Fast Fashion & Slow Travel
What I learned having breakfast with the heads of sustainability at H&M
Last week, I participated in a round-table breakfast discussion – together with a few other writers and journalists as well as the heads of sustainability at H&M – at the H&M Showroom in Stockholm. On the way there, I tried to figure out the reason I was attending. It couldn’t just be just for the free coffee or egg sandwiches? What did I think I would learn that I didn’t already know?
A few years before, I had attended a similar event; a lunch in Copenhagen, following the Copenhagen Fashion Summit. The Summit has (to me at least) always appeared more of a networking event than something committed to any actual systemic change of the fashion system.
Sustainability is an industry in and of itself, and these kinds of conferences and events are important mainly because they bring together people from different continents and industries, connecting them so that they can continue selling their consultancy services while allowing companies to pay lip service to “sustainability”. The Brilliant Minds Foundation, co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek, is a similar Scandinavian platform, regularly gathering the superstars and billionaires of the world (with the aim of making them feel clever).
What I remember most from the Danish lunch was the harshness of the critique directed from Danish fashion academics towards the H&M representatives:“Fast fashion can never be sustainable!” they shouted across the table. “Your business model is destroying the world!” they yelled at the increasingly flushed people from the large fashion conglomerate, while I watched and slowly ate my (delicious) salad.
At the H&M Showroom in Stockholm last week, the atmosphere was much more polished and polite. If you work in fashion and are based in Stockholm, you are almost inevitably somehow part of the H&M ecosystem. Seemingly independent fashion designers often work part-time for H&M to finance their indie brand, and even the most avantgarde stylist has at one time or another sent an invoice to the H&M headquarters.
In comparison to the Danish event, the questions posed to H&M in Sweden were nuanced and concerned with details. The most pressing matter for many European fashion brands is the new fashion and textile-themed EU-legislation, aiming at limiting the growth of companies like H&M.
Another issue is the changing demographics on a global scale. Save for the countries south of Sahara, most regions in the world will soon be entering a phase of population decline. In the four last decades, the world population has grown by four billion people. This means that a company like H&M, offering cheap clothes, would have experienced rapid financial growth regardless of their celebrity collaborations, campaigns, or design. Most people like a bargain, it’s really not that complicated.
But now, when the population soon will begin to decrease, they will have to develop their business plan in order to stay relevant.
What has fast fashion to do with slow travel? Many people around the table talked about the need for “transparency” and “additional communication” as though more information would inspire consumers to make more informed choices. But anyone who has ever been to a supermarket knows that most people are not interested in being sustainable, they are looking for good deals; getting the most while paying the least.
This is why Lohi Journal will always be a niche publication. Slow travel, similar to slow fashion and slow food, will always be of interest only for a smaller group of people, who value quality over quantity. Most consumers are not like this, and they will never be persuaded by more information about the environmental effects of their habits.
Climate change can only be slowed down by collective and large-scale efforts, but these will not be consumer-driven but have to implemented through legal frameworks, like the one currently being imposed on the European fashion. This framework has many flaws, but at least it’s (hopefully) a step in the right direction. When given a choice, most people will opt for the cheapest option, regardless of its environmental impact or general lack of quality. Fast trumps slow, quantity is more popular than quality.
During WWII in the UK, the Utility Clothing Scheme was a programme introduced in response to the shortage of clothing materials and labour due to wartime austerity. The Scheme embodied a variety of measures to ensure the availability of fabric, clothing, and shoes, which were proposed to ensure availability, no matter of the consumer’s socioeconomic circumstances. The creation of Utility clothing meant meeting tight regulations regarding the amount of material allowed to be used in their construction, as per the restrictions of clothes rationing in this period.
In the current research field on fashion, many scholars are suggesting to introduce a similar form of rationing of garments, this time on an international level, limiting the number of clothes or amount of textiles a person will be able to buy in a year.
What if similar restrictions would be placed on travel and hospitality, for example limiting the number of flights an airline could offer per year or decide that hotels could never exceed a certain number of rooms? Would this force people to behave in more sustainable ways or would consumers find a way around the limitations?
I think the idea of recognizing the planetary boundaries of the travel industry an interesting idea, but it would be political suicide to suggest such a thing. And so, companies like H&M will continue to invite people like me to round table-discussions, where we talk about the problems but nothing ever really changes.
Apparently, the next H&M-led discussion on sustainable fashion is planned to take place in a few months (and I’m already invited). Between now and then, hundreds of thousands of cheap garments will have been produced, bought and discarded around the world, at an ever-increasing pace.
The discrepancy between action and word is clear for everyone to see, but is there anyone who actually cares?