Disclaimer: This is not a slow fashion vs fast fashion discourse. Infact, much more ill-informed much less ill-intended
My mom got me two Zara tops this birthday. I have gotten atleast 5 months to think over it, over think it. Inspite of seeing us (with very naked eyes) running around with fabrics and scraps and shirts, hearing us talk about synthetic and natural fibres and having herself touched and experienced the naturally sourced fabrics (we make most of her clothes now), she got me two shirts from Zara. My thoughts went from-to and between how? what! how! why! why?
But looking back, its not without reason.
How?
It wasn’t just her, it was us too. Its not like she completely forgot what we do and what we make but more of what she remembered, what we normally wear everyday around her. Having followed minimalism first and then slow fashion, 80% of our current wardrobe is atleast 5 years old when we very heartily waited and shopped from Zara, Steve Madden HM and MS. Mom and dad see us wearing these clothes day in-day out, to and from work where we make these relatively sustainable shirts for others. In the last 4-5 years, we have only made 3/5 clothes (traditionals included) for ourselves annually, we share because we are almost the same sizes. So they only ever saw us in our own shirts on weekends, basically very formally.
Why?
Naturally, she went to Zara to get gifts for her daughter who herself defaulted to Zara for any gift-giving because they do refunds. They wanted to get us something they think we love to wear. With all the slow fashion gyaan, we missed iterating and reiterating the golden one- the most sustainable choice is the one in your closet. We never explained how we are trying to use the clothes we already have. My father thinks its because of the days of starting up poverty. It is that, but not just that. We are making up our closet again but slowly.
And because I had recently read Dear Sugar’s Tiny Beautiful Things, I didnt return these two shirts. We wear them, will wear them as long as we can but there is one Kissa-goi shirt that I believe I wear more frequently, sometimes intentionally.
https://therumpus.net/2011/02/10/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-64/
Double standards? In one light, yes. I do stupidly try to rationalise it when I forget to carry a bag, deny a plastic bag and then am juggling 5 carrots, 2 beetroots and a lettuce wearing that pink top, but the other times when I accept a plastic in rains/traffic, I am more humble and in turn honest, that there are going to be compromises and mistakes
For a perpetual works-in-progess like us, that is where the growth is, the living lies, where our truth hides