slowfashion

Quality and attention

The tie is closer than you think

Quality requires attention. Have you ever thought about that?

Quality is the set of all the attributes that identify a product. Or even a person.

Attention comes from Latin, attentio-onis. Which means: turn your soul towards something. In other words, looking at, listening to, thinking about something with deep interest, with care. With your soul.
The depth of this etymological meaning doesn’t seem suitable for the time we live in, not for the crowds who still overconsume. In fact, what’s popular now doesn’t require any attention. And no attention or low level of it means no understanding of quality.
As a matter of fact, this represents the ground where the ‘shop & toss’ culture thrives.

Attention is an intentional choice

You can’t stop at a quick glance because you know that rapid, superficial evaluation is not enough to notice all the details. Forget trying to perceive the quality of something by scrolling social media. Unless you are well trained, of course. Or, you possess an elevated dose of good taste as a natural talent. Which is not that frequent.

Quality and attention are two fundamental values.
One implies the other, and vice versa. Without attention, you cannot understand quality.

It takes time to develop your attention

But it’s worth doing it to appreciate what surrounds us. So train yourself to pause for a few minutes of silence every day. Observe more, listen, allow yourself to focus on details and think.

Marketing is full of smoke and mirrors. Don’t stop at a logo placed on the outer surface to catch your eye and trick you. Or prices that wouldn’t justify a sustainable production chain. Instead, train the eye to go deeper than that. So you will deepen the value of choosing with intention.

If attention is an intentional choice, a slower pace will help you savour more. Not only your purchases but your life.

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The wake-up call

Lifestyle is constantly evolving.
It’s not about hectic fashion anymore, that time is over.
We learned the lesson, so we are evolving towards a new era based on consciousness. The pandemic is our wake-up call. Pollution, climate change, social issues, racism, our behaviour of the past led us here. Now, we must think about what kind of world we want.

Fashion as a reflection of who we are must be involved in the lifestyle evolution process. It’s about understanding the core values, so, as a consequence, we search for a design that fits our new vision.
Creativity takes time to express itself, manufacturing quality items takes time. Trust takes time too.
No need to hurry, not anymore. Slow is ok. Indeed, the process of consciousness takes time.

So, after the wake-up call, change for the better is what we are doing.
But don’t underestimate small changes. Even modest changes in our lifestyle can have a significant impact.

2021 is our blank page. Reset and restart with us.

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Fashion is culture

With the word fashion, we mean the appearance and behaviour of a social community according to a particular taste of the moment. It refers to all the style and life elements that identify a society during a specific era.

Fashion is just another way to scan our society and culture. Another lens through which we can investigate human behaviour.

We can use clothes to hide aspects of our personality or, instead, to show and express our identity. As an overall concept, we can use clothes to analyze different cultures.

Fashion, creativity and finance

Fashion is the result of a creative process that talks about our culture. The reason it became mistreated and demeaned as a vain or silly field, lies in the system itself and some external factors.
Since finance took over the industry, during the 80s and 90s, the creative process has been forcibly accelerated, pushed to an extremely fast-paced model. Very little space was left for creativity.

Later on, when the internet and social media entered the scene, the creative side of fashion became completely distorted.
Fashion has undergone such strong pressure that valuable designers, like Martin Margiela, one of the greatest innovators and game-changers, decided to leave. Too much pressure, a continuous request for something new, too many products to put out in a short time. And then also, an obsessive hunger for information, in the form of silly poses and clownesque outfits.

Rather than a place for creativity, fashion became all about budgets, money and clowns. Pure business without a soul. Tangible examples are the rise of fast fashion and fashion bloggers.

But all that fast-paced overproduction, overconsumption, massive show-off was just a bubble, a system that couldn’t sustain itself in the long run. In fact, during the pandemic, it exploded.

Now that the world is re-awakening, we need to bring a new level of consciousness that puts creativity and ethical work at the heart. Slow fashion and smaller-scale production are the basis on which we can build sustainable models.

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