Australians are the world’s biggest spenders on fashion per capita.
We buy, on average, one item a week. Astonishing.
But it doesn’t mean we are sophisticated and suave.
By fashion, I do not mean couture or designer cuts or anything high end. I mean the down and dirty kind of clothing: fast fashion – the kind that comes and goes in a blink, but leaves a nasty afterglow.
Most of it is made overseas from synthetic material. And most of it ends up in landfill.
All that brand-spanking new gear makes us the most on-trend, spendaholic wasters in the world.
An analysis by think tank The Australia Institute earlier this year found while we buy lots, we spend less per item than other nations (we average $13 an item, whereas the UK, for example, spends $40 per item) and that more than 200,000 tonnes of our clothing ends up in our landfill each year a shameful waste.
Somehow, we Aussies have fallen hard for the habit of buying clothes.
Maybe we are just like little kids with a dress-up box, wanting to change our clothes willy-nilly to make-believe a new life.
Maybe we are just hooked on the thrill of the buy.
Either way, it is a habit we must break if we are to shake the world-leading title no one wants.
Sustainability advocates that we should follow France with something like their ban on fast-fashion advertising and rolling out of a 10 Euro tax on each item of that ilk sold.
At a time when we can order a garment and get a delivery to our front door sometimes the same day, the buzz of new shiny things can be intoxicating.
But the price for the poorly paid labourers, the groaning garbage dumps, the environment and our hip pockets is surely greater than the sum of the thrill and looking fresh.
Interestingly, local op shops are reporting growth in customers this year.
Given the stats, perhaps we are op shopping out loud and in public, but secretly skulking in the online fast fashion shadows to fulfil our fashion fix.
So insatiable is our passion for fashion, this is entirely feasible.
The buzz fades, we throw away what we bought, and we buy something else.
Let’s hope awareness of our dreadful habit gives pause for thought as we launch headlong into the Christmas spendathon.
Dr Jane Stephens is a UniSC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer.
