A typical Gen Z outfit is parachute pants with a crop top on a daily basis, but those who are fashionable, wear variations of it- like crop tops with long pencil skirts, crop tops with wide legged pants, crop shirts with work pants- you get the gist. But with new home-grown fast fashion brands like New Me, Nykaa Fashion, Azorte, Little box and Outcast India along with foreign brands found in India like H&M and Zara are giving a new rise to fashion wastage that was otherwise an unfamiliar concept to Indians.
But there is a definitive shift towards sustainable fashion in the younger generation who are conscious buyers of clothes and as a result we are seeing a rise in online marketplaces for thrifted clothes in India. The most popular are Facebook marketplace, Elanic, Spoyl, Olx and Quikr and Vinted India; where you can buy second hand clothes. Even a store called just ‘The Thrift Shop’ near my house sells second hand fashion forward clothes to the Gen Z. But anyone with older siblings already has worn second hand clothes growing up, so it is not gaining as much traction as in the west. We are also known to accessorise our outfits which bring a new lease of life to them, making it easier to repeat outfits. People also fashion their sarees or lehengas into salwar suits which is not uncommon practice. But I think, the stigma of repeating clothes is not as common in India as it’s in the West, for we go to many different places with new faces and who even posts on Instagram anymore, and even we if post, it’s just a story so it makes little to no difference.
Slow fashion is the new in. Like there is so much clothes wastage in the world thanks to fast fashion… where are the days when we would make clothes made to measure and buy expensive materials for the same; the quality of which would last years if not decades if handled with care. But in India, slow fashion has always been in use. For every festival, and there are many festivals, we make hand stitched clothes for ourselves. And because quiet luxury is in and the weather is humid, many people opt for lighter fabrics with prints like ajrakh, kalamkari, bandani and lehriya or chikankari embroidery kurtis, gararas, lehengas and sarees instead of heavy zari bharat and gota pati work. So, we can repeat outfits on a daily basis too. Nowadays, co-ord sets are in, which is a fusion of indo-western clothing, making it versatile to wear for brunches to haldis to even a walk at the nail spa. I don’t claim to be a fashion analyst, but Gen Z like me are opting for co-ord sets more often in music festivals, dinners, clubbing and even date nights. Something about the uniformity of the outfit makes you look more put together than you already are. Like the outfit has to be on fleek, whether or not your life is.
So, what has always been the norm, is now becoming cool to be doing consciously by the younger generation. And I don’t blame people, we are victims of trends and FOMOs and for the longest time, watching our favourite youtubers do clothing hauls from fast fashion brands like Urbanic, Nykaa Fashion, Ajio and Meesho made us subconsciously get into excessive buying and then handing it down to people with less fortunate backgrounds. So, the guilt was removed and we continued to splurge our hard-earned income on buying more clothes for the next concert, the next date, or even just the next hang out. It was always a thing to have circular fashion in the Indian society, but because of the advent of clothing haul videos and the rise of social media, fast fashion took the front seat. But we are becoming climate conscious and are going back to our roots. All in all, the younger generation is realising what our grandparents and parents have always told us: to reuse, reduce, and re-wear the same outfits. Brands like Raymond make made to measure suits for men, which is a principle other brands for women can also adopt, making clothes of a better quality and making fashionable pieces that can be worn by all sizes. That’s it for now, let me know if you would like another take on fashion by moi. Until next time!