I am a fat person. Not because of my lifestyle or my laziness. What I mean is, I am active. I walk a lot, work around the house, cook 3 meals a day and have a full-time career. I am not sporty and cannot lift weights because of an injury. Nevertheless, I am fat. I am not extremely fat because I can still buy the biggest size in normal-size fashion and the smallest size in plus-size fashion. I’ve even been in situations wherein my friends have argued/debated whether I am actually fat (Sigh! Friends…). I’ve had my tailor tell me “Never buy readymade clothes. They won’t fit you.” Even though I think he just wants me to be as a customer forever, I think he has a point. They do not fit me. If I buy clothes to fit my hip, shoulders don’t fit; they are big and droopy. If I buy clothes that fit my shoulders, Hips are exact and I look like a pregnant woman.
I have around 12 to 15 clothes that I have no idea what to do with. Wear it? I don’t want to. Toss it? Maybe I’ll like it later. I buy more.
My grandmother tells me a lot of anecdotes. I love to listen. One of her stories is how she and her sisters would go in a horse-pulled wagon to buy clothes every Diwali. It was a big ritual, and she still remembers most of her clothes. “I got a yellow pavadai (skirt) and violet sattai (blouse) when I was 12 years for Diwali. It was such a good material. It came till my toes, and I used to swing around making it swing. I looked like a rajakumari (princess),” she’d say. Her eyes twinkles when she says it and I love hearing that story.
Fast fashion. This was not a norm before 15 years. We did not know the brands and would ask the shop keeper to suggest. We do now. I remember in 2012, the brand W came to be. My friend told me, “They have this logo in their leggings so that people can see what brand we are wearing.” “Why?” I asked. “We can flaunt it. We can flaunt the brand.” I was honestly confused. By “flaunting” the brand aren’t we doing an ad campaign for the brand for free?
So, fast fashion or clothing industry produces the most garbage. The sheer accumulation of clothes is shocking. My friend is a professor in NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Designing). She used to work for fast fashion brands. Her POV, “People must always stitch their clothing and seek out help for selecting the fabric.”
She’s right. Fast fashion is just enabling consumerism and creating an illusion that we have needs when these are just wants. Accumulating garbage will eventually lead to irreparable disruption of many eco-systems. Some mistakes can be undone, and some cannot be. I wish our children can have a world where they do not live in the pressure of “What am I going to wear?” but in the joy of “OMG! I get to wear the dress I bought for Diwali.”
Spicy Rasam 