Desire, Power, and Capitalism: A Theoretical Exploration of Overconsumption in the Global Fashion Industry

The last 30 years have left the global fashion industry dealing with a litany of issues of its own making: labor rights issues, ecological disasters from manufacturing practices, human rights abuses, outsized carbon emissions, hazardous chemical usage, overproduction, product dumping, overconsumption, and underuse to name a few. Overconsumption undergirds the myriad problems the fashion industry faces today as the scale and scope of the industry is a major factor in issues such as water use, carbon emissions, and waste. Overconsumption makes growth possible in an already saturated fashion market. A discussion about the role of consumption in relation to the issues of the global fashion industry has grown louder over the last few years. We see this manifesting in fashion brands such as Cuyana and Mara Hoffman asking consumers to buy less but better as a marketing mantra, global fashion advocacy groups such as Fashion Revolution posting to the public via social media that “ALL YOU NEED IS LESS”, and the emergence and growth of the “Slow Fashion” movement of the last two decades. Yet, we find very few conversations seeking to unpack the complicated and nuanced relationship consumers have to fashion companies, the role and use of power in that relationship, and the role desire plays in consumer’s ability to effect change in their consumption habits and thus participate meaningfully in dynamics related to overconsumption within the fashion industry.

This research examines consumer narratives through the lens of Foucault (1978) and Barthes (2006), to understand the intersection of power and desire and their employment through the shared language of fashion. Partnering the theoretical understanding of fashion with a discussion of the role of capitalism, we can explore the unique challenges and complicated mechanisms that support fashion overconsumption. Reflecting on 100 informal and impromptu street interviews with fashion consumers in busy New York City shopping areas conducted in Spring 2019, I investigate the relationship fashion consumers have with fashion companies and how the power dynamics present in that relationship affect the ability of fashion consumers to examine their relationship to overconsumption. In better understanding the deeply embedded systems of fashion and power as well as the amplifying quality of capitalism, fashion overconsumption can be unpacked and examined with the hope of finding ways to reduce the negative effects of this complicated issue.