The trend of making everything a trend
Written by Jasmine Natalie Kartawidjaja
Trends. Something that almost everyone is a victim of. Of course, trends aren’t necessarily bad. But have you heard the saying "too much of anything can be a bad thing"?
Take fast fashion for example. Fashion is supposed to be a form of self-expression. A way to make a good first impression. An art that can make you stand out. How can fashion be anything negative?
But with the ridiculous number of new trendy items we see every season, a lot of us tend to fall into consumerism. We purchase items we see as the "next best thing" and continue to buy several versions of the same thing until it becomes "cheugy" or "basic".
The clothes we once saw as our new favorite item are now the cause of the ever-growing landfill that is taking over our planet. With the mass production that comes with it, the fashion industry becomes the largest contributor to climate change, releasing 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent each year.
On top of that, 40.3 million people in 2016 have been forced into horrible working conditions and wages to produce the products of these companies. Much like a form of modern slavery. Due to the concerning effects on our earth and lack of ethics, activists and consumers have started to hold brands accountable and cancel the idea of fast fashion.
This leads to the next thing on the list, thrifting. An affordable solution to fast fashion. Buying second-hand rather than new. Giving another life to the garments someone didn’t want. Innocent, right?
Well, with the rise of the popularity of thrifting, it has become a consumer culture. Prices have started to rise. People thrift for the fun of it and leave no good items for the people who actually need them. It has even become a resale market.
Let me ask you this question. How many times have you scrolled through Instagram or Youtube and saw a thrift haul or "thrift with me"? Probably a lot. The sustainable aspect of thrifting has become an excuse for over-consumption. Resellers thrift with the intention of profit. It’s no longer affordable, and soon will definitely not be sustainable. So is it really that much better than fast fashion?
Most recently, an article by Dazed Fashion has talked about the tote bag trend and how it was started as a sustainable alternative to plastic bags. One of the biggest plastic waste contributors, making up 14% of the total waste in DKI, is single-use plastic. According to Siti Nurbaya, Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Minister, 9.8 billion plastic bags are used each year, and 95% of this is discarded, ending up as a pile of waste.
So theoretically, tote bags should be a good thing, right? We’d be reducing our carbon footprint while showing off the cool designs on our bags. So what changed? The same pattern as always. Starting with a simple, sustainable item, then came over-consumption, and eventually over-production.
In January 2019, Bali became the first province to ban all usage of single-use plastics with the hopes of reducing plastic waste by an ambitious 70%. Successfully, according to the Bali Province Environment Board, single-use plastic in Denpasar stores has dropped a shocking 99.14% by the end of January 2019 and the main rubbish pile has dropped 6.67% by March that year. Following this, Jakarta issued the Government Regulation No. 142 regarding the single-use plastic bags ban was signed almost two years ago on the 27th of December 2019 in an attempt to be more cautious of its carbon footprint.
The plastic ban caused a shift towards tote bags, mainly cotton. Many local and bigger brands start putting their cotton totes on the market, creating the trend of collecting as many bags as you can.
The production of 1kg of cotton uses up 10,000 liters of water, it even almost made an entire sea disappear. On top of that, tote bag production has even become a source of forced labor. Like fast fashion, modern slavery is implemented to keep up with the continuously increasing demand for tote bags.
Due to the climate and soils, Indonesia is not the preferred place to farm cotton. The production only makes up 2% of the total cotton demand. So, where do Indonesians get their cotton from? As per 2019, Indonesia’s imported cotton is mainly from China, providing 26.2% or (USD 516 million) of the total value of imported cotton. It doesn’t come as a surprise to hear that China is one of the many countries that reportedly produce their cotton with child and forced labor.
A study from 2018 has stated that an organic cotton tote needs to be used 20,000 times to offset its overall impact on production, but the average person owns multiple tote bags just hanging on the door, or buried in a random drawer. A huge number of people forget to take the bags with them when shopping as well. I don’t think society understands that this is not something we can counter anytime soon. Having an alternative for plastic bags is good but we should also be aware of its impacts.
So maybe, society has an obsession with overdoing every good thing. Maybe it’s just a trend to make everything a trend. Whether it's one thing or another, this is an issue that needs to be raised.
Disclaimer: The view expressed on opinion article doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of The Finery Report. The opinion belongs to the author of the article.
