Patched advice column: You cannot change the world by shopping differently

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In between my regular newsletter I send out Patched - a members-only series where people can ask me a fashion (or fashion-adjacent) question, and I'll reply with a short letter from an anti-capitalist perspective.

Got a question? Email me: DearPatched@proton.me

The title Patched is a reminder that at this critical time we need repair and regeneration as well as analysis. I will keep unpicking and unravelling the fashion industry but Patched makes space to explore mending - finding solutions to both personal and structural problems.

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Reaching the limits of strategies that don't work

Dear Patched, I have some feelings about fashion and would really appreciate some advice.

I generally try to consume as little fashion as I can, and when I do I try to go for good quality clothes, take care of them, repair them and give them a second life by upcycling as I am a home-sewer.

Despite all of that, I still do not feel I am doing enough. I still feel I could have gone for more sustainable fabrics when sewing my own clothes, I could have bought second hand trousers, or not made an impulsive purchase just because I liked something.

I feel exhausted all the time. I have to mentally fight all inputs I receive about how fashion is supposed to make me happier (I know this is not true, but I still need to remind myself of that). I need to invest a lot of time researching and sewing the garments that I need to wear.

What to do with all that exhaustion? How do people more informed than me match their lifestyle with their "personal sustainable policies"?

Thank you very much for your time.

Love from Spain, Julia

Dear Julia,

I think the exhaustion you write about will be recognised by a lot of people. Let’s start by trying to figure out where it is coming from. First up, I want to recognise that the world is exhausting at the moment. For anyone who is socially conscious there is a general sense of unease. It is worth being aware that the inability to control or fix the world, can manifest in a desire to control things closer to home.

It is also possible that you feel exhausted because you have quite literally exhausted the solutions offered by some narratives within fashion activism. So here is my advice:

If a strategy for change leaves you emotionally exhausted and/or you find you are only talking or thinking about yourself and your own wardrobe, then stop.

Stop and try another strategy.

I say this because we’re so intimately connected to clothing that it is difficult to see clothes as anything other than a question of individual choice. On the surface the choice seems simple, there are ‘good clothes’ or ‘evil clothes’. If you choose the ‘good’ clothing you are 'virtuous'; if you pick the ‘evil’ clothing you are 'wicked'.

This good/wicked approach, however, ignores the myriad of personal and systemic factors that determine choice – class, time, geography, availability etc. It also ignores the extraordinary complexity of labour, Land, natural goods, biomass, fossil fuels, international capital, debt systems, taxation and trade agreements that go into making every piece of clothing and every bolt of cloth.

Portraying fashion as a binary choice between good and evil also ignores the social nature of fashion consumption and the incredibly powerful multi-billion pound fashion advertising industry whose sole goal is to alter our behaviour by making us feel like crap so we buy more stuff.

It is not a character weakness to feel the immense pressure of the fashion industry. Yet if you fall into this kind of thinking, you can actually mistakenly begin to believe that you are a ‘bad person’ and start to dislike yourself. As I have written before:

It is no coincidence that we have been steered into the dead end of viewing clothing only as an individual issue. This goes right to the very heart of neoliberalism – a system that teaches us that empowerment comes from acting individually (not collectively), that freedom means variety in what we consume, and that we should trust in the system and shop (not fight) our way to a new world.

I think this limitation is where you find yourself at the moment. If I was someone who believed we change the world by consuming differently there would be little else I could tell you. You have ticked all the boxes – you buy very little, you go for good quality, you care for and repair your clothes and even upcycle them because you are a skilled sewer. There are countless books, articles and channels dedicated to getting people to your level. You have done it all, and yet you say: “I feel exhausted all the time.”

So you need another strategy. While you are right to feel discomfort about the fashion industry, having a laser focus on your individual shopping habits has left you burnt out because it does not work. You have tried really hard and nothing has changed. This is frustrating and exhausting – how could it not be?

You can, however, channel the discomfort you feel, while engaging in socially useful activity and hopefully finding space to enjoy clothing and sewing again. I do not think there is anything wrong with finding happiness and joy in clothing.

In Foot Work, I developed the Triangle of Change as a means to understand the stages of change. The Triangle has consumption at the top because it is the entry point to fashion activism for so many people and because I do believe we should treading as lightly as we can upon the earth. However, consumption decisions are a starter pack, they’re not a means to stop the political or ecological trajectory we’re on. For that we need to move on to the next two levels – political change and systemic change.

This is the transformative work of generations of citizens acting collectively. This is where we fight for living wages, safe violence-free factories, for legislation to end the worst harms of corporations. It is also where we fight for recognition of a structural critique of capitalism and then for a worker-based just transition to a way of living that fits within planetary boundaries and ends colonialism and capitalism for good.

It can be a difficult conceptual task to reimagine fashion activism as being about far more than one's own wardrobe, but we must take this step as the limitations of consumer-based-activism ultimately benefit corporations by minimizing impact and containing action within our homes and possibly social media accounts.

There are endless opportunities for joining in political action. Within the fashion industry there are so many live social struggles that need support – and it is only by linking ourselves to these live social struggles that we can find meaning and energy. It is here also that clothing and sewing – maybe sewing a banner or two – can become invigorating and joyful again instead of feeling like a burden.

Forget the laser focus on your own wardrobe and act collectively - find other people who are engaged in changing the things you want to change. Around the world there are good networks of groups engaged in garment worker solidarity work – this is a good place to start.

You asked me how other people align their lives, and I can tell you that collective action – not wardrobe fixation – is the strategy of the people I trust in the garment industry.

They are engaged in the work of unions, climate activism and worker solidarity. They do not seek or fixate on perfection in their own wardrobes or lecture or hector people about what they wear. They sometimes get tired, but it is a different kind of tired – one of pulling together on a common rope across borders to change the world, of welcoming people into a growing movement and of seeing things change as you work together.

You are not personally responsible for the state of the fashion industry, release some of that burden and use your energy to find good people to work with collectively.

Wishing you well. In solidarity, Tansy.

p.s. Mark Zuckerberg's META is censoring mentions of Pixelfed - a photo sharing site and competitor to Instagram. I happen to love Pixelfed and since META do not get to censor my newsletter (yay, newsletters!) this is a recommendation that you join Pixelfed. It's great - no adverts, no algorithm, no hideous drive for profit or data mining. With Pixelfed you can post any size photo you like and post links in your caption.

Come try out Pixelfed - use it for that cool project you've been wanting to do, or for a personal collection of photos. I've been on there since Jan 2023 but you can find my new account here: https://pixelfed.social/tansyhoskins

p.p.s. Are you a journalist in Europe? If so, the Centre For Investigative Journalism is running an awesome new FREE training programme called Dark Green: Climate Finance Investigations. It involves 8x2hrs sessions over 4 weeks - one of the sessions is taught by me. AND there are 5 x €1,000 grants for the best stories. Applications open till 2nd Feb. https://tcij.org/initiative/dark-green/

p.p.p.s National demonstration against Israel’s genocide in Palestine. London on Saturday: