This little video –The Story of Stuff by activist Annie Leonard — just recently came to my attention. In it, she explains how an unsustainable system of consumption of (often) unnecessary goods in developed countries is harming our world and the people in it (often those in developing countries). This can be applied to a variety of goods and services in the beauty and fashion industry, some of which are specifically made reference to in the video (e.g. the changing fashions of high heels). Despite being crafted with a healthy dose of fear-mongering, it does raise some important points. Before you watch it and read on, please keep in mind this is not a beauty-bashing blog, by any means. Rather, it is a blog meant to stimulate critical thinking about beauty.
Annie mentions briefly that products are tested to determine how they can be made to function properly just long enough that people will be willing to go out and buy a replacement for the product when it inevitably breaks or malfunctions. In other words, products are often purposefully designed not to last, so we keep buying things. If any fashion item was purposefully designed to self-destruct in short order, my vote is for pantyhose.
Another point she raises is that when a product is low in cost, its manufacturing and shipping costs still must get paid for somehow, even if it’s not by you at the cash register. Her thesis is that the real cost of the item you got for a steal — here’s looking at you $5 H&M dress — falls on the shoulders of the people in under-developed countries working long hours for pennies, and risking their health in wretched working conditions to make whatever it is you just purchased.
I agree with her, at least to some extent, that creating new fashions each year is most certainly about corporations making money. We’d be fools not to recognize this. But to what extent is fashion and beauty merely about consumerism compared to, say, art creation, a depiction of self-identity, or innate ability to distinguish between what is beautiful and what is not? In other words, to what extent are beauty and fashion merely money making corners of the market and to what extent are they truly dimensions of human expression, creativity, and judgement?
Fashion trends and beauty ideals have changed over time, long before the 1950’s when Annie indicates consumption really started to be marketed and take off. Perhaps they really are “good” and “true” things, but consumerism capitalizes (pun intended) on them, and the knowledge that they will change with time, to sell more stuff to people.
Consumerism did not create “beauty,” nor did patriarchism, though Naomi Wolfe would argue otherwise. Instead, as Nancy Etcoff writes, beauty – its ideals and efforts to attain them – is very much biologically ingrained and not merely socially constructed. While beauty may be exploited by those on Madison Avenue, it wasn’t created by them. In other words, that beauty exists has more to do with Darwin than dollars.
And so, it would seem, we can have beauty without consumerism, without stuff. However, the most malleable ways to make ourselves more attractive is by wearing stylish clothes and shoes, a flattering lipstick colour, or a certain hair colour and style. And if we want to try to increase the amount of beauty or style we possess, the easiest way to accomplish this (perhaps the only way) is to swipe our plastic for possessions and apply them.
Swipe, possess, apply. Repeat.
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