A collection of essays that I wrote
The Rise of Fast-Decor in the Modern Consumerism Society
The Rise of Fast-Decor in the Modern Consumerism Society
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic forced as all to stay indoors. Instead of going out and about, we were stuck. Stuck indoors. This resulted in a shift in the collective attention. By spending everyday between the same four walls there was no need anymore to dress nicely, only our head and shoulders were visibly anyway through the small camera that recorded us on zoom. Stuck between four walls forced us to look inward instead of outward. We started to look to our home and realized that we might wanted to change something. This resulted in a record in the U.S. retail home furnishings category with a +26% increase from February to May of 2020 (Lane, 2020). The global home decor e-commerce site traffic in 2020 went from a monthly average of 1,56 billion in January to 1,7 billion in March (Semrush, 2020). This was not just a one time peak. The Global Industry Analysts, Inc. (2021) Research Report suggests that the global online home decor market was valued at $98.4 Billion in the year 2020 and is projected to reach a revised size of US $348.3 Billion by 2027. Fast-fashion retailers are a huge new player in the homeware business by adding a big cheap and affordable homeware collection alongside their fashion collection (Sutherland, 2021). In this essay a deep dive will be done into this new phenomenon explaining why people can add so much value to this decorative product and it will examine how the rise of this ‘’fast-decor’’ came to be. This all will be analysed throught he scope of two texts, one written by Campbell and the other by Potter and Andrew.
The Rise of Fast-Decor
The fashion industry has changed signitfasly over the last three decades. Costumer preferences shift overnight, the product lifecycles are measured in weeks, and the value of a product plummets if the retailer misses the latest trend. This is the contemporary world of fast fashion (Sull & Turkoni, 2008). This is forcing retailers to desire low cost and flexibility in design, quality, and speed to market, key strategies to maintain a profitable position in the increasingly demanding market (Bhardwaj & Fairhurst, 2010). In this tough market it is very hard to sustain a business forcing fashion brands to look further than clothes, the growing homeware market, making it an interesting option.
Big brands known for their cheap and fast fashion like Primark, H&M, New Look and, Zara all have a selection of homeware accessoires. Since the pandemic, big online fashion retailer Asos also stepped into the homeware market and the other brand above have all greatly expanded their homeware since 2020 (Sutherland, 2021). It is clear, homeware is on the rise. Henry Holland, an artist that parted with the fashion industry to pursue a career in ceramics, who was interview in a Guardian (2021) article also notices the rise in the popularity of interior since the pandemic and thanks it to social media. “Social media made people think about what they were wearing; now it’s making them think about where they live,” says Holland. “People are starting to curate their environments in the way they did with their wardrobes.” Brand strategist Lucie Greene comments in the same article. “We are acutely aware of our home environments since we have had to work, live, socialise and relax in them all the time,” she says. “From gardens to home renovations and buying new ergonomic office furniture, increased exposure to our homes has made us want to invest more in them.’’ She mainly thanks it to instragram ‘’Instagram has become the ultimate fishbowl for shoppable lifestyle porn,” says Greene, noting that general consumption of content “skyrocketed” throughout the pandemic.
Another app that has a great contribution to the homeware hype is TikTok. TikTok arose during the pandemic. It had the perfect attributes for the indoor lifestyle. “TikTok has always been about being 15 and staying at home,” explains David Nichols of the University of Melbourne in a The Guardian (2020) article. “That’s the accepted backdrop. And now everyone has to stay at home! So TikTok was made for coronavirus.’’ he says. On ‘’DesignTok’’ people share new cool things to look out for to decorate your house, DIY’s, and tips and tricks to make your room look into your desired aesthetic for an affordable price (Lai. 2022). The main goal is to avoid the dreaded faux pas: Looking “cheugy” (Eardley, 2022).
Romanticism, Fast-Decor and the Modern Consumer Society
In ‘Romanticism and The Consumer Ethic: Intimations of a Weber-style Thesis’, Campbell (1983) ask himself what are the cultural forces that drove to the modern consumption ethic. Here he follows the style of analysis done by Max Weber and contributes to it. Weber maintained that the current ‘’spirit’’ of capitalism views profit as an end in itself and profit-seeking as virtuous. He argues that the origin of this ‘’spirit’’ lies in the Protestant Ethic, especially the Calvinist school of Protestatism (Gorski, 2003).
Campbell follows Weber’s style of analysis but offers an alternative method of which this ‘’spirit’’ could emerge. He finds another way in which workers coud overcome traditional economic attitudes, through romanticism.
Campbell desribres modern consumerist society as a place where ideas of ‘’unlimted good’’ prevail and the ever-increasing production is normal. Everyone is expected to better oneself, it is even considered ‘’immoral’’ if you not strive to do so. This results in a obligation to always seek out and satisfy new ‘’wants’’. The modern economy is without limits and this therefore means that so are the consumers desires. The true ‘’spirit’’ of modern consumerism is ‘’the search for ever more novel and varied consumptive experiences as an end-in-itself’’. It is the ‘’desire to desire’’ the ‘’wanting to want’’ . Here Campbell agrees with Weber by saying that consumpion is an end-in-itself with an associated desire to always pursuit this end. Which leads to the individual always learning to be ‘’dissatisfied with what he has and desirous of what he has not’’. Campbell believes that the consumer behaviour is deliberate and motivated, but asks himself what can be the underlying rationale?
He finds his answer in romanticism. Romanticism can be considered a ‘’general world view’’, a distitinc set of value biases which went along with the industrial revolution. Romanticism arose from a reaction against the Enlightenment were the emphasis was placed upon reason and science. Romanticism was fundamentally opposed against the modes of thought utilitarianism, materialism and rationalism. The romantics saw uniqueness and not generalization as the key to humanity. A kew figure in this teaching was Rousseau who said that happiness comes from ‘’self-expression’’. Having a sense of who we are and staying true to that. How could this romanticism that rejects the changing industrial and commercial world facilitate the modern consumerism? Campbell argues that his was accomplished by giving the required cultural input for fresh motivating and legitimational structures. The romantic ethic exerted strong sanction derived from the idea of an "agreement" between each individual and his own "self". By serving the spirit of self, the spirit would bring happiness. Through this the consistent self-gratifactory activity romanticism could become a revoluatonry force.
Fast-decor and Romanticism
The rise of Fast-Decor is in line with Campbell’s analysis on the modern consumer society. Campbell states that we are always expected to better oneself. Which results in the obligation to seek and satisfy new ‘’wants’’. When the corona virus kept us at home, we found other things to keep ourselves busy, like creating new home decor. Campbell contious to state that the modern economy is without limits and therefore so are the consumers desires. This is very visible in trends. We see something online, something we do not need, but we want it. We have the ’desire to desire’’ we ‘’want to want’’. We search for more novel and more varied consumptive experiences which according to Campbell is an end-in-itself. Through this we are always dissatisfied with what we have and longing for what we do not have. This is visible in the fast-fashion world where we see that costumer preferences shift overnight (Sull & Turkoni, 2008). We have more than enough clothes, but see someone walking on the street with a nice new outfit and all of the sudden ‘’need that dress.’’ This is however resulting in an industry that relies on cheap manufacturing, frequent consumption and short-lived garment use which all has a great impact on the environment (Niinimäki, et al, 2022). The quick trends of the fashion industry are diverting into the homedecor world, with the chance of negatively affecting nature as well. Our need to consume is not just an end-in-itself, it results into big environmental concequences.
The rise of fast-decor is also in line with Campbell’s notion that the mdoern consumerism society has its core in romanticism. Romanticist argue that happiness comes from ‘’self-expression’’. Decorating your home is a form of self-expression. There is something exciting about walking into someones house for the first time. Their decoration says a lot about a person. This is also visible in the TikTok trends where the focus is on decorating your room to your desired aesthetic (Lai. 2022). During the pandemic people were not able to express themselves anymore with their clothes, therefore their homeware was the new way to show to the world, who you are.
Consuming to Distinguish
Potter and Andrew
In ‘I hate myself and I want to buy’’, Potter and Andrew argue that consumerism is not identified with conformity. They argue that it is rebellion that has been driving consumerism.
Potter and Andrew state that the economy keeps growing and growing and that countries are creating more and more wealth, but yet fail to secure any measurable improvement in satisfaction. They ask themselves: Where does all this money go? Their answer to this: this money is being spent on private consumption goods. The authors continue by questioning how this could be possible. Why do individuals continue to spend money even though they are already overextended and even though it does not ultimately make them happier? They argue that this obsessive nature of consumption is not driven by the desire to conform, but by the desire to distinguish oneself. It is about outdoing the other. It is the competitive consumption that creates the problem, not conformity. If customers were only conformists, they would all go out and purchase identical products, which would make everyone happy. Additionally, there would be no need to shop for new items.
The problem is that while an increase in ‘’material’’ goods can generate increased happiness for everyone, status is inherently a zero-sum game Andrew and Potter argue. Consumers are trapped in a collective action problem because for one to succeed, another must fail. Bumping someone is an inevitable part of moving higher. Consequently, when society as a whole becomes wealthier, consumer behaviour gradually takes on the form of an arms race. What the wealthy have today can no longer be delivered to the rest of us tomorrow, yet as each of us becomes richer, this is what we expect. The world will have switched to Prada by the time you can buy a Gucci handbag. When you can buy an Armani suit, Canali will be the upcoming fashion sensation. This is the engine of the economy. The issue is that not everyone has the ability to rebel, just as not everyone can be classy or have good taste. If everyone adopts the counterculture, it will eventually overtake the mainstream. To restore differentiation, the rebel must next create a new subculture.
So, in a sense conformity and distinction go hand in hand. One conforms to the habits and standards of the exclusive club in order to distinguish oneself from the mass. But it is the quest for distinction that is driving the consumption process, not the desire to conform. The sensation of superiority that comes with club membership and the acknowledgement from other members are what give anything its value. But when news spreads and more people start purchasing the commodity, the distinctiveness it bestows, gradually disappears. Therefore, the drive for distinctiveness is collectively self-defeating since everyone aspires to get what not everyone can have.
Fast-Decor and the Search for Distinction
‘’If customers were only conformists, they would all go out and purchase identical products, which would make everyone happy. Additionally, there would be no need to shop for new items.’’ But we are constantly buying new items. Trends come and go at heightened speed. These co-called ‘’microtrends’’ are the core of the fast-fashion where the customer demand changes from day to day (Sull & Turkoni, 2008). This same trend is happening right now in the decoration business.
Not everyone has the ability to rebel. Like Andrew and Potter described ‘’If everyone adopts the counterculture, it will eventually overtake the mainstream. To restore differentiation, the rebel must next create a new subculture.’’ This is what is happening in the trend cycle. A new phenomenon emerges, a new mirror with foam outlining for example, this is shared on social media, everyone starts buying this mirror and it is now overtaken by the mainstream. This is now overdone, on TikTok they would now call this mirror‘’cheugy’’. You cannot be seen with this mirror anymore. The rebel must create a new subculture, throw out the old mirror and buy a new one. Due to the internet this trend cycles goes at enormous speed. On social media the user is confronted with a constant load of information and exposure to new buyable products. But here also noticing that these products are not okay to have in your house anymore and throwing away these ‘’cheugy’’ products. Which results in the micro-trends that we see today.
Conclusion
This essay dove into the new social phenomenon: fast-decor. It examined that this phenomenon emerged mainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic which forced people society to look inward. With the examination of the Campbell text it explained that fast-decor could emerge because in the modern consumption society we have an obligation to always seek and satisfy new ‘’wants’’ which has resulted in the micro-trends that we see today. This is the core of the fast-fashion industry which has great environmental impact. This form of trends is however not only visible in clothes but has seeped through the home decoration. With the Potter and Andrew text this essay explained how these micro-trends came to be. Customers consume to rebel. They buy a product to distinct themselves from others, but when the mainstream takes over, this is overdone, ‘’cheugy’’ and they must buy a new product. Due to social media, this has now taken rapid speed and so micro-trends were born.
Fast-decor, a phenomenon that has a new grip on society. Emerging from the fast-fashion world we must really ask ourselves if this new trend is a good thing. With the environmental concequences that we see in the fast-trend world has, we must really ask ourselves if that cool new pastel titled coffee table is something that we actually need. Are we still going to like it in a year? Maybe it is better to focus on slow-decor.
References
Bhardwaj V. & Fairhurst A. (2010) Fast fashion: response to changes in the fashion industry, The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 20:1, 165-173, DOI: 10.1080/09593960903498300
Campbell C. (1983). Romanticism and the Consumer Ethic: Intimations of a Weber-style Thesis, Sociology of Religion, Volume 44, Issue 4, Winter 1983, Pages 279–295, https://doi.org/10.2307/3711611
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