This is really Phoebe's topic on which I am basically unqualified to opine since I've never even read anything that used the term "slow fashion" that wasn't written by Phoebe, and my main guide to fashion at the moment is what the undergrads wear to the library. (I've been noticing a lot of sweatpants sloppily tucked into Uggs--this may be worse even than mom jeans.) HOWEVER. Last week, I had an eye-opening conversion experience to (what I think, based on Phoebe's descriptions is) slow fashion.
What happened was that I tried to consign my old clothes. This involved schlepping two huge shopping bags of stuff on the subway. Not only did I look like a homeless person en route, I was subsequently subjected to a 20-minute scrutiny of all my garments which felt distinctly like an intense personal scrutiny of my taste and judgment. Probably two-thirds of my stuff got rejected, but I did learn a very important lesson, and it is this: buying expensive clothes pays, at least when it comes time to consign them. Every single item with a J.Crew or Banana Republic label was accepted, and almost everything from H&M and Old Navy was denied (and that was, sadly, the majority of my offering). (Additional question: Who actually buys H&M from consignment stores?)
Moreover, even the deformed pricey clothes made the cut, including a J.Crew sweater I tragically ruined through machine washing (back before I discovered thrifty home dry-cleaning), rendering it at least two sizes smaller than the original and not quite proportional. And while this did give the saleswoman momentary pause, it did not ultimately lead to item rejection, whereas several mint-condition (on account of my having immediately reconsidered the error of my choice) H&M items did not get a second look.
The obvious conclusion of the day's adventure was that, if I want my clothes to have any resale value, I should henceforth shop exclusively at J.Crew, a view to which, like the many women who use "slow fashion" as a post-facto justification of their preference for expensive clothes, I can be quite amenable. Now, I understand that this logic is subject to some exceptions. For one thing, not every garment can have resale value. Underwear, exercise clothes, tights and leggings--basically anything that goes unnoticed or unseen by the general public will continue to be purchased at purveyors of fast fashion. Another problem is that the math doesn't strictly support the theory of recouping initial outlay on expensive clothes by consigning them. If I buy a $70 sweater at J.Crew and consign it two years later, I'll only get about $15 for it. It requires quite a bit of cost-per-wear imagination to believe that I wore the heck out of the remaining $55 in the intervening two years, though it's quite possible that, being a vain person, I would enjoy it more than a $25 sweater. But again, what would it mean to say my pleasure is worth exactly $55? And it's not as though J.Crew is the cost ceiling for slow fashion--the gulf between purchase price and resale value only widens from there. Finally, I suppose frequent consignment undermines the purpose of slow fashion, which seems to consist in wearing every $200 blouse for the at least 30 years.
Still, I think there is something to be said for this plan. Usually, expensive stuff is nicer--it fits better and looks better. (How long it lasts is rarely relevant given that I don't wear anything for 20 years, and so don't work as hard as I could on making my clothes last.) Since I have a monthly shopping budget to which I mostly adhere, it is quite likely that I would buy less stuff if I bought more expensive things less often. Plus, I would really like an excuse to shop only at J.Crew at this point in my life while I am trying to fight the sweatpants-in-Uggs powers and hang on to what I can of my hard-won and now receding pre-grad school adulthood.
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OK, I'll weigh in, since you've correctly identified my expertise in this particular branch of all-important knowledge.
First, I think those who use "fast fashion" use it to refer to all big chains, including Old Navy and J.Crew. I think this, because Topshop, which is pricier than J.Crew but also a chain, is classified as "fast." "Fast" means it's the sort of place where a guest designer can swoop in and offer a line 'for the masses,' even if this means $300 dresses or whatever, because we are supposed to understand (some consumers will, some won't) that dresses by this designer usually cost $3,000.
Your consignment experience surprises me - I've gone with heaps of stuff of the brands you mention and more, and gotten it all rejected, reasons being a) that everything was too worn out, and b) that the shop was buying for current trends, and the rounded (or pointed?) toe on some heels I had was not so-very-now. My sense was that they bought H&M if it looked current, but not J.Crew that evoked 2003. (This was to Beacon's Closet. At most other consignment stores in NY, from what I can tell, it really is designer-only - if, as Jezebel claims, they take H&M with fake labels sewn in - so I didn't give that a shot.) So I don't know if J.Crew over Old Navy is a general rule for consignment stores, but from what you write, it seems to work in some.
Finally, I don't think it's at all ridiculous to prefer a $70 sweater to a $25, because there's often a perceptible difference, and because sometimes it's fun to treat yourself. I enjoy wearing these $80 ballet flats I got myself after my orals more than I did my (surprisingly durable) $13 pair from H&M. What I do object to is the claim that spending more paradoxically leads to cheapness, because of durability, as though body shapes don't change and clothes don't, except for the most frivolous, go out of style. In other words it makes sense, cheapness-wise, to get the $70 one if the alternative is buying three at $25 and being disappointed by all. But if one is able to convince one's self that an 'expensive' sweater costs $30, one can, in theory, get that same delight from a less costly splurge, without the accompanying sense of having purchased the inferior product. This may seem hard to implement - and without Uniqlo and its endless supply of $30-and-under items I want, I doubt if I could do it - but you have to figure that for some, a $70 sweater is cheap, and on some level knowing this is not ruining the splurge factor for the rest of us.
Yeah I realize that J.Crew is pretty low-end given how high-end things can go, but in my budget, J.Crew is "investment shopping" and will be cherished forever and ever (or, two years at least). Thus, it performs the function of slow fashion, even though it is probably made by the same Malaysian laborers who sew H&M's line.
RE: picky consignment stores: I've found that there are basically two levels of consignment--designer consignment, where nary an H&M item is to be found and J.Crew might not cut it, and plebian consignment chains like Crossroads Trading and Buffalo Exchange, which is probably 70% Gap and H&M castoffs. I was at the Buffalo Exchange.
One final thought on this issue: there is a consignment store in Harvard Square which I imagine (but have no evidence) is stocked with the cast-offs of Harvard students. Browsing its selection makes it easy to believe that there are people who think a $70 sweater is cheap. On the other hand, I also can't buy anything there for fear of showing up to TA one day in a dress one of my students recognizes as once belonging to her.
MSI,
J.Crew has the same function in my own clothes budget,* which is part of why the term "fast fashion," as it is used in all the cases I've seen other than your post, grates. How is it "fast" if it encompasses the entire spectrum of what most people even in a wealthy country wear? If the term is accurate at all, it is, as you mention, that there's nothing local/artisanal about Banana Republic, GAP, or Old Navy - if the BR lasts longer or looks better, it's in part cuts and material, but a good amount our own investment in it. "Fast" is, I think, meant to address the labor end of things, but no matter how often one hears of Americans "demanding" lower and lower prices, it's never clear where the clothing at somewhat higher prices than the Old Navy, but not impossibly expensive, made according to standards everyone would find delightful, is to be found. (And please no one say American Apparel.)
Buffalo Exchange always struck me as virtually the same as Beacon's Closet, as in, dropped into one at random I wouldn't know which it was, so count me doubly impressed with your consignment success.
*I say this because last time I made reference online to the existence of clothing more expensive than J.Crew, it set forth a flame war in which it was presumed that I was describing the contents of my own closet.
Faster J.Crew:
http://www.clothingline.com/index.php
One more thing: as a cheapness strategy, selling to consignment stores has something not going for it, which is that once there, you're likely to see things you didn't know you wanted and one thing leads to another and the next thing you know, you have an awesome new pair of thigh-high boots. Consider this tale a warning. For those of us who are not, like Ms. Bayne, accessories designers about to repurpose the boots, it's not a good road to go down.
This is true, but I think no more severe a temptation than, say, walking past H&M during one's lunch hour. Possibly, one may actually be less inclined to buy consigned clothes in the moment after consigning one's own in a kind of seeing the animal you're about to eat getting slaughtered first response. As one example, I did not buy anything after consigning my clothes, and opted for a 30% cash payment instead of the 50% store credit for my stuff.
I tend to find being in a store a greater temptation than just passing one, but take your point re: cash payment over store credit. I almost think there's something about being asked the question that discourages the 'well, since I'm here anyway...' browsing impulse. By "something" I mean that you're being reminded why you entered the store in the first place.
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