Fashion is a sales aid and nothing more

Fashion is a sales aid and nothing more.

Fashion exists to make us part with our money

Fashion is not as important as many will claim it is. Many things have a great deal more importance to the well-being of people than any artificial concept of being fashionable. The late Princess Diana was an example, in logically applied plain truth and viewed within the political reality of the governance of Britain, she was an ornament, a distraction from harsh reality, but those around her, who all had agendas of their own, persuaded her that she had real importance. That her fashionable image, was vital to life. That her every word, gesture and application of cosmetics were vital to worldwide happiness.

Appearance and especially that compliance with a totally artificial concept of what is fashionable, do not actually matter. They do not bestow real merit. They do not save lives, they do not prevent illness, they do not promote world peace, they do not grow food. They only matter to the people profiting from the sale of goods that are deliberately made to be replaced. They are designed only to last till the next wave of “fashion” can persuade people to buy replacements. At one time this only applied to the very wealthy and even than, only to the clothes they wore when “on display” in the public eye. The rest of the time they wore clothes that lasted years and in some cases generations. Now the marketing industry has created fashion for every product. Everything is made to superseded by the next shift in fashion. Shoes, clothes, children’s toys, cars, telephones, everything is temporary, expected to be replaced because some marketing campaign says your phone should be this colour this year and even if your existing phone still functions well, it should still be dumped so you can have the latest fashionable colour. Nonsense! yet this is now a reality.

So much public hot air is expended on making people want to recycle, to reduce packaging, to reduce pollution, etc. yet people are still urged to scrap perfectly good vehicles and buy the latest fashion in cars. Any application of logic allied to some technical awareness, will tell you that the rate of change in technology will give these latest vehicles a relatively short life, but the advertising industry is shouting that anyone not buying new is out of date, “unfashionable”.

Who cares if you are unfashionable? Who decides what is unfashionable? The answer is that it is the people trying to separate you from your money. That is the only reason “fashion” exists. It does not matter if it is clothes, cars, furniture, entertainment, or food. Fashion is used to make you part with your money. There is no “God” who decides what should be in fashion. There is only the need for manufactures to keep selling. In order to do that they need to persuade consumers to scrap perfectly good and adequate merchandise well before they reach the end of their design life, as functional items. They do this through “fashion.” Advertising claims the latest design is improved. Examine the new very carefully compare it to the old and most of the time the function is hardly changed.

What is being sold is that it is good, fashionable, to be seen to be part of the latest trend, which is itself an artificial concept. It is so easy to claim a new “trend.” If you have a sample of 100 people and you give a new gadget to 2 of them, you can claim a trend in ownership. You do not need to sell many, you just have to have some basis for saying ownership is increasing.