oppression. It's up to each person to tread the best analysis they can do." After all, it's not that hard - just buy, consume, discard (insert any other fashion-related work) less.

Originally translated from The Revolution Issue, published April 2023.Full stories and credits on the print issue.

Mariana Silva By Mariana Silva

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