Ive just finished and incredible read that dropped on my email today from Not just a Label. With a title that stars off the article right on track, Fashion_for_Loosers talks about the fast pased fashion industry and the need to have us constantly sucking ads, buying unlimited crap that will eventually be useless to us and harmful for the rest. Just like the quote from Vivianne Westwood in the article:
“Buy less, choose well. Don’t buy things for the sake of it because then everyone looks alike….I offer no choice but to ask for the end of indiscriminate consumption. If you have to choose something, save up and choose well.”They also reference "The Generation M Manifesto" written by Umair Haque of Havas Media Lab. Excellent writing overall and I think that entering the new decade is starting to finally unfold or rebel at what's been a crazy "you are, if you buy" era. The whole manifesto below and you can read the complete article here.
Dear Old People Who Run the World,
My generation would like to break up with you. Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.
You wanted big, fat, lazy "business." We want small, responsive, micro-scale commerce. You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere. You wanted financial fundamentalism. We want an economics that makes sense for people — not just banks. You wanted shareholder value — built by tough-guy CEOs. We want real value, built by people with character, dignity, and courage.
You wanted an invisible hand — it became a digital hand. Today's markets are those where the majority of trades are done literally robotically. We want a visible handshake: to trust and to be trusted. You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better. You didn't care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats. You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.
You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community. You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff that matters. You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We're not for sale: we're learning to once again do what is meaningful.
There's a tectonic shift rocking the social, political, and economic landscape. [...] Here's what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday's profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity. Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born. So the question is this: do you still belong to the 20th century - or the 21st?
Love,
Umair and the Edge Economy Community
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