Too Much

I had my friend Kristen over for lunch recently, because my new thing this winter is having friends and colleagues over for a civilized lunch instead of braving the current Resy situation in New York and spending $30 on a bowl of pasta. Kristen is an industry vet (check out her podcast Dry Clean Only) whom I’m grateful to have known for many years, and our conversations always wind between the professional and analytic (Schiaparelli show! retail performance!) and the personal (child therapists! what kind of pants to buy!) pretty liberally, and I told her I was having a hard time finding the words for a newsletter installation right now because everything just. feels. like. too. much.

I don’t mean Too Much in the sense that my personal life is out of control and I haven’t been able to prioritize writing, though if t were there’d be no shame in that. I meant Too Much in the sense that each day a new newsletter, media vertical, advisory group, Substack launches into my inbox, varyingly from people I have subscribed to purposefully and sometimes from people who have purchased a list with my name on it. It’s a swarm. And there is incredible content out there as much as there is bad content out there, and in moments like this I can’t help but stand back for a moment and try to understand if my voice is really necessary at this time, and if so how to make sure that what I write is of high enough value to command the time it takes the reader to read, because I really do appreciate your attention.

That kind of Too Much.

I was searching for an analogy in this conversation, and the only thing I could find was over the holidays when we had people over for dinner, and our Herman-Miller-wall-mounted-coat-rack, which had been slowly but surely releasing itself from the wall over the course of a few months, waited until the last guest arrived and hung their coat before it flung itself bodily, coat contents included, onto the floor, topped with drywall dust the way one might top a pastry with powdered sugar.

When it happened, leaning as I do toward dramatic interpretations, I couldn’t help but see the heap as an analogy for everything happening in the world right now.

(When I told Kristen this story she happily exclaimed that her Herman-Miller-wall-mounted-coat-rack had also given up the ghost over the holidays, which briefly made me consider that maybe this was not an analogy but instead a design flaw. But my analogy works too well so I will be running with it regardless.)

Too Much is the opposite of Slow Moving, and it demands of us that we constantly leave things by the roadside to keep up. Our commitments, our upkeep, our attention spans, our expectations of ourselves, our promises. It also leaves a trail of waste everywhere it goes - shipping waste, energy waste, the waste of excess, the waste of our time from distraction and evasion. The waste of things we forgot. 

And we’ve reached Too Much. Like firmly, without question. 

We are also entering, in the fashion industry, what I would call Third Wave Sustainability. The earliest adopters, the pioneers of method and material, were First Wave, the selective adopters - those who incorporate progressive materials or improvements into a relatively-unchanged supply chain are Wave Two, and Third Wave is the capitalization and hyper-production of Sustainability language, concepts and materials. It means that a company veiled at $200 billion dollars can use a tagline of “at least 20% sustainable material” to sell products to a consumer that wants to be more conscious. The concept of industry renovation has been co-opted, so that now people believe they must buy more things to be better. 

There is an umbrella issue of course, which is that the most sustainable version of this industry is a version where it no longer exists. The same can be said about most of the major polluters, and is becoming a popular way to disarm and disenfranchise people from feeling a sense of power or purpose around their behavior. Ten years ago, the equivalent of this messaging was the Myth of Personal Responsibility. Indeed, there is no one thing one person can do to prevent climate collapse. But someone is buying all this stuff. And if every individual, on a micro level, endeavored to change their habits within their control, the landscape would be reshaped. I’m not saying it’s a magic bullet fix. I’m saying that with each person lies power.

And to be sure, the absolute first step to take tomorrow is to convert from a consumptive model to an intentional model when you bring new things into your life. Rather than immediately going out and replacing your entire existing wardrobe with “greener” solutions (and “greener” under what non-existent universal standards, may I ask?), wear the clothes you have, even if they are made of plastic. When you buy new things, ask whether they are satisfying a momentary desire for a trend or if they will last with you through the years as you live and evolve. 

The second thing, and this is extremely important but under-discussed, is: make it more difficult to get rid of your clothes. Not everything has a resale value. Give away the clothing you no longer want to your friends and relations, slowly, thoughtfully and intentionally. If you are not using something that does not mean that unused thing’s new purpose in life is to earn you money. Hand down items. Arrange swaps. Do not drop bags of clothing off at Housing Works. Store old clothing carefully and with respect, put it out of sight and unpack it again and fall back in love with it when you do. If you need to dispose of something, dispose of it properly, which means finding the correct channel for that material, sometimes bringing it to that channel yourself, on a specific day, during your free time. It’s harder this way. One of the things making it so easy for everyone to buy new things is the rock bottom standards we hold ourselves to when we dispose of the old or unwanted ones. 

At the rate we as a species are currently consuming, there is little-to-no difference, climate-impact-wise, between buying a LOT of a regular or sustainable brand and buying a LOT of Shein. There might be a slight difference between labor conditions and transparency, but not even always. We need to buy less new of everything, across the board, and to buy those things intentionally. 

The third thing - also extremely important - things are not “bad” or “good”. This is a concept that needs to be digested across most areas of our culture right now. There is no thing on this planet that is squarely, categorically bad or good, especially not you or anyone around you or anyone in opposition to you. Like all other life on earth, there are measures on a spectrum. This year, pivot from shaming others for the decisions they make or lifestyles they lead because you feel superior to them, and instead focus on empowering and educating. Not didactically - nobody wants to hear you lecture, even if it is your profession. Education happens best in conversation, which means remembering how to converse with people instead of flipping a metaphorical table if you disagree about something. Ask questions! Learn! There are so many fascinating movements and solutions happening in the world right now that need your eyes and your support, and guess what? Every moment you spend learning about them is another moment you’ve spent not acquiring a new thing. 

The last thing I want to mention in the realm of consumption today is this brilliant tweet by Cora Harrington last week:

“Honestly, the crux of the fast fashion conversation, for most consumers, is that they think it’s beneath them to have one winter coat they wear for five years or one dress they’ve worn so often, people recognize it. The underpinnings are rich people cosplay.”

A few months ago I wrote a newsletter dispatch about Feminized Debt, discussing the advent of pay-in-four plans in the fashion product space. It is wonderful to go out into the world feeling confident, beautiful, powerful. Fashion as armor is an incredible tool, and can change your whole energy and existence. I understand deeply why so many people desire to cosplay as the rich - almost everything in our culture is designed to make that lifestyle look perversely attractive. But I will tell you two things truly rich people do not have, and they are;

1. unpaid credit card debt from purchases of consumer goods, and

2. no idea when or how they will retire and support themselves in old age.

The other notion being projected by most of our culture right now is that the proverbial rich can have anything they want at any time their heart desires, and this has fueled the surge these past 20 years of swift shipping, instant gratification, and over-consumption. I deserve this, says everyone (myself included!) as we justify this lifestyle, mostly because we need to make it clear to the world that if other people deserve this, then we certainly do, too.

What we deserve is satisfaction, safety, free time, good health, a relationship with nature, and fulfilling companionship. And I’m probably forgetting a few other things. But these are all of the things of which we are depriving ourselves (collectively) while we push our consumption over the edge.

We have reached, and passed, the point of Too Much.