Have you noticed that the quality of the things we buy has been declining? My coworker Izzie recently had to replace a bra and it didn’t last very long. This got me thinking about why this is happening.
The design process of a product generally considers three main factors: functionality, appearance, and manufacturability. In recent years, this process has been thrown off balance. We used to go to tailors for clothing, then to department stores, and now we just buy online without ever seeing the product. We also buy more often because of the idea of planned obsolescence, or consumer engineering. We replace our stuff more often and don’t want to spend a lot of money on it.
In order to keep prices low, companies may use cheaper materials or rely on basic stitching patterns that don’t hold as well. This has resulted in an incredibly fast cycle of demand for low cost products. So if after 10 years you’re still paying the same price or close to the same price for a product that looks the same, something had to change. Companies make very minor adjustments year after year to make us want to buy more things, and often they make it intentionally impossible to repair. But we can take steps to take back control of the process.
New York State just passed the Right to Repair bill in 2022, and it’s not perfect, but at least it’s something. With fashion, stay away from micro trends and fast fashion as often as you can. Buy with intention and learn to take care of the things you do have. As consumers, it’s going to take a little bit for us to retrain our brains, but we can take small steps to take back control of the process.
On Repair.org you can find a map of your state and use a letter writing widget to tell your repair story. Let’s make it clear what we want; all of this stuff is supposed to be made for us. If you are determined to take action, it can be done. We have seen over 100,000 people do so, with over 30,000 of them from New York. This explains why New York was the first to pass a law; there was a huge amount of support from the people.