Beneath the streets of Paris, there is a metro system that connects the entire city. Around 5 p.m., the station is packed full of Parisians most likely getting an apéritif at a local bar on their way back home.
As they wait for the train to pull into the station, lined with subway tiles and French advertisements, you can’t help but notice that mostly everyone is wearing the practically same style. Everyone seems to wear the same colors, the same silhouettes and, most importantly, the same Parisian attitude.
It is surprising that in the birthplace of avant-garde and haute couture the citizens would choose to be less expressive in how they dress.
In Paris, people wear clothes, not the other way around. While in America, it is becoming clear that the individualist culture is ruining the industry with overconsumption; the clothes are wearing the people.
The Parisian style focuses on quality and simplicity. Despite being home to designer brands like Dior, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Louis Vuitton, most Parisians do not shop for luxury clothes. Instead, they shop for vintage staples or quality basics.
A typical Parisian outfit features understated colors, timeless silhouettes and accessories that elevate the overall look. Quality pieces that have timeless silhouettes and subdued colors are prioritized as staples in their wardrobe. The goal is not to focus on trends but to collect clothes that create a cohesive look.
The culture in Paris is slower, and the centuries-long influence of art in the country causes French people to take pride in their products.
The Ministry of Culture of France wrote on their website, “France is perceived as the country of big brands, but it is also recognized for the exceptional quality of its artisans and small creators, their know-how and the quality of their products.”
According to Production of Culture theory, smaller brands and creators encourage the competition of the fashion industry to maintain high standards for their products.
One study titled, “Globalization, organizational size, and innovation in the French luxury fashion industry: Production of culture theory revisited,” found that a few large companies control the market in France, but they have little influence over French style.
In comparison, some of the top brands in America in 2024, such as Nike, Lululemon and Inditex (Zara) are the highest polluters in the fashion industry, according to Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design. Considering that the fashion industry is the second-largest polluter in the world, it’s worth rethinking the purchase of a product that you’ll throw out a year from now.
Not only is this bad for the environment, but the need for manufacturers to turn over products quickly leads to poor quality and design. The need to be “on trend” will constantly lead to a closet full of clothes that you regret buying in the first place.
The fashion industry in America is fast. The new phenomenon of micro-trends has sped up to an unattainable speed. The traditional fashion trend cycle is supposed to last about 20 years, which explains the emergence of Y2K fashion from the early 2000’s in the last few years.
Now, a trend can last as little as one month. The influencer culture on social media causes something new each week to become ‘cool.’ This type of mindset is what leads to overconsumption and ruins one’s creative confidence over time. The fashion industry in America thrives on causing consumers to compare themselves to each other.
Another recent pattern is the need for people to label aesthetics and identities. People’s style identities are now categorized into aesthetics such as “mob-wife”, “grandpa core”, “clean girl” and, of course, “coquette.” Americans are increasingly putting their identities in their ability to obtain possessions that represent the present instead of the past.
Fredric Jameson, a Marxist literary critic, revived the term “late capitalism” in the 1990’s with his work “Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” His argument is that capitalists tend to overconsume due to a fascination with the present.
“The way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present and in a perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social formations have had in one way or another to preserve,” said Jameson.
Americans, especially young people, need to re-evaluate what they are creatively inspired by. If we continue to place our identities and individuality in our possessions, there will be no culture left for us.
Americans should take inspiration from Parisians in how they approach shopping and developing their sense of style. Instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses with trends that will fall flat next season, look for a piece that someone could find in an estate sale many years from now and think, “That’s cool.”
Jacey Coleman can be reached at [email protected]