French designer Coco Chanel once declared, “Elegance is refusal.” Who knows what she would make of her country’s new fashion statement, which might be sloganed “Elegance is refuse.”
No nation has done more to indoctrinate the world about the necessity of luxury than France but now, apparently, vert (green) is the new noir.
Its government is at pains to reintroduce citizens to last year’s fashions – and all previous years’ – to discourage them from buying new clothes and stop them throwing out serviceable old clobber. It’s an environmental initiative that has divided the Cabinet as well as the closet.
The campaign, launched by Ecological Transition Minister Christophe Béchu, was aimed at shaming citizens out of the Black Friday global sales binge.
Witty TV ads have portrayed “unsalespeople” talking shoppers out of buying, say, a new jacket. Their pitch: you can save 100% because you’ve already got at least one jacket at home.
With inflation-ravaged retailers and manufacturers desperate for the annual Black Friday income bump, and shoppers no less keen on bargains, the “buy less” campaign caused much resentment. The French fashion industry fairly pointed out that the bedrock of Black Friday and other mass consumerism is the torrent of cheap, throwaway imports, and the biggest beasts in fashion’s carbon jungle are leviathans such as China’s Shein, not France’s prêt-à-porter battlers.
But Béchu said all over-consumption was bad for the planet, and everyone should consider “unbuying”.
He remains in ordure with many ministerial colleagues but their administration has already taken France further than most countries down the path of tempering consumption.
The French fashion conscience started pricking several years ago after embarrassing revelations about the volume of luxury goods annually destroyed to preserve the prestige of their successors and the market value of goods already sold. Such dumping is now banned.
However, the French personally dump 700,000 tonnes of textiles a year, only a third of which are repurposed. By 2050, fabric items will likely be the fourth biggest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions.
France’s government now offers a subsidy to people willing to get their clothes mended. This has a certain appeal; darned if you do, damned if you don’t.
“This old thing!” could even become a fashion statement. “Chérie, where did you get those boots?” “Quelle surprise! My wardrobe: €9 to re-sole!”
Like King Charles, the socially conscious French – who incidentally admire the British aristocracy’s timeless apparel – may soon be boasting of the age of their coats, frocks and trousers.
But the medium-term prognosis for a new vogue in old and second-hand clothing is unguessable. To promote yesterday’s fashions is to labour with an oxymoron.
Fashion would have to be the ultimate perpetual motion machine, with its unswerving fidelity to issuing new products for each season of the year, and deeming its own quite recent output as suddenly and arbitrarily outré.
The industry’s carbon footprint is shamefully twinned with a high reliance on low-paid and sometimes indentured labour.
France is politically bold in trying to dampen its economic fashion furnace, as fashion is a heavy lifter in its manufacturing and export sectors and a priceless global marketing tool. Paris didn’t become the world’s most touristed city because foreigners hankered after its practical anoraks and flip-flops.
The French government is trying to stitch existing fabric-related businesses into new recycling subsidy schemes. The state pays people $10-$45 per repair item, and also subsidises businesses willing to repair clothes. This follows a similar scheme for appliance repairs.
Another Chanel edict was that one should always take something off before leaving home, because one was almost always over-dressed. Perhaps she would view unbuying as similarly likely to improve one’s elegance.
