AMFI Director José Teunissen on Black Friday and the compulsion to consume: "Every week, every day, something new comes on the market."
November 20, 2023Amserdam Fashion Institute Director and professor of Fashion, Design and Technology, José Teunissen is one of the experts who were interviewed by the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences about Black Friday.
Photo Credits: Bibi Veth
Teunissen tells the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences: “Fashion is always about ‘the new’. That's what makes it so attractive. With every new trend, you can reinvent yourself. Fashion pretends to capture the zeitgeist, and that was clear in the previous century with the hippies, punk and so on, all expressions of identity, but these were trends that lasted longer and stood for something.
Meanwhile, the Internet, digitalisation and fast fashion have made this alternation of trends completely crazy. Every week, every day, something new comes on the market that is sometimes worn only for a photo on Instagram.
In the end, the question is how many clothes do we need. We need to eat every day, but with fashion, that need is smaller. This overconsumption - clothes in Europe are dumped after being worn only 7 or 8 times - really needs to be stopped.
There is a clear counter-movement from young designers, motivated by sustainability and fair practice, whose ideas include new systems such as renting clothes or altering clothes. The focus of these designers is on the product and the story of how it was made, such as a jumper which shows from which sheep’s wool it is made.
The new European Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Decree has made companies responsible for taking back and recycling their products since July 2023. As a result of these regulations, we are now also seeing all kinds of initiatives for repair, sustainability and better quality.”