Anti-Consumerism

In the too-many-years-to-count that I’ve been writing about fashion, I’ve watched peer after peer rethink their stance on buying clothes. When you work in the higher echelons of fashion, being showered with freebies, samples and ‘thank you’ gifts is a very lovely part of the job. It’s hard to turn your back on it. Yet increasingly, people are. People who once changed up their look more frequently than a Kardashian are now pledging not to shop for a year. The idea of buying more mindfully and less often is becoming more intrenched. As Britain swelters under another unprecedentedly long heatwave, few would disagree that this isn’t a positive. All the evidence suggests that global warming is real.

How should fashion PRs deal with the new anti-consumerism? It’s a tricky one. Possibly, the answer is to deal with it the way that fashion journalists do. Be pragmatic: people will always want new clothes, even if they may not always need them. If your brand has a genuine news angle, a back story that’s relevant in some wider way or is occasion-focused (during wedding season, people will always want to know about wedding attire), there’s a genuine reason to pitch it. There is no point in angsting about being “part of the problem”. It’s not your responsibility to make people shop less. But it is your responsibility to help them make informed choices when they do.