Sneaky Little Thing

If you have any kind of interest in fashion, it is likely that you have seen ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. In the movie, Miranda (the editor-in-chief of Runway magazine) gives an iconic monologue, detailing an example of trickle-down theory. Essentially, the lesson to be learnt here is that every single trend, whether it be colour, style or silhouette, is a direct representation of millions of pounds worth of labour. This includes not only the top creatives who are the masterminds behind a new trend at luxury fashion houses, but everyone down to the garment worker who works tirelessly for fast fashion brands to sew the clothes barely two weeks after the trend has initially broken the internet.

There are other trends that have nothing to do with colour, style or silhouette of clothes – instead, they are the marketing trends that brands have had to adopt in order to engage with a more socially conscious consumer demographic. The rise of social media, and the democracy of information sharing, looks down at the fashion industry of the past that was able to get away with pushing a Eurocentric beauty standard based on exclusivity. Coupled with the knock-on effects of the pandemic, the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements, brands really have to show company-wide commitment to the environment, female empowerment and diversity in their marketing in order to stay relevant. What is needed in marketing is an organic creation of communities, rather than keeping consumers at an arm’s length.

Let’s focus on how Pretty Little Thing (PLT), a firm under the umbrella of Boohoo, is tackling this challenge. Diversity in campaigns is easily achieved and digested by the public because of the diversity represented by the demographic PLT sells their clothes to – a conspicuously conscious population who do not have the disposable income to keep up buying items from designer brands when there is something else in vogue so quickly.

PLT’s second marketing technique is centred around female empowerment. Amongst other campaigns, PLT sign with ex-Love Island contestants such as Molly-Mae, Gemma Owen and Indiyah to create collections and promote the brand - these women fit into the ‘girl boss’ narrative that PLT are strategically using to entice customers. Molly-Mae is an interesting example here as she gave an interview in early 2022 after having become ‘creative director’ for PLT, in which she credited her success to hard work, claiming that her mindset is that we all have the same twenty-four hours in a day as Beyoncé. This part of the interview gained a lot of notoriety online since it suggested that Molly-Mae conveniently ignores the privilege that she has in choosing how to use her twenty-four hours compared to others who cannot.

When thinking about feminism, it is integral that we consider intersectionality. Intersectionality is a term that was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1980s to describe the combination of discrimination faced by people who are part of various social groups. Using PLT’s marketing strategies as an example, the discrimination faced by women with enough disposable income to continuously buy fast fashion, is very different to the combined discrimination faced by the garment workers who work within the PLT supply chain. These workers who are mostly based in Leicester; are people of colour with immigrant status, have no formal contracts and therefore do not have any union or bargaining power. Judging from the unit prices of items on the PLT website, which advertises ninety-nine percent sales during Black Friday with some items as low as 4p, there is no way that PLT is able to pay their garment workers a respectable wage and make profits. In fact, Boohoo as a whole, owes millions of pounds to their garment workers after years of having paid them between £2-3 per hour. In my opinion, the idea of feminism means nothing if it only further empowers privileged women, whilst increasing the discrimination faced by other minorities.

The performative activism does not end here. Most recently, PLT launched a resale website called PLT Marketplace, with the slogan “Re-sell, re-wear, recycle” supposedly encouraging PLT consumers to give a second life to their clothes and care for the planet. Let’s not forget that the original slogan is reduce, reuse, recycle. This type of campaign only encourages consumers to continue to consume – this is essentially what all brands need to do in order to hit profit margins. Clothes from fast fashion brands are always made in the cheapest way possible for this exact reason; retailers like PLT want you to continue to spend again, as soon as your Instagram post with your previous purchase has hit timelines and they have dropped a new collection. ‘Cheapest way possible’ does not mean organic, certified, biodegradable materials and it does not mean the level of quality that will last in your wardrobe. Encouraging consumers to resell clothes is only attractive to PLT because it builds up enough disposable income and clears enough space for more PLT clothes.

It is not my intention writing this article for anyone to feel shame for falling victim to fast fashion brands and their marketing tactics, especially when luxury branded clothes are extremely unattainable in price. However, I do want to encourage you to build a strong style profile instead of jumping on the bandwagon of fleeting social media trends. This way when you choose to spend your hard-earned money, whether at a fast fashion brand, second-hand or designer, it will be on something that you have judged to be timeless enough in style and high enough in quality, that you will be proud to wear it often and for a long time. I think we can all agree that characters such as Miranda Priestley are not the devils of the fashion industry and even though said devils might wear Prada, it’s certainly not what they want you to spend their money on.

Top photo credit: Arabian Business

Second photo credit: instagram.com/prettylittlething