I always know Earth Day is around the corner when press releases touting cork clutches land in my inbox, followed by recyclable “chic and colourful” outdoor patio rugs, then something jade, another shade of green, rubber-this, and waterless-that. Every year, without fail, the annual green-thumbed Earth Day circle jerk hits full stride in April and continues through much of spring. Brands pump out ‘eco-friendly’ capsule collections and media push shopping guides like consumerism is going out of style.
Earlier this season, H&M, the world’s fast fashion leader, introduced a new Conscious Collection of ‘eco-glam’ pieces priced just low enough to encourage maximum consumption. The collection pays homage to all the important eco-buzzwords like ‘organic cotton’ and ‘textile waste,’ but despite its name, is anything but conscious of the real problem and thus misses any shot at being part of the solution. One-time-wear red carpet gowns made of recycled polyester are nothing more than an old wasteful mindset wrapped in new politically correct verbiage.
Gucci is the latest to jump on the green bandwagon with a line of shoes that are “environmentally sound from shoe string to sole.” They come in an array of colours for women (collect them all!) and both a high and low-top version for men. Sure they have vegetable-tanned calfskin and bio-this, bullshit-that, but they’re also part of Gucci’s pre-fall line–a season that basically only exists to encourage increased consumption and sales.
Waiting six months for a new collection can be a bore, so ‘resort’ and ‘pre-fall’ collections have entered the mass market to fill the gap between traditonal seasons that just don’t come quick enough for modern-day consumerist sensibilities. “It has become the season you sell the most clothes,” Michael Kors told US Vogue at his pre-fall in December 2010.
Gucci’s latest enviro-products are nothing more than a cleverly disguised ploy to get us to do more of what we’ve always done: consume. They’re not part of the solution; they’re part of the problem.
This April saw David Suzuki step down from his own charitable foundation over fears that his political views could put the organization’s charitable status at risk. He told the Globe and Mail that the environmental movement got it wrong for years: “We didn’t sell the right message…We thought if we stop this dam, if we stop this clear-cutting, that’s a great success. But we didn’t deal with the underlying destructiveness, which was the mindset that attacked the forest or wanted to build the dam.”
And Lord knows the fashion industry has trouble coming to terms with its own destructiveness.
The answer isn’t footwear made with just the right kind of rainforest-friendly rubber; it’s reevaluating an industry that perpetuates SATC-style shoe closets as something to aspire to and ‘trends’ that barely last long enough to be called trends. It’s not about the physical goods; it’s about the mentality behind it all.
But no one in their right mind is going to tell their customers to shop less– except industry rebel Dame Vivienne Westwood, that is. “If you ask me what I think people should be getting next season, I’ll tell you what I’d like them to buy–nothing,” said Westwood back in 2007. “I’d like people to stop buying and buying and buying.” She also warned against “the drug of consumerism.”
Meanwhile, Gucci is set to release “liquid wood sunglasses” (at an unspecified date, but of course they’ve leaked prototypes to tease us into a shopping frenzy) made from biodegradable wood fiber and other eco-materials that I don’t care to list. Fashion media everywhere are hailing Gucci for their “commitment to the environment.”
Gucci, as one of the world’s “Top 100 Brands,” is in a rare position of actual market influence. If they really wanted to make a difference, they’d cut the eco-crap and produce less, do more.
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Sabrina Maddeaux is Toronto Standard’s style editor. Follow her on Twitter at @sabrinamaddeaux.
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