FromApril 28, 2007Backlash against designer option
They were designed to make every woman aspire to be a bag lady while saving the planet into the bargain.
But an ethical row over Sainsbury’s much-hyped reusable shopping bags, created by the award-winning designer Anya Hindmarch, has left the fancy carriers looking a little shopworn. A backlash began when environmentalist shoppers discovered they had been made in China from cotton without the scrutiny of any recognised organic or fairtrade body. The shop’s marketing methods were also blamed for undermining its ecological aims.
By offering only a limited edition of the £5 bags, which quickly sold out, 80,000 shoppers made pointless journeys to Sainsbury’s, adding to emissions. Untold numbers of women spent Wednesday morning driving their people-carriers from store to store, belching out carbon but getting no bags. The bags’ scarcity instantly made them collectors’ items. Many of the shoppers who got one wrapped it in a plastic bag to stop it from getting dirty.
Ms Hindmarch said that her bags had changed attitudes. “Our aim has been to use our influence to make it fashionable not to use plastic bags. ‘I’m Not A Plastic Bag’ was designed to be a stylish, practical, reusable bag that would raise awareness and spark debate. We feel we achieved this aim beyond our wildest dreams.
I suppose living in Ireland would make one skeptical about England's "I'm not a plastic bag" mania, as we have to pay 15 cent a pop for plastic bags in our shops (and that tariff is about to rise again as the incentive is wearing off) and therefore almost everyone comes to the shop with bags in hand (usually naff and tatty bags covered with store logos, or simple ones like the one I defaced in the previous posting). I'm all for getting other countries on board with the idea of using reusable shopping bags, but not when it's left in the hands of capitalist consumer fashioniste. This is what Janice Turner, who succumbed to the craze, had to say in the London Times today:
FromApril 28, 2007A parable of the planet and the must-have bag
I spotted a hipster mum type strolling through Dulwich sporting the Anya Hindmarch “I’m Not A Plastic Bag” bag yesterday. In her other hand was a Sainsbury’s carrier. But then who’d besmirch her Anya’s cream canvas with leaky yoghurt and smelly old onions. Certainly not I. Not after I bought mine for a stupid sum on eBay. OK, since you insist, £80. (Plus £5 p&p.)
I know, I know. You can’t call me a name my husband hasn’t used already. “But it only cost £5 in Sainsbury,” he yelped. “Yes,” I replied. “It cost £5. But it is worth £80.” There is no starker illustration of market forces than high fashion.
And it was almost an accidental purchase. One minute – in the name of research – I was monitoring the torrent of bags onto eBay a few hours after they’d left supermarket shelves, sneering at the suckers fighting furious online auctions. The next moment I’d put in a little bid. And another . . . Then – ooh! – pop went my eBay cherry.
The bag arrived this morning and, as is the way with objects of desire, it hasn’t made me nearly as happy as I’d expected. True, it is a nifty design, well finished and the rope handles are satisfyingly chunky. But I’d had an unusual yearning for this bag because it was an elegant two-fingered salute at wastefulness and egregious consumption. Now holding this bag at last, I just felt part of the problem, soiled by blowing a silly wad on what is really non-fair-trade, unorganic cotton, stitched by low-paid Chinese workers.
Worse, I fear the scorn of my schoolyard mates. The bag’s neatly appliquéd slogan might as well read “I’m a pathetic fashion victim” or “Screwed by eBay”. Or “I queued at 4am in Sainsbury car park” which is the time 700 people descended on my local branch. The world, it seems now divides into the poor and patient, prepared to wait for hours in the dark for their heart’s desire and those who’ll pay inflated prices for someone else to do it for them, rather as rich Indians employ “queue wallahs” to stand in their stead at packed railway stations.
It is a shame for that laudable charity We Are What We Do that the bag it commissioned has now become, like Glastonbury tickets or Kate Moss’s designs for Topshop, just another consumer “must have”, at once desirable and pitifully ephemeral. Its original ecological message is diluted, since fashion leeches meaning from every cause it champions: the Peta-supporting supermodels were swathed in chinchilla and ocelot the second the fashion wind had changed.
And WAWWD is clearly on to something. A mood of nauseous disdain is growing against our disposable culture. Discarded plastic bags uglify our public spaces, clog our most far-flung beaches. But then it is a faff to remember to keep a shopper in your handbag. The jute tote stuffed in mine has, appropriately, the texture of a hair shirt. And it reminds me of my grandma who never left home without a rain-hood. So the Anya bag was a little reward for the dutiful: it ennobled and trendified our dreary, worthy little efforts. Humping potatoes up the hill, I would feel exactly like Erin O’Connor.
But alas this bag is a “limited edition” of 30,000. Its rarity value means few are likely to transport anything more than Stella sunglasses and a copy of Grazia. WAWWD and Anya Hindmarch had no idea when they first conceived the bag two years ago that it would provoke such excitement. Although once Vanity Fair chose it as the “goody bag” for its Oscars party, they probably had a clue.
You might expect that Sainsbury will already have put in a quick order for 500,000. Indeed, they gladly would and WAWWD likewise would be delighted to spread its message further across the nation that our smallest good deeds truly matter. But Anya Hindmarch refuses to manufacture more. Not for Britain at least. Another “limited edition” is planned for Japan and the US, which will no doubt provoke further high street and online scrums in Tokyo and New York – and in the uptown department stores, echoing kerchings from Anya Hindmarch tills.
When I spoke to Hindmarch’s people, they replied that the bag was only ever intended to “raise the issue”. Luxury fashion houses are predicated upon exclusivity and mystique. They fear the common herd owning their product, hence Burberry’s horror when Daniella Westbrook and her ginger baby were photographed head to toe in their beige checks.
And the Hindmarch spokeswoman added that they would take legal action against anyone making knock-offs of the nota-plastic bag. More important, it seems, to preserve the brand than the planet.
But this new limited edition culture is almost as damaging to the environment as extraneous packaging. The fashion wheel spins now at a dizzying pace. Primark and Zara get in new ranges almost daily. Clothing is disposable, unfashionable almost before it can be worn, let alone worn out. The “limited edition” bags of Gucci or Prada cost not £5 or even £80 but £800 or more, and they are sought and bought not just by WAGs but ordinary girls with more credit than sense. And next season they mortgage their futures to another mythical “must have”.
Wouldn’t if be better, if the Anya bag didn’t just raise the issue but solve the problem? What if the shelves of Sainsbury were piled high with them? Everyone owned two or three, which they took affectionately to the shops every week, replacing them when they wore out for a fiver or so. A truly democratic piece of classic design – like the espadrille, the Anglepoise, the iPod – would, more than her exquisite confections of leather and silk sold in her Chelsea boutique, bestow Anya Hindmarch with something that transcends fashion: immortality. I do hope Hugh Grant gets community service for his alleged attack on a photographer. Not because I bear him particular ill-will, but I think maybe cleaning loos à la Naomi or sweeping streets like Boy George might stir him out of his perpetual funk. Perhaps two reliable signs of a star losing his inner compass are buying baked beans in little plastic pots from posh delis and not feeling grateful that you are so admired that people wish to publish your image.
Grant should take a lesson in grace from Noel Gallagher, of Oasis, who once said: “Being famous is my job, when I leave the house, I’m clocking in.” There speaks a man who still buys his beans in tins.
2 comments:
Irish readers should be upset. They were thoroughly conned by theirthey government who claimed plastic shopping bags made up over 5% of litter prior to imposing the bag tax. Not true - their own data confirms it was 0.75%. They then claimed a huge drop in plastic shopping bag use after the tax was imposed (90%+). Again not rue. Their claims relied on tax data, which did not take into account tax avoidance. next, when compliance increased, they claimed that bag use was increasing - and upped the tax. Meanwhile there are still plastic bags in litter - over 2% - but only 1/10th are shopping bags.
And consumers have paid million in taxs, and have to purchase bags for other uses.
Gerard
Noted. :)
-N
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