What is "fashion", anyway?

by Greig Cunningham

Forgive me for indulging in that great journalistic no-no, but, if you’ll let me, I’d like to explain a little about how I came to write what you’re (hopefully) about to read. As you may be aware, it can be quite a daunting position, knowing that you have to write something but not really knowing what. Fortunately, I did have a few hints. I knew, for example, that I was writing for the Sustainable Style blog, meaning that my long-awaited children’s book, The Lion Who Came to Lunch, was unfortunately out of the equation. I also, on a more sombre note, knew of the desperate need to curb our endless war on the planet. The trouble I had, though, was how we might reconcile this need with the world of fashion.  

Fendi runway, Paris Fashion Week 2022

You see, whenever I hear people talk about living more sustainably, the general advice seems to focus on not buying things unnecessarily: “do you really need that new phone?”; “could you not ‘holiday at home’ this year?”; and so on. Now, in our world of mass consumption, where the iPhone 3000 is “beautiful” and “game-changing” this year, and will be obsolete and revolting the next, taking a more necessity-based approach to what we buy seems to be the only way to quell our never-ending climate-attack.  

With this in mind, people are naturally looking to see how, and indeed if, their interests can survive – hence the development of ‘sustainable tourism’, electric sports cars, et cetera. But what happens if we try to do this with fashion? Do we kill it? Do we end up alienating working people from affordable fashion, and make it an exclusively bourgeois pleasure once more? As I sat down to write this article, such fears loomed large in my thoughts. Happily, however, I needn’t have worried. Now, please, allow me to explain why. 

Many of us are aware, and are maybe somewhat embarrassed to admit, that the fashion industry is one of the most environmentally damaging in the world. And don’t just think it’s the icecaps and rainforests suffering either; the brigade of utter mercenaries who run the industry’s sweatshops like to make sure that their workers really do risk life and limb, just so that the comparatively wealthy can beef-up their wardrobes on the cheap. Whatever our fondness for fashion, we are surely in agreement that this cannot go on. However, the more I started to think about the actual workings of the modern fashion industry – and about the “going out on Saturday – must buy some £12.99 trousers” impulse that drives it – the more I started to wonder: how on earth are we calling this “fashion” at all? 

Shein, one of the largest fast fashion retailers

If you’ve made it this far, then congratulations, because here-in lies the key. You see, fashion is one of those words that have been interpreted so many times they almost completely lose their meaning. Does ‘fashion’ mean haute couture? Is it to be found only on the catwalks of Paris, London or Milan? Is it in the latest social media ‘style hack’, or the endless pages of cut-price polyesterie of ASOS or Shein? Not, at first, being a hundred percent sure of the answer, I decided to look at it from a different angle: what is the spirit of fashion? What lit the fire inside Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Mary Quant? Indeed, what is it that puts us in front of the mirror for three hours, tearing the wardrobe apart until we’ve found something that feels right?  

My conclusion, and I am one-hundred-percent sure about this, is that it’s that wonderful, gallus creativity; that quiet but inconsolable whisper that says, “go on, push the boundary”. It’s that sense of innovation without limits. It’s allowing your soul the space it needs to flow, and giving it free reign to cut through the red tape of small-minded society. Now, compare that with the mindless, never-ceasing hamster wheel that we call “fast fashion”, and see if you can locate that revolutionary spark. I have to say, I couldn’t, and I still can’t. And I don’t think you’ll be able to either. Because it isn’t there; because, to the oligarchs of fast fashion, it simply doesn’t matter. 

This is the point that completely changed my perspective: to try to make fashion ‘fast’ is to completely misunderstand and misappropriate its spirit. So-called ‘slow fashion’ is not some environmentally driven climbdown; fashion should be slow, because art is slow. Of course, it may come along in quick, spontaneous bursts, but it will never be constant. Neither the painter, the poet, nor the lover of fashion, whether they design for Dior or just enjoy putting an outfit together, can produce a piece of art every day – because that’s just not how expression works.  

This is why I wanted to begin by sharing a little bit about the writing process. When I started writing this article, I set out to discover how we could ‘balance’ fashion with the need to protect the environment. I had this idea that shops like Zara and H&M, then online retailers like ASOS and Shein, had widened the accessibility of fashion, and that an age of – expensive – slow production methods and high-quality materials would result in working people being cut off from the latest trends, relegated to wearing whatever the other half didn’t want anymore.  

But when I stopped, and took a breath, I realised just how wrong I had been. I realised that sustainability will never be a threat to art. I realised that, in fact, the further we trap ourselves in the inhumane cycle of materialism, the further we alienate ourselves from that true spirit of fashion. 

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to step off materialism’s treadmill, and take that breath too. Take Shein, ‘this season’, and societal pressure out of the equation for a moment, and think about what fashion means to you. Of course, this does not mean never buying anything new, or never taking inspiration from the innovation and creativity of others; it does not make the designer redundant. But if you’re going to enjoy fashion from the point of view of expression, it’s going to take time to find what you really like; to find what feels right; to work out how you’re going to style a new piece, or, indeed, how many different ways you might want to style it. This process, this carefree and yet careful experimentation, can only ever be slow. And that’s wonderful. Because, really, this is the process that we love.  

So, let’s focus on that spirit. Let’s save our precious art. Let’s free ourselves from the shackles of consumerism and enjoy fashion once more.