Fast Food, Slow Food

Abstract

Debates on morality and value are never far away in discussions of High Street trends. Witness, for example, the now established critiques of ‘fast fashion’, in which cheap, mass-produced goods arrive on the High Street courtesy of globalized production systems. As numerous commentators have highlighted (e.g. Crewe 2008; Tokalti 2008; Hoskins 2014), this involves mass market retailers such as Primark and New Look treading the path of least resistance, using cheap offshore labour to produce styles that are available on the High Street merely weeks after their initial exposure on the catwalks of Milan, Paris and New York. But there’s a notable reaction against this, with the growing discontent with this type of model encouraging some consumers to seek an alternative in the form of ‘slower’ fashion. This takes different forms, from searching through thrift stores and charity shops for recycled bargains (Gregson et al. 2002) through to supporting fair trade and craft production, knitting and sewing (Crewe 2016). Arguably, the negativity surrounding fast fashion has also valorized clothes that are well-crafted, durable and of known provenance, with those that can afford it spending considerable sums on goods that they think are more ethical than those found in many High Street retailers (Crewe 2016). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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