Shop Til You Drop

Well we have dropped. The U.S. Economy has long been sustained by a shopping zeal that few other countries emulate. And now the bill has come due. From our inflated Education costs, Healthcare to Housing we have an overwhelming desire to buy what we think we need and even what we don't because retail therapy is easier, still cheaper and faster than actually finding and solving what ails us. This also is a lot to due with denial about the truth about our own economic situations. I had to laugh when reading transcripts of Anne Romney's speech at the RNC saying "women know what Doctor to call in the middle of the night" Clearly I have to get that Doctor's number. I wonder if it will put me in financial arrears like the rest of Medicine seems to do for the well the rest of us. And do Doctor's still make house calls?

Of course she was wearing a $2,000 dollar Designer dress while espousing the role of a hard working wife of a hard working man. Again that is some work. And yet much is made of Michelle Obama's wardrobe. She is the First Lady and I do think that job is hard as to the man she is married to. I feel that way regardless of party or politics. Certain jobs require certain standards and that includes clothing. But we have clearly confused what that means to the "everyman" who can't afford a $2,000 dress or its copy at Target for $20.

The same could be said for electronics/technology. The lines outside of an Apple store on release day for the latest greatest I-fill-in-the-blank are often covered on the evening news yet rarely followed by stories on how said products are made.

I found this article in today's New York Times about fashion and the price paid for goods less about quality and more about consumption. Target I believe truly initialized this fad of "designer" duds at Target prices. But what is often neglected is that the only thing designer about them is the label. Unlike the namesake's department store quality merchandise, these items are made cheaply, poorly and with a short lifespan. The surplus of discarded clothes is so severe that many countries can no longer process the waste. This is not sustainable in any sense of the word.



Fashion’s Cost, Hidden and Not So
By LIESL SCHILLINGER
Published: August 29, 2012



“Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion.” By Elizabeth L. Cline. 256 pages. Portfolio. $25.95.

“You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal About You.” By Dr. Jennifer Baumgartner. 272 pages. Da Capo Lifelong Books. $16.

“How to Look Expensive: A Beauty Editor’s Secrets to Getting Gorgeous Without Breaking the Bank.” By Andrea Pomerantz Lustig. 224 pages. Gotham Books. $22.50.

YOU may have seen the famous 1970s Coca-Cola ad in which smiling young people of many nations gathered to sing about “perfect harmony.” But have you ever seen the famous 1970s ad for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, in which American men and women of many races sang in unison, asking fellow citizens to “look for the Union label” when they bought their clothes?

That union label, they tunefully explained, meant, “We’re able to make it in the U.S.A.” That’s not a refrain you will hear anymore, nor will you find the union’s label in H&M, Walmart, Uniqlo or any of the chains where Americans buy clothing at rock-bottom prices these days.

Instead, you’ll find labels that say “Made in Bangladesh” or “Made in China” on garments that can be bought for the price of a Coke and a sandwich, and whose manufacture does not guarantee a worker a living wage “in the U.S.A.,” or anywhere else.

In “Overdressed,” her book on the trillion-dollar global clothing industry, Elizabeth L. Cline explains that “in the late 1970s, three-fourths of our clothes were still made in the United States.” Today, that number has dropped to 2 percent. As consumers have become “focused on quantity over quality and trends over innovative design,” she writes, Americans have come to see clothing as a “discretionary” purchase, a trend assisted by round-the-clock online bargain-hunting.

Where’s the harm in the 24/7 new-clothes-buying cycle? Ms. Cline argues that besides perpetuating labor woes, the disposable clothing “free-for-all” has brought us “the empty uniformity of cheapness.”

To demonstrate how the current fashion industry operates, Ms. Cline sent e-mails overseas, asking companies how much they would charge to mass-produce a handful of garments she described (pulled from her own hangers in Brooklyn). In Hong Kong, Dhaka and Santo Domingo, she met with garment workers, observing at first hand the hardships they put up with to secure United States contracts. Later, taking a skirt to New York City’s struggling garment district, she learned that it would cost six times as much to make here, and would retail for twice the price a bargain-hunter would tolerate. When only a sliver of the population knows the difference between badly made and well-made clothing, and when those who splash out on designer dresses often care more about brands than seams, she writes, “It’s not that we can’t pay more money for fashion; we just don’t see any reason to.”

JENNIFER BAUMGARTNER, a psychologist and wardrobe consultant based in Potomac, Md., blames the nationwide shopping spree for an epidemic of wardrobe maladies. In her insightful book “You Are What You Wear,” she analyzes nine “symptomatic” closets she’s encountered in her work.

She describes the poignant “Time Travel” closet of the mom in her mid-40s, whose hangers and drawers overflow with rhinestone-studded candy-colored terry jumpsuits, plastic flip-flops and neon jelly bracelets, because she shops like her teenage daughter. (There’s a reason it’s called “Forever 21,” not “Forever 47.”)

She exposes the “Cover’s Blown” closet of a woman who has assembled an overly revealing wardrobe, believing her eye-catching outfits will win her admiration at the office and at nightclubs. Instead, her outfits get her ogled ... and shunned. Dr. Baumgartner gives her a nudge toward wardrobe choices that will garner the right kind of attention.

The most common closet crime is probably the “Shop Til You Drop” compulsion, in which coupon-crazed shoppers buy — or charge — more clothing than they can wear or afford, lured by deals that seem too good to pass up. Dr. Baumgartner diagnoses one such fashion felon with “sale insanity.”

THAT said, is it so crazy to succumb to the temptation to buy faddish clothing for low prices, at a cultural moment when even celebrities brag of mixing Target with Tory Burch? The beauty editor Andrea Pomerantz Lustig believes that the best way to look like a million bucks when your outfit costs less than your lunch is to take pains with your hair, makeup and skin care, using tips she has compiled over a lifetime.

In her book “How to Look Expensive” (by which she means “classy,” that embarrassingly earnest word describing the universally sought-after aura), she reveals the power tools in her arsenal, and provides affordable and D.I.Y. alternatives for her cosmetic weaponry.

Dividing the effect women generally seek into four categories (the classic Park Avenue look, Bohemian glamour, European sophistication and Hollywood hipness), she provides strategies and product recommendations for achieving the skin, hair, brow, teeth and nails that each look requires.

She advocates a “mix it up” approach. You don’t have to stick to Chanel and Fekkai; L’Oréal and John Frieda can do the trick. “Like fashion, where you may shop at a discount store,” Ms. Lustig writes, “you can go high-end, low-end and everywhere in between with your skin-care products — and wear them all at the same time.”

In the absence of firm fashion rules, each woman must police her own beauty borders.