Cultured.

Image courtesy of Frenchified

We’ve all heard the enviable tenants of what makes The French Girl so thin and cool: she eats smaller portions of really delicious food like chocolate, cheese, bread, meat. She has a smaller wardrobe filled with timeless, high quality pieces. In this way, she remains perfectly satisfied with less. This archetypical femme drives us American Yanks crazy – how do they do it and still look fantastic, brimming with je ne sais quoi?

I was recently in Paris – one of my favorite places in all the world – and while I did my civic duty and shopped (half-heartedly attributing my behavior to “contributing to the economy”), I was highly sensitive to cultural differences in terms of consumerism. Whereas in the States, a perky sales associate at J. Crew will tell me I should get sequined skinny trousers because they’re the “hit of the season” without trying them on, the elegant shopgirl in Paris will take the time to carefully discuss which color, cut, and fabric best suits me, and will last for years. It explains why I still wear all of the pieces I’ve acquired in France over the course of years.

Image courtesy of Manali Shah

Recently, a New York Times article entitled Why We Spend. Why They Save. explores the forces behind why countries like Germany, France, Austria and Belgium have maintained household saving rates between 10 and 13% while Americans struggle to save anything at all. I’ll spare you the details you can read in the article, but it boils down to this: a significant difference in cultural values. Much like personal values, cultural values are what a society holds dear and deems necessary to pass on to following generations.

Think about the European philosophy of food: instead of eating a whole bag of fat-free potato chips, indulge in one square of extra dark chocolate. It is the high quality morsel that gives the eater everything he or she needs; enough to satisfy without binging. Design anthropologist Dorie Tunstall loves the chocolate example as an analogy for cultural consumption.

According to Dori, the way against over-consumption is to buy objects that meet the needs of the consumer so that he or she won’t need to consume as much; like the square of dark chocolate. Now, she doesn’t mean that everything you buy must be the most expensive chair/jacket/boots/whatever, but it should contain the qualities that you want, at the right level that you need them. So, if you’re able to be cognizant and calibrate your unique needs, then you only need one particular version of whatever the thing is. You needn’t go out every week to buy another version of that thing, because you’re “metabolizing” it’s value very slowly. This concept works with bread. This concept works with shoes. Europeans understand this from a cultural standpoint, but it simply was never “taught” in the American cultural value system.

I became consciously aware of this phenomenon when I “gave up” fast fashion. No more H&M. No more Gap. No more Topshop. (I admit to the occasional Zara purchase, but we’re all human, non?) A few months ago, I treated myself to a blazer from Rag and Bone. I had never spent as much on any one piece of clothing, but the blazer was ideal. Perfect aesthetics notwithstanding, the brand behind the blazer connected solidly with me  – perhaps created a deep value. R&G’s brand essence echoes the sort of downtown cool that I associate with my neighborhood (which I love a lot a lot) and see as an extension of my identity (as people often do in New York City). Beyond that, I know the pieces are made in the U.S., were started by two enterprising young New Yorkers – the same guys I habitually see at my local coffee shop. It’s a great deal: I get quality, identity, and a narrative to throw over my shoulders.

At the time of the purchase, I had a half dozen blazers in my wardrobe of varying degrees of quality. Once The Blazer came home, everything else seemed wrong. I would never need to acquire another blazer, because this one fulfilled every need I could self-identify. It was my piece of dark chocolate; it created a higher level of satisfaction, despite the eyebrow-raising price. All of the elements contained within that piece had meaning to me. In other words, it met my cultural values.

So why don’t Americans do more of this kind of consumption? That expensive blazer has actually saved me money and space in the long run. Why do we continue to have over-stuffed closets and under-stuffed wallets? Tunstall contends that it’s due to too much choice; too many brands. I agree, and would add that it’s our culture’s pre-occupation with trends. While observing the Parisians, I wouldn’t actually call anyone “trendy”, but more like “timeless”. Everyone looked fantastic, but their clothing choices would be as welcome 15 years ago and 15 years from now, as they are today.

Tunstall believes that mass consumerism has cheapened our values. Years ago, when people had about 2 suits and 1 pair of shoes, the quality and cut had to be timeless and of exceptional quality. Today, with so many choices, many of them inexpensive, the chance  of making a “mistake” is greater. But, because of the perceived low risk (i.e. cheap price), we’re more likely to repeat those mistakes. For example, if you choose a brand that rings “hollow” to you in terms of values (bad cut, bad quality, bad treatment of workers), then you feel as cheapened as your values. So, you continue to buy in order to find that choice that rings “true”. Luckily, most retailers are switching out their merchandise every 2 weeks, so there is always something new to try.

Perhaps it’s our “bigger, better, best” culture in action. Since people tend to place cultural significance (their values) on objects, it makes sense that we would constantly want more, more, more. But I argue that if we could slow ourselves down and think about what is most important to our value system, we would consume more thoughtfully, mindfully. We could save more, look better, and spend time thinking about more important things. We could enjoy more dark chocolate, less 100-calorie packs.

I realize that I’m writing about the topic of over-consumption and values on the biggest shopping day of the year. Again, a symbol of our cultural values to behave somewhat irrationally in the face of over-consumption. Our culture does little to quell these tendencies, save small movements like Adbuster’s Buy Nothing Day. There is a lot we can learn from our European neighbors, and I hope there is more discussion like Dori’s and the Times in the future.  As always, an exciting time to be thinking.

Forbes review: Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits

In case you missed it, I’m a new contributer to the Booked Blog on Forbes.com. Head over to the site to check out my first review: Brand Thinking, by Debbie Millman.

Synthetic.

Happy shoppers courtesy of Dreamstime

The field of happiness research has grown significantly in recent years. I recall the first half of the century, when I was at university studying affective decision-making – or the way in which emotion influences human choice – the literature on happiness was a bit skint. Today, with superstar “positive affect” researchers like Daniel Gilbert, new insights into what makes us happy abound – though the number of happiness-related self-help books has increased in kind.

In a sense, Gilbert’s work is answering the 26 million dollar question: how do I become happy? Fundamentally, Gilbert gives us the answers, yet it doesn’t appear that people are becoming any happier. In fact, with books like The Paradox of Choice, Luxury Fever: Weighing the Costs of Excess, and The High Price of Materialism, one may begin to doubt that with recent economic stability, we’d surely be a happier people. In fact, though our living spaces have tripled in size in the last 50 years, our incomes have grown, and we’re living longer, Americans in general have flat-lined in the happiness department.

Image courtesy of god's daughter

This phenomenon fascinates me, and succinctly summarizes why I got into this brand strategy racket in the first place. With all of this relative wealth and universal access to stuff, why aren’t we any happier than our parents or grandparents? In a recent TED talk, Daniel Gilbert posits an interesting theory: Americans should embrace synthetic happiness as opposed to only natural happiness.

Allow me to explain: our brains are really really good at protecting our feelings. We validate, justify, and legitimize our actions and opinions so as to assuage any negative feelings that may arise. That smoker, who knows his habit is detrimental to his health, will justify his actions by telling himself that only a few smokers become ill, that it only happens to very heavy smokers, or that if smoking does not kill them, something else will. This construct is called cognitive dissonance and it’s a nice way that our brains make us feel better about our choices.

In terms of happiness, we also protect ourselves. The first drummer of the Beatles, for instance, who was famously abandoned in favor of Ringo Star, was quoted as saying that it was the best thing that ever happened to him. This attitude is what Gilbert refers to as “synthetic happiness”. In essence, synthetic happiness is what our brains create when we don’t get what we want. On the flip side, natural happiness is what we feel when do get what we want.

image courtesy of like books

Imagine getting broken up with by the woman of your dreams – you’re devastated. Our brains will immediately start to protect us by telling us things like she wasn’t even that pretty or her big ears always bothered me or she was a b*tch anyway to create positive affect. While most people may find this type of behavior unhealthy, synthetic happiness is just as real as natural happiness. Truth be told, Gilbert has found that, with the exception of a few severe cases, after 3 months, everyone is just as happy, whether by synthetic means or natural ones.

What does this mean in terms of buying behavior? A lot, actually. Americans generally look down upon synthetic happiness when compared to natural happiness. Why? Because what use in a thriving economic environment is it to be happy with what you don’t have? What would this means for millions of women – who suddenly become totally satisfied with the contents of their closets, needing nothing more? Or the tech junkie is finds peace without needing the newest gadget?

Image courtesy of flickr

Synthetic happiness – which is just as “real” as natural happiness – is the bane of all marketers’ existence. They’re in the business of making people want more; to believe that buying one more sweater, or mobile phone, or dresser set will create natural happiness. Perhaps we, as a society, should embrace our synthetic happiness and love our current existence, that includes everything we don’t have. At the same time, imagine is marketers were able to tap into synthetic happiness as well, playing with consumer psychology in order to have a monopoly on all kinds of happiness? As always, an exciting time to be thinking.

Sustainable.

Image courtesy of Nitrolicious

I’m often surprised that the backlash against “fast fashion” hasn’t been as great as that against “fast food”. The similarities between the two are innumerable: cheap “ingredients”. cheap labor. high fuel costs. high waste. addictive behavior. sneaky marketing. more expensive in the long run…

walking past the newly-opened fast fashion store Joe Fresh on 5th Avenue, for instance, I saw a sign promoting $19 jeans. I felt the same uneasiness I get when I see an ad for a $5 super-sized meal. Wait, how is it possible for something like that to be so cheap? The whole system begs to be questioned, but somehow, the fury towards industrialized food and adoption of trends like organic food, traceable sourcing, fair labor, and supporting local artisans hasn’t bled into fashion in the same way. It’s interesting, given that the symptoms of a flawed system are virtually parallel.

Image courtesy of the New York Times

The big news this week was Levi’s new investment into a more sustainable way of making jeans, specifically to save waste on water. The funny thing about water is its recent astronomical increase in cache: once the ultimate commodity product, water is now arguably one of the most coveted products on earth. Between it’s incredible scarcity in major parts of the world, and it’s over-crowded market in the US (there are over 100 brands of bottled water in the U.S. alone), water carries enormous global emotional heft. However, we don’t realize the extent of how water is wasted. In the context of manufacturing and owning jeans, a typical pair will consume 919 gallons of water in its lifetime, or 15 spa-size bathtubs.

in an article in the new york times, it states that “Levi Strauss has helped underwrite and champion a nonprofit program that teaches farmers in India, Pakistan, Brazil and West and Central Africa the latest irrigation and rainwater-capture techniques.  It has introduced a brand featuring stone-washed denim smoothed with rocks but no water. It is sewing tags into all of its jeans urging customers to wash less and use only cold water.” emphasis my own.

Image courtesy of bkrw-denim

What I like about this endeavor is not just that the Levi Strauss company is promoting the use of sustainable methods to help curb our destruction of the environment, but it’s doing so because it affects their bottom line. In my opinion, no amount of Greenpeace-hysteria is going to convince large companies {who have the means, reach, and influence to implement large-scale change} to invest in sustainable technologies. It is only when an argument can made to defend profits that this kind of do-goodery is enabled. It might not be an optimistic point of view, but it’s certainly a realistic one.

This kind of positive press couldn’t have come at a better time for Levi’s. The brand had faltered and lost its cool in the early 2000s, after a surge of new premium jeans entered the fray. The younger generation, who were not privy to the long-standing, culturally significant impact Levi’s had had on previous generations, were drawn to the glitter and glamour of Seven Jeans, J Brand, Earnest Sewn, and the like. In the last few years, with a total revamp of their brand, Levi’s got its groove – and rivets – back in a big way. “Go Forth”, the hipster-inspired, “this is our time”, go and do yo’ thing-style campaign re-energized the brand. In addition to targeting today’s youth culture, the brand’s new positioning emphasizes creating positive change in a world going through tough times.

Image courtesy of por homme

With such an inspiring message, and a reminder that Levi’s is arguably the iconic American brand, it stands to reason that they could usher in a new trend of sustainable sensibility in the fashion industry. Up until now, there has been a small, but strong community of designers and organizations promoting a notion of “slow fashion”. Websites like Slow Fashioned, and designers like Maria Cornejo have voiced strong opinions towards less waste and higher quality, but the movement simply hasn’t gained ground. Getting back to the fast food analogy, fashion simply doesn’t {yet} have it’s Whole Foods and Michael Pollan.

This is where Levi’s can potentially take the helm of an environmental sea change. With a strong business case in favor of doing so, other companies may respond in kind, increasing public awareness and ensuring sustainable production methods and education becomes the norm. As always, an exciting time to be thinking.

Designocracy.

image courtesy of the man repeller

10, maybe 15 years ago, consumer culture was a totally different game. most people couldn’t afford designer clothing, beautiful furniture, or slick household appliances; function typically won out over style. sometime around the year 2000, a giant shift occurred. seemingly overnight, people could buy really cool tableware at target for $12, or an eerily straight-off-the-runway style sweater for $29.99. in fact, people anywhere from pittsburgh to portland had access to affordable, well-designed products. while many people rejoiced at the new-found accessibility to beautiful goods, some remained skeptical. is this really a good thing?

it all depends on your point of view. clearly, people want to wear nice looking clothes and decorate with nice looking products. bottles of method window cleaner look nicer than the ones made by lysol. when i first started my career, my wardrobe and apartment tchotchkes came from the likes of h&m and target. i looked presentable, but oh dear did those products wear out quickly. now that i’ve been working a while, i buy upscale brands, and with growing wisdom, i plan for beautifully-made, high-quality items. when i first moved to new york, i couldn’t. but because of ‘design for the masses’, i could at least fake it in a city where image is incredibly important.

i recently popped into zara – as one does from time to time – and was drawn to a particular twisted yarn sweater. as is common at zara, the sweater was a simulacra of an isabel marant sweater seen on the runway not weeks before. i had inner turmoil over deciding whether to purchase the sweater: i knew it was a marant knock-off, and i knew the materials and labor that produced it were cheap, but i wanted it because it was pretty. ultimately, i bought the sweater because it made me feel like a million bucks {which is arguably the most important test a garment should pass}. but it’s still a little weird: i know it’s not the real thing. {for a further exploration into this, and into isabel marant followers specifically, read this great article by cintra wilson}.

image courtesy of pirates and fireflies

i wouldn’t have known that the zara sweater was a hopeful imitator of marant’s runway look, of course, were it not for the internet. certainly, this is one of the major engines of change in terms of design innovation. the internet provides knowledge to the greater world. the more people know, the more they want. knowledge begets desire {excuse any allusion to religion}, and companies scramble to provide for that desire. should a consumer be able to buy a pair of shoes straight from the celine SS ’12 runway at their local zara for less than $100, only to have them fall apart after a season? on the other hand, what if that one season of wear gives the owner indescribable pleasure? is it still wrong?

thinking about it, i’m not sure. the state of rampant “consumerism” has recently rubbed me, and a growing number of other vocal bloggers, the wrong way. i do, however, think that the things people buy should give them joy. then i read an interview with karim rashid, a designer who advocates the democratization of design.  in other words, creating goods that are accessible and affordable on a mass scale, but more importantly, using design so that those products last. his term for this is “designocracy”, and as rashid puts it:

the minute you use the word ‘design,’ it signifies that whatever you make has to be used by people, that means you’re using technology to mass produce something…For me, design has to be a democratic art, because it allows everyone to have nice, beautiful things that make their lives more pleasurable, or more enjoyable, or more artistic, or more emotional, or more expressive.

image courtesy of habitually chic

it makes sense that people, with all the exposure to the world through the internet, would want better designed stuff. rashid even loves shopping {gasp!} because he likes “to see what people are making, and to see what the world is offering. i have no issues with consumption. i have issues with consuming things that we don’t need and that are badly made.”

so does that zara sweater fit into the “don’t need” and “badly made” categories? it depends where one draws the line. if i understand rashid correctly, then yes. i already own sweaters. and the one from zara is poorly made in comparison to others i own. but it makes me feel good, and isn’t that was great design is about?

even azzedine alaia – one of the most respected and long-standing designers in the world – likes fast fashion. in an interview with style.com, he says “[fast fashion is] a very good system. even if you don’t have money, you can still dress well. i shop at h&m and zara for my cousins and my nieces.” further proof that designocracy has a place in society.

the hopeful part of designocracy is that, with more people having access to the same stuff, there is a greater opportunity for creativity. maybe it’s a “how do you wear yours?” a teenybopper in philadelphia might also own that zara sweater. but because we’re individuals, we won’t interpret it the same way. as virginia postrel puts it “today, status if more about showing off your creativity and your cleverness, your eye and your discernment. now the outward signs of status are often a combination of high art and low art.” so while teenybopper X will pair her sweater with a medley of h&m and topshop, i will mix it with helmut lang and reiss.

image courtesy of marie-claire 'mixing high and low'

consumerism has become a dirty word, and while i do believe that people generally over-consume stuff like food/clothing/electronics/television and not enough stuff like books/face time/art, it’s an unavoidable byproduct of existing. someone once said “you stop being a consumer when you stop breathing.” everyone needs stuff in their lives to some extent, and to rashid’s point, shouldn’t that stuff be accessible, beautiful, and provide joy? as always, an exciting time to be thinking.