Minimalism
It's February 2022 and we're stripping things down to the bare minimum with minimalism, to challenge the digital age of hyper-consumerism, by finding the beauty more with even less.
The phrase ‘less is more’ has arguably never sung truer than in this digital age of hyper-consumerism, 24-hour online shopping and next day delivery. The fashion industry saw extensive economic growth with the birth of fast fashion, as the traditional 4 annual fashion seasons became obsolete to micro-trend led seasons that change on a weekly basis.. ‘We’ve never had fashion so good’, we could be fooled into thinking.
Yet countless studies and research shows that more clothes has not equated to more happiness or fulfilment. In fact, so toxic has the culture of fashion consumption become, that a new Western term, ‘stuffocation’, has been coined to define the feeling of ‘feeling suffocated by the sheer volume of clothes that wallow in your wardrobe’. The ironic paradox to the ‘I have nothing to wear’ phenomenon.
But counter to this seemingly unstoppable presence of excess ‘stuff’ is a movement gaining traction. Minimalism. A way of life grounded in roots of simplicity and value. The Minimalists define it as ‘a tool that can assist you in finding freedom’ including ‘from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around’.
In a fashion context, this movement could be transformative, in finding the widely-lost relationship between ourselves and our clothing. With each item of clothing, is a story, craftsmanship and creativity. Minimalism cherishes these clothing stories, by allowing us to celebrate fashion, through only buying, owning and wearing items that bring value into our lives.