Pakistan is slowly creeping into the haul culture, an era of throwaway times, with quality material and eternal style being replaced by fast and cheap items. This has been made possible by the ubiquity of casual fashion retailers together with the widely successful online order placement and online or cash on delivery payment options.
The life-cycle of casual fashion is shorter than it was even a decade ago. Our population is increasingly updating their closets, exchanging the trends of yesterday with newest fashions. As the old clothing makes its ways to the dumpsters, it continues to aggravate the already critical environmental concerns, to a point that one cannot fathom how such a practice could be remotely sustainable. The backbone of such businesses rests on the cheap labor, who exert themselves in poor working conditions in third world countries around the world. Despite the fact that many artisans find the industry crucial to get better remuneration for their skills, we cannot ignore how the industry continues to under-reward such labor behind the materialization of many coveted designs.
But despite these lingering concerns, the Pakistani audience still fails to shop ethically, consciously and for quality. They stick to the mantra of getting as many items as physically possible for as little money as physically possible. In addition to this, consumers are constantly pitched online deals and discount codes and tricked into buying huge volumes of sub-par quality clothing. Buying hence becomes less about actual needs and more about impulsive desires of the moment where a whim’s decision governs fashion choices at the expense of a considerate and timeless style.
Following the latest trends is seen as a social symbol, just like upgrading to the latest iPhone model. Most of this has to do with our growing obsession with social media, the influencer/blogger lifestyle and our need to stay relevant and visible in our social lives. Audiences especially follow an influencer’s content because it updates them about the current releases or trends and advises them about which brand to invest their money in. But the ease of access to the lives of such celebrities and media personalities proves fosters an environment of unconscious consumerism and materialism.
We also need to be aware that these online content creators are posting about fast fashion because they themselves need to remain relevant by posting fresh content. But this then starts a cycle where the consumer who engages with this content internalizes and normalizes a fast-fashion, haul-based, binge shopping mentality, and in-turn looks to these creators for further inspiration. It’s a never-ending cycle.
Impressionable young minds who look up to influencers are easily trapped in the vicious cycle of careless buying based off the YouTube videos that feature their favorite influencer and their spending sprees. This younger demographic gradually develop a very skewed idea of what is ‘normal’ spending. In Pakistani households, this mentality extends to middle-aged women as well who are engrossed in the daily run of morning and cooking shows, hosted by celebrities donning branded clothes. The hosts always share the designer’s label much to the relief and joy of these audiences.
The expansion of television networks coupled with the rise of the advertising industry has also perpetuated and promoted liberal lifestyle values and trends among today’s’ youth. We can see the extent of how much these trends are accepted and embraced by this demographic by the absolute triumph of the advertising campaigns which feature and also target the young generation.
Through their buying habits, individuals end up assigning happiness to the attainment of items. The worth of the item inherently becomes the worth of our happiness. The audience ends up putting consumerism on a pedestal, with these materialistic values reinforced and promoted on social platforms. This can evidently cause a negative effect on our wellbeing.
We can then see how people can lose the sense of their choices and actions from an environmental, social and economic perspective, but the impact drills down to the core of being a human, as society slowly loses its empathy and prioritizes the detrimental ideology of consumerism. Other psychological effects of this trend include increased levels of anxiety and depression when people find that they cannot afford to keep up with the latest trends. Moreover, there is an added unhappiness caused by the realization that they don’t fit into the unnatural and unfair ideals projected by the fashion industry.
Our current fashion leaders and audience mainly comprise of the youth of our nation, who have joined forces in guiding the fashion and apparel industry towards a new era in fashion. There are varying interpretations about what comprises the orientation, outlook and worldview of this younger generation. But one thing is for sure, that In addition to their fascination with the latest fads, this fashionable youth is highly influenced by western trends which are making its way into Pakistani fashion with such alacrity that nowadays it is almost impossible to tell apart western styles from the local ones.
The industry is booming with the dynamism and diversity brought by these zealous spirits, who are experimenting and creating their own fashion identities. We see this in the extremely successful and competitive business of lawn-arguably securing the biggest market share in the industry.
Designs nowadays spark a more modern edge, with their loud palettes, sporting shorter silhouettes, all uncharacteristic of once traditional designs with careful and ornate needlework and complimentary hues. The acceptance and tolerance of these contemporary designs are increasing in the society, indicating the amalgamation of western trends with our own eastern ones.
Some, however, believe that such trends come as a great shock and utter grievance to our local and cultural styles that serve as our identity. They challenge that with a country such as ours that boasts such a prolific tapestry of diverse people, the fashion industry can do much better. Critics say that the industry can be frequently caught playing gimmicks of inclusion and representation. The industry is accused to use cheap tactics to sell their products better rather than investing efforts in standardizing diversity in its truest sense. Even though the movement for diversity in Pakistan is light-years ahead of where it was merely a few years ago, just showcasing designs on a range of body types, skin tones, gender identities and ages is not enough to be rendered as breaking the stereotype or a standard of fashion. In Pakistan, diversity is often reduced to a buzzword for promoting most designers who opt to feature their designs in only a handful of sizes.
Rather than trying to keep up with foreign styles, we should take a page out of our western neighbors buying habits instead and opt for the slow fashion movement. The western market, which we try to emulate, is decades ahead in its life-cycle, as it is already drawing close to the haul culture when we are just at the brim of it. The western market is fast approaching a time where resale market is expected to grow bigger than first-hand fast fashion. This movement towards slow fashion is growing in popularity, where people will opt for secondhand clothing in light of the environmental and socioeconomic impact of their fashion decisions. This slow fashion movement endorses keeping a few and versatile pieces of clothing for life, repairing them for reuse when they are worn and torn over time.
The never-ending haul cycle that Pakistan finds itself hopelessly in can only be averted if we take a moment’s notice to stop and consider our choices in order to separate the mindless from the rational ones. We need to be careful and wary of who we follow and promote in our race to grab the latest item off the shelf. We need to be mindful of the impact our choices make in the future of both the fashion industry and our nation in general.
It is also important to change the idea of fashion in a deeper sense. People need to stop using the word ‘diversity’ in their editorial content and staff as just a ‘cool’ thing to do. They need to realize how it is also important from a business perspective. By being mindful of the diversity of their audiences, designers can increase their sales by providing access of their designs to a far greater and varied audience. This sort of inclusivity and representation of the real consumer in both campaigns and on the ramp will undoubtedly enrich the entire customer experience- one that is informed of the social responsibilities the fashion has to its young impressionable audience.
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