I recently found myself in the unprecedented position of agreeing with a French designer. Philippe Starck, who invented that fancy juicer that looks like it’s been regarding this earth with envious eyes only to discover on arrival that we’re much bigger than it thought, has brought out a range of clothes that he insists are “not fashion”.
An anti-fashion French designer! “It produces energy, material, waste and gives birth to a system of consumption and over-consumption that has no future,” he says. Bravo! It’s a strange thing to hear from a man who’s made a fortune designing faddish and weird-looking furniture, but that’s fine – I’d still welcome an anti-drugs quote from Amy Winehouse. Starck describes his new clothes as “non-photogenic” and has designed them to be long-lasting.
As someone who hates fashion, and resents all the money, fun and attention people get out of it, I find this tremendously promising. Starck may just be the right man to make rejection of fashion fashionable. I look forward to an eco-friendly future where everyone wears drab and similar clothes until they wear out, just like I do. Obviously I don’t do it out of environmental conscience, but laziness and the fear that, if I try to demonstrate taste, I’ll be exposed as a twat.
But however puny my motives, I am basically right not to buy expensive yet flimsy new togs all the time. Replacing things that aren’t broken causes a lot of environmental damage. I, for one, am keen to find a way of stopping the planet flooding, boiling, freezing, baking or imploding for some reason to do with leaving things on standby, without having to sacrifice electric light, TV or beer. If everything from London Fashion Week to Claire’s Accessories has to go, I say it’s a price worth paying.
It’s easy for me to say, though. I’m not sacrificing anything. On the contrary, I’ll make a net sartorial gain when everyone else is dragged down to my got-dressed-from-a-skip-in-the-dark level. I don’t derive my sense of individualism from what I wear. Only if those who stand to lose financially or emotionally from a rejection of fashion altruistically adopt Starck’s approach will his remarks amount to anything more than a zeitgeisty rejection of the zeitgeist.
Sacrificing our rights and freedoms, or the use of them, for the greater good is much called for at the moment. There’s pressure to recycle, pay higher taxes, not travel on planes, avoid products manufactured by enslaved children, stop borrowing money we can’t pay back, stop lending money to people who won’t pay it back and abstain from tuna. And psychologically we couldn’t be worse prepared.
For decades, our society has trumpeted liberty and its use, choice, self-expression, global travel and all forms of spending as inalienable rights. But only as the environment and economy teeter are we gradually becoming aware that with the power such liberties give us comes the responsibility to deal with the consequences.
What a horrific realisation. I hate it. I was perfectly happy living in my London flat, talking to my friends and ignoring my neighbours, earning my money, spending it on my stuff, going on my holidays, telling my accountant to minimise my tax liability, writing my opinions in my newspaper. And then suddenly, in all sorts of frightening ways, it becomes clear I’m living in a society.
No wonder we kick against it. A national newspaper is currently running a campaign against wheelie bins called, without any irony that I can detect: “Not in My Front Yard”. Maybe, as a thin-lipped, judgmental liberal, I’m missing the self-knowing humour behind their selfish rage, but to me it seems that these NIMFYs are just railing against society’s attempts to restrain the disastrous exercise of their liberties.
Councils issue wheelie bins to make collection and recycling more efficient and effective. They’re better than normal bins – they’ve got wheels and can be emptied mechanically. Because they’re bigger, they can be collected fortnightly. Because collections can be fortnightly, recycling collections can be slotted in without doubling the refuse budget. I’m sure the NIMFYs would hate me for saying this, which is why I’m doing it, but it’s good, simple, common sense. The bins might not look lovely, but there are more important considerations in play here.
But any self-sacrifice feels to us westerners like tyranny. We’re not ready for it. Our evolution into apex individualists has superbly attuned us to injustices against us while atrophying our awareness of the vastly greater number that work in our favour. It’s not our fault, it’s how we were raised.
Our fear of being encroached upon has made us forget that there are few freedoms that can be fully exercised without impinging on someone else’s. The freedom to stab has long since been subordinated to the freedom not to be stabbed. But we still have the freedom not to recycle and to borrow or lend money recklessly, regardless of others’ freedom to live on a habitable planet and in a functional economy. We’ve hugely prioritised our rights over our duties because it’s only the former that tyrants try to take away.
But it can make us ridiculous. Explaining why mid-terrace residents had no option but to keep the unsightly wheelie bins in front of their houses, a Chester resident said: “Otherwise they would have to walk three bins all the way down the street, round the corner and into the backyard. Imagine doing that with three bins? It’s just crazy.”
I can almost hear the Oxfam advert: “This is Andrea. Every week, she has to walk three bins all the way down the street, round the corner and into the backyard. It’s either that or people will see her bins. It’s crazy, but you can help.”
What’s crazy is that, in the face of environmental disaster, when councils are at last prioritising recycling in a way most scientists would describe as “much, much, much, much, much too slowly”, people are moaning about ugly bins rather than grasping a fairly simple opportunity to do their bit. So you have to keep the bins in front of your house? Well, keep the bins in front of your house then, you moaning bastard.
