November in Fashion, Condensed.
Can climate satire save us? Plus textile waste zombies & material monsters, how Black Friday harms us all, and there are probably toxic chemicals in your gym clothes.
Hello there,
The global climate conference COP28 starts today in Dubai, the irony of which has been chewed over ad nauseam. How can we reconcile the fact that the world’s eighth-largest producer of oil is hosting an increasingly important event against the backdrop of an ever-worsening climate emergency?
In recent weeks, I have noticed a curious trend in how activists, scientists and climate thought leaders are dealing with this scary reality: through increasingly dark humour.
Take a look at fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna’s newsreader alter-go Polly Esther pretending to interview Zara, Shein and H&M or Ecoasia’s latest campaign that sees activists planting trees for oil and gas execs. Its slogan: “This COP is a joke. Our future isn’t.”
This week, actress Olivia Coleman became Oblivia Colemine in Make My Money Matter’s new short film highlighting the troubling fact that £88 billion worth of UK pensions are being invested into fossil fuels.
Climate Science Breakthrough went as far as to enlist standup comedians like Nish Kumar and Jo Brand to translate the dire warnings of its scientists to be (somewhat) more palatable for an audience clearly in need of a laugh in any way, shape or form.
Communicating with sincerity, logic, anger, passion and fear has so far failed to move the needle. Perhaps this dark satirical framing is an outlet for frustrated campaigners whose urgent warnings continue to fall on deaf ears. If it helps relieve some of the stress of climate doom and anxiety, have at it I say.
Dark humour is a coping mechanism. In the report Laughing Through the Pain, An Analysis of Dark Humor in Trauma-and-Crisis-Centered Occupations, author Zoe R. Potter writes that it’s a common reaction to intensely stressful situations where people are confronted by their own mortality. It’s often “weaponised by the oppressed as acts of resistance or as a means of raising one's spirits.”
God knows that those fighting the good fight need something to spur them on and make them chuckle in the face of complacent politicians, private jet-using billionaires and oil company presidents hosting climate conferences. Sometimes, a punny pseudonym does the trick.
Until next month,
Meg X
Things I Didn’t Write
It’s Too Easy to Buy Stuff You Don’t Want by Amanda Mull for the Atlantic
Thread Carefully: Your Gym Clothes Could Be Leaching Toxic Chemicals by Adrienne Matei for the Guardian
Defying Shein: How A Tweet Led To Collective Action by Jemima Elliot for Remake
“Made in America” Never Meant More Ethical by Derek Guy for the Nation
‘We Are Creating A Material Monster’: The False Logic Of Faux Leather by Tamsin Blanchard for The Guardian
Don’t Believe What Consumers Say When It Comes to Sustainability by Kenneth Pucker for Business of Fashion
Why Fast Fashion Brands Are Getting A Visit From A Textile Waste Zombie by Sophie Benson for Dazed
Why Big Fashion’s Black Friday Is Harming Us All by Venetia La Manna for Atmos
It’s Time To Break Up With Fast Fashion by Izzie Ramirez for Vox
The To-Do List
How to Be Fabulous: Sustainable and Secondhand Style on a Shoestring by Charlotte Dallison
Writer and vintage fashion expert Charlotte Dallison released her first book, How to be Fabulous, this week. There’s something for everyone in this book, regardless of how into vintage style you are. Dallison explores the values of vintage clothing and consumption habits in a modern context and has filled this book with great advice, her favourite secondhand shopping haunts, and more (including a page by me!).
Fashion and COP28: Inaction on the Climate Emergency by Good On You
Good on You examined the data on almost 6,000 brands and found plenty of evidence that they’re not doing anywhere near enough to tackle and reduce their climate impact. Alarmingly, only 20% of large brands have a science-based greenhouse gas emissions target.
Towards a Collective Approach: Rethinking Fashion’s Doomed Climate Strategy by the Transformers Foundation
Transformers Foundation comes out with some amazingly in-depth reports, and its latest is no exception. The report examines the failings of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and how fashion must take a collective approach to reducing its footprint. Well worth a read.
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This month, paid subscribers can listen to my conversation with Charlotte Dallison, writer and vintage fashion expert whose new book is out now in Australia and New Zealand.