Last weekend, I went shopping, and as usual, it was terrible. It was raining, I was hungry, and I only had to buy boring things like tights, hand soap, and a new hairbrush. Even if it was sunny, shopping hardly seemed interesting, and despite going to the local shops to replenish my pantyhose supply, I no longer found any joy in swiping my debit card or opening tissue paper packages from stiff cardboard bags. I don’t feel anything anymore. It’s not just about ideology or morals; the work itself has left me feeling empty.
Unfortunately, this also applies to the previously cozy Tradera scrolling. Although I may have contributed to the shop’s death by not buying all my second-hand clothes at Stadsmissionen, Tradera was still a pleasant alternative for rainy days not too long ago. Private individuals would lay out their dresses, take odd mirror images of themselves wearing trousers they wanted to get rid of, and send each other polite messages. Now, however, everything on Tradera is drowning in ads from Sellpy, an H&M-owned resale site. They use identically taken pictures where clothes are helpfully worn on decapitated mannequins, making it difficult to see what the clothes actually look like. Cheap fast fashion garments appear time and time again, but in all sorts of different sizes. Last winter, Resumé reported that H&M seems to be using Sellpy as a point to unload the clothing chain’s own unsold clothes. It’s a new way to hold a sale, only, firmly under the (false) climate-smart flag.
Sanna Samuelsson wrote about the obliterated difference between new and old and how second-hand shopping has become mainstream. However, the second-hand market is far more environmentally and labor law murky than before despite its climate-neutral reputation. Sellpy is a way to justify our collective shopping addiction, making it seem like we’re doing the climate a favor by packing big blue plastic bags full of flimsy polyester garments we’ve just bought, instead of not buying them in the first place.
This week, H&M, which plagues the former folk home app Tradera, came out with a rather startling spin on their own poor climate results. Their climate manager explains that they have a trend with oversize products that generally require a little more material, and thus also more energy when confronted with figures showing that the chain’s emissions per kroner earned have increased in recent years.
It’s Billie Eilish fashion’s fault, of course. But H&M – and the climate – can breathe a sigh of relief because that trend is fortunately over. Today’s IT garments are vanishingly small, and you can fit as many as you want in a Sellpy bag. Check out more texts by Greta Schüldt.
I was out shopping last weekend. It was, as shopping always is, terrible.
It was raining and I was hungry and besides, I was only going to buy really boring things – tights, hand soap, a new hairbrush – but it wouldn’t have been more pleasant if it was sunny. These days I can hardly think of anything that would be kul to buy. I dutifully go to my local cluster of shops when I need to replenish my pantyhose supply, as I imagine I’m contributing to a not-totally-withered city center by refusing to order my pantyhose online. But I no longer get any kicks from swiping my debit card or unpacking tissue paper packages from stiff cardboard bags.
I actually don’t feel anything.
It is not just ideologically imposed. I certainly think that it is morally wrong to rush into the neighborhood to buy new – newly produced – clothes, and that it is rather gloomy that so many people have shopping as their interest, their go to-reward or go to-comfort. But above all, it is the work itself that has begun to fill me with such a feeling of emptiness.
Unfortunately, that applies to and with the previously cozy Tradera scrolling. I may have contributed to the shop’s death by not buying all my second-hand clothes at Stadsmissionen, but it wasn’t long ago that Tradera was still a pleasant alternative for rainy days. Private individuals laid out their crumpled dresses on the floor and photographed them, or took odd mirror images of themselves wearing trousers they wanted to get rid of. They sent each other a few polite messages, and a few days later received a violently taped package in the mail.
We pretend we’re doing the climate a favor when we pack big blue plastic bags full of flimsy polyester garments we just bought
No longer. Now all the human material on Tradera is drowning in ads from the H&M-owned resale site Sellpy, with identically taken pictures where the clothes are helpfully worn on decapitated mannequins, you scroll and scroll but somehow don’t see what the clothes actually look like. Same cheap fast fashion-garments appear time and time again, but in all sorts of different sizes – and hear and be amazed, last winter Resumé reported that H&M in particular seems to be using Sellpy as a unloading point for the clothing chain’s own unsold clothes. A new way to hold a sale, only, firmly under the (false) climate-smart flag.
Sanna Samuelsson wrote about the obliterated difference between new and old, and about how second-hand shopping has become mainstream, in a GP column a couple of weeks ago. If only it were so good that it actually became mainstream to shop at charity thrift stores! But under the veneer of “circular fashion”, today’s second-hand market, as Sanna Samuelsson points out, is far more environmentally and labor law murky than before.
In addition, she writes, second hand “despite its climate-neutral reputation (…) is a logical extension of fast consumption.” Sellpy is a way to justify our collective shopping addiction. We pretend we’re doing the climate a favor when we pack big blue plastic bags full of flimsy polyester garments we’ve just bought, instead of not buying them in the first place.
Same H&M as plagues the former folk home app Tradera has this week come out with a rather startling spin on its own poor climate results.
“We have a trend with oversize products that generally require a little more material and thus also more energy,” explains H&M’s climate manager when Sveriges Radio confronts him with figures showing that the chain’s emissions per kroner earned have increased in recent years.
It’s Billie Eilish fashion’s fault, of course. But H&M – and the climate – can breathe a sigh of relief, because that trend is fortunately over. Today’s IT garments are vanishingly small. You can fit as many as you want in a Sellpy bag.
Read more texts by Greta Schüldt.