Consumed: The need for collective change; colonialism, climate change & consumerism

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Consumed: The need for collective change; colonialism, climate change & consumerism

Consumed: The need for collective change; colonialism, climate change & consumerism

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And when it comes to people who have spent years over-shopping, how does our thinking need to change? I read this as part of a book club discussion about the horrible sprawling impacts the fast fashion industry has had on the world, and because I was really interested in Aja Barber's work and perspectives. Maybe it was just me already being familiar with many of the topics discussed and how they relate to one another (as a lefty environmental studies grad student), but I felt like I didn't learn much from this book. It was very surface-level, repetitive, and scattered, which made it extremely difficult to actually process the information. Maybe it's a reflection of how much target audiences' attention spans have disintegrated over the past decade. Or maybe whoever was assigned to edit this "book" (extended rant) didn't actually do their job. Now she’s collected her considerable knowledge into her first book, Consumed: The need for collective change; colonialism, climate change & consumerism – a blistering polemic against our collective shopping addiction and its consequences. Rather than judging her readers, Barber begins the book by saying, “It isn’t your fault that over-consumption has become a part of our culture. The likelihood is that you do it, just like I did, because you’ve been taught to.” Consumed: On Colonialism, Climate Change, Consumerism, and the Need for Collective Change is a mouthful and a must-read for the current political and ecological crisis. If you’re reading this article, then you can benefit from reading this book. Wells, Kaitlyn (18 July 2022). "Purging Old Clothes? Here's How to Responsibly Donate and Repurpose Your Castoffs". The New York Times.

Barber’s isn’t just a voice we should listen to – it is a voice we MUST listen to.’ – Clementine FordA critique on what we buy, how it’s made and the systems behind it that make an unfair and broken cycle’– New York Times

I think she covers all the topics really well and sensitively. Although, one criticism I have: there were spots I wish she went a bit deeper. I've read some of the books referenced and I think it would have strengthen her points if she included more info from those books here. A call to action for consumers everywhere, Consumed asks us to look at how and why we buy what we buy, how it's created, who it benefits, and how we can solve the problems created by a wasteful system. Zhou, Maggie (21 September 2021). "Colonialism & Fast Fashion Are Inextricably Linked — Aja Barber Explains How". Refinery 29. If you buy one book about sustainable fashion, make it this one. Consumed is an urgent call to action to demand a fashion system that is actually fair for both people and planet, not just Big Fashion billionaires. I adore Aja and I love this brilliant book.' - Venetia La MannaI want to end on this quote: “The future looks both bright and bleak.” Can you talk about the brightness a little bit? Do you think we can fix the fashion industry? In July 2022 Barber was named a Contributing Editor to Elle (magazine) UK following the appointment of Kenya Hunt as Editor-In-Chief. [17] She has written articles for The Guardian, [11] CNN, [3] and Selfridges [12] and featured in interviews conducted by The New York Times, [13] Refinery 29 [14] and BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour. [15] She also appeared in Al Jazeera’s TV show Studio B: Unscripted alongside Asad Rehman, Executive Director of The War on Want, where they discussed the fashion industry, green washing and colonialism. [16] We live in a world of stuff. We dispose of most of it in as little as six months after we receive it. The byproducts of our quest to consume are creating an environmental crisis. Aja Barber wants to change this--and you can, too.

We need to stop thinking that new clothing is needed to have a better life. There are countless examples in the cult-classic films that we love— Clueless, Pretty Woman, The Devil Wears Prada, Funny Face—they all have a makeover scene where suddenly the person who is not accepted and not cool enough does a bunch of shopping, and now everybody’s looking at them differently and treating them differently. But in real life that’s not how it works. Moreover the “need” to get a new outfit for every single occasion, something that is very normalized in our society, is only adding to the problems of fast fashion. Barber's isn't just a voice we should listen to - it is a voice we MUST listen to.' - Clementine Ford Capitalism requires a certain amount of exploitation to be feasible and it's done this by tapping into existing structures of colonialism. Exploiting poorer countries with high populations of colour. These corporations spend more on advertising and marketing than they do on the wages of the people that make their exorbitant amount of clothing. They target countries with lax labour laws, with poor safety and where they can save as much money as possible to inflate their profit margins. It's disgusting. Fast fashion is deeply rooted in racism. And that's not to say what happens to the environment around these production centres, it is horrific exploitation on every level. The people. The community. The environment. The resources.Aja Barber is a writer, stylist and consultant focusing on the intersections of sustainability, fashion, and the textile industry. Her work explores the traditions of privilege, wealth inequality, racism, feminism, colonialism, and how these systems of power affect our buying habits. Barber’s debut book Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change and Consumerism was published in 2021 and was received positively by Vogue. [5] Hands down the best nonfiction book I've read since Wordslut!! (Wordslut is my nonfiction gold standard FYI.) This powerful, speaking-truth-to-power book is an essential read for everybody who wants to stop feeling clueless and helpless about the impacts of cosumerism, and start doing their part to help create a more sustainable world' - Layla Saad Another red flag was “learning about the history of how our clothing is made, and seeing every clothing tag with ‘made in’ countries where non-white people live.”

I think that Attenborough's 'A Life On Our Planet' is a great way to format books like these: start off with your witness statement (how the issue has personally impacted you), then delve into the reality of the issues (here is where the facts come in handy) and then a 'how we fix it' to tie it all up at the end. All of these elements were present in Aja's book, however they came in at random moments, accompanied by asides which were often productive discussion topics (e.g. the mispronunciation of ethnic names) but were put into sections about different issues entirely, which only detached you from what you had been reading previously. This is a genuinely bad book, and I don’t say that lightly, but for a non fiction title covering such broad and significant topics, this is an awful attempt. One example being the Bangladesh factory fires. I think it would have benefited with more details for people that didn't know that happened or forgot about it.Like a couple more sentences just explaining the impacts. Like how the doors were chained. Or that a lot of the survivors or families didn't get any compensation from the fund raising or government. Would have helped really shine a light on how shit these manufacturing conditions can be. A call to action for consumers everywhere, Consumed asks us to look at how and why we buy what we buy, how it's created, who it benefits, and how we can solve the problems created by a wasteful system.A critique on what we buy, how it's made and the systems behind it that make an unfair and broken cycle' - New York Times Investigating “what happens to our unwanted clothes, and especially Kantamanto,” Barber found that “our waste is getting dumped in the global south like Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda,” and concludes that “the system really craps on non-white people at the beginning and end of the process,” crediting the organisation Slow Factory for its work educating on this topic.



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