Cool Girl Consumerism

Fashion can be a girl’s world. At least from my perspective, the ever growing demands to be the cool girl has always been a game I have been complacent in playing. This is not new. A woman’s appearance has historically been a marker of her value, an ancient sentiment that has lingered into today’s mindsets. The issue that is more recent is that this race to “cool” has bled into additional problems in today’s world. Through the fetishization of clothes into tools of becoming the “cool girl,” an ethical approach to fashion is often stamped out by the urge to conform.

Fashion has gotten fast. So fast that now there are approximately fifty two seasons to a year (Hackett, 2019), where the coolest clothes are in for about a week before they must be replaced by the newer and better. Planned obsolesce of clothes is a scam created by intentional advertising (Patterson, p. 265) and perpetuated by social media. Now a piece can be seen on Pinterest: something new, innovative, often vintage or homemade; copied by brands that make lower quality, cheaper clothing; and be on every up-to-date “cool girl’s” doorstep just in time for it to be old news. The ethical travesty that enables this cycle is tragic. From unsafe and underpaid outsourced working conditions (Quelch, 2015) to the exponential increase in waste as these clothes both become obsolete and literally fall apart quicker (Hackett, 2019), cheap clothing leads to the exploitation of the planet. But why is it so widely supported?

Cheap clothing is accessible. A five dollar shirt can be afforded by most insecure girls that are willing to part with a few bucks for coolness. Cheap clothes are accessible social capital, a phenomenon that leads to a reliance on materialism for coolness that hangs in the balance between this weeks trend and the next. Materialism is correlated with higher levels of anxiety, depression and low self esteem (Roberts, 2015, p. 489), and so the cycle continues with even more vulnerable girls turning to the questionable brands for their value as a person.

The most frustrating part of the cycle is what is being manufactured at these fast fashion corporations: slow fashion creations. The most prominent decider of what is “cool” today is Pinterest. Other platforms may show what is in, but Pinterest’s algorithm’s ability to make what anyone deems “cool” spread like wildfire is unmatched. Time and time again, I see a clearly vintage, high quality item that goes viral and suddenly there are hundreds of ads flooding my social medias saying “Need to find _____? We sell them now!” Most recently it has been grandpa sweaters. What used to be a strictly thrifted find—you could not find an ill fitting questionably printed sweater in any mainstream women’s section— is now something that can be found on any online platform and shipped to your door (see EMMIOL). This is an era of conformity disguised as an alternative movement. The “cool” style being emulated is one that is never seen before, but the results of these highly saturated closets is that nothing can be novel anymore. The problem here lies in mindset.

If we are to decouple the link between chasing coolness and exploitation we must broaden what is defined as cool and separate micro-trends from the persona of “cool girl.” A “cool girl” can have a few staple pieces that she styles well. A "cool girl” can wear last week’s clothes with confidence. A girl also does not have to be cool. The chasing of a nonexistent standard is the mechanism by which brands exploit the insecurities of girls to sell more. Vintage is still in so we can take our time with building the “cool girl” brand. There is no need to rush to chase the affection of perception. If we can all stop rushing and slow fast fashion, we can all consume less and thereby be more ethical. I think that is pretty cool.

Works Cited

Hackett. (2019). Addressing Rage: The Fast Fashion Revolt. M/C Journal, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1496

Patterson, M. Ethics of Consumption Ch. 10. Roberts, Tsang, J.-A., & Manolis, C. (2015). Looking for happiness in all the wrong places: The moderating role of gratitude and affect in the materialism-life satisfaction relationship.

The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(6), 489–498. https://doi.org/

10.1080/17439760.2015.1004553

Quelch, J. & Rodriguez, M. (2015). Rana Plaza: Workplace Safety in Bangladesh (A). Harvard Business School.