[mns]

Wow, what's going on lately with hackernews. I see these extreme opinions on everything, it's like we're trying to take out the entire fun and diversity from life so that we can all live forever in our apartments, work from there, order food from there and in the end die in our home having done nothing with our lives but work.

[searchableguy]

I don't think parent or people are against fashion. What they are against is probably brands violating many labour laws in other countries to sell you a non functional piece of "fashionable" cloth at a 10x-100x mark up price stuff.

Fashion can exist without harming the environment or society even if that society is not yours, there are still people suffering in third world. The argument that without these companies, they won't even have a job is plain bad because they have enough margins to justify paying more and investing in safety but they choose not to and consumers support that by purchasing it.

There is also difference between buying cheap produced out of slave labour vs buying expensive produced out of cheap labor. In former, you might not have enough money to be moralistic but in latter, you have a choice to and you didn't which imo makes you more responsible.

[jsinai]

One of the big issues is transparency, and this applies across the entire price spectrum. If people knew that certain brands, luxury or not, were exploiting labour, would some people still be inclined to buy them? It’s easy to say that most people wouldn’t care, but the conversations shift. Look at School Strike for Climate Action as an example.

[luckylion]

"Tourism and fashion are luxury things" != "You must not ever do that". If you're into fashion, by all means, spend your money on fashion items.

I like luxury things like eating out at restaurants. I don't believe that I need them to exist in a meaningful way, which maybe explains why I haven't had any problems not having access to them for a while.

Constant overabundance of luxuries makes them feel normal and even necessary, but they're really not. You can live without them, and you might even appreciate them more if you do for a while.

[mns]

The last part of the message that I replied to literally goes "but if the fashion industry went away and never returned, society wouldn't suffer."

Coming from the other side, yes, society would suffer, same goes with tourism (which is also mentioned, next to fashion). There is a lot more to these industries than overpriced luxury items, cheap fast fashion, overcrowded popular tourist spots and carbon emissions from flying. Not everything is black and white to the extent of "this industry can die and nobody would suffer".

[luckylion]

We disagree, I guess.

I don't see society suffering if the fashion industry disappears. Will it change society? Yes, slightly. Is that change bad? Probably not. Less status-symbol-fetishizing can be a good thing, if the luxury car industry or the cruise ship industry disappeared, I wouldn't shed tears either.