As you have read in my post of February 10th Professor Manfred-Maxneef described the human needs. The needs for Subsistence, Protection, Affection, Understanding, Participation, Creation and Leisure have existed since the origins of homo habils and, undoubtedly since the appearance of homo sapiens. Probably the need for Identity and the need for Freedom appeared later. It is likely that in the future the need for Transcendence will become as universal as the other needs.[1]
For ages fashion and clothing are a way of satisfying certain needs.
For ages fashion and clothing are a way of satisfying certain needs.
- Subsistence & Protection; Clothing protects our body from nature; warmth, sun, cold, water etc.
- Participation & Identity: Communication through fashion, which expresses time, place and emotional state of mind.
- Leisure, Creation, Freedom & Affection: Fashion as an art form; searching for a real experience of beauty with all our senses; seeing, feeling, tasting, hearing and smelling.
The Agricultural Revolution of ten thousand years ago made it possible for us to grow and keep our own food, instead of hunting and gathering this day by day. We started to make tools to enhance our lives and make our daily tasks easier. We divided tasks, a bakery, a butcher and a carpenter started to exist. And we started trading to get all the products we needed.
In the Scientific Revolution we learned to gain answers by doing research. In the Industrial Revolution we build machines. These developments made production go faster and products became cheaper. Because tasks were taken over by machines we saved time. This means factories could make more products in the same time and families have more leisure time. There was no awareness of the finiteness of raw materials. We thought we could make everything we wanted.
Then came the Petrochemical and Genetic Engineering Revolutions. Now that we can synthesize what we need and rearrange the genetic alphabet to our liking, we have gained what we think of as autonomy. We fancy ourselves as gods, very far from home indeed. In reality, we haven’t escaped the gravity of life at all. We are still beholden to ecological laws, the same as any other life-form.[2]
But instead of living equally with nature all our products are made in a take – make – waste manner. This linear system creates a growing amount of waste and the raw materials we use are taken in such fast amounts they cannot re-grow quick enough. For an interesting movie about this linear economy take a look at storyofstuff.com
Because of the increasing choice in products the marketing world started to exist. First products were promoted because of their qualities. The Romans did this already. The latin word of frequently calling is ‘reclamare’, (reclame is Dutch for advertisement/promotion). But if you had to scream to promote your products something must be wrong, so the people criticized the products themselves.
The more products were created, the more they started to look like each other. Because most products were of good quality, marketing started to aim at differentiation. “Customer experience” was born, products had to look like they belonged to a certain social group with its own habits. The basic functionality of all these products is the same, only with a different look.
Anila Nubé gives a nice explanation why manufacturers work this way. I give a translation of her book “Domweg gelukkig in de Kalverstraat”[3]:
If we choose for a product made by A, we confirm with our wallet that this is what we have been waiting for. By massively ignoring B the maker of B starts to think. To not be swiped of the market by A he needs to take some steps. One of the solutions for B is to make his product look like that of A. Apparently that is what we want. We ask, they make. The result is that we have less to choose while there is more choice. To minimalize the risks making uniformity is the best thing a manufacturer can do, this is what everybody wears. But because we like to choose, A will wrap his uniformity differently than B.
This results in a lot of products that look like each other. For consumers it is a labyrint of choices. We do like to choose, but not from so many of the same.
A nice example is an experiment with ‘choice-stress’[4]: A retailer has put twenty-four jam jars in a display window and looked what happened. There were a lot of viewers but hardly any buyers. When the choices were brought back to six, he sold out his stock in no time. Less is more; who chooses loses, no matter what. If there are more choices then possibilities it is unavoidable that we miss the most. If we choose for option A, we are forced to let go option B to Z. If we are disappointed in option A, we missed a chance. If A is what we expected we are still afraid B might have been better. In short; we constantly disappoint ourselves.
So this raises the question; how and how quickly do you want to fulfill your needs?
In the Scientific Revolution we learned to gain answers by doing research. In the Industrial Revolution we build machines. These developments made production go faster and products became cheaper. Because tasks were taken over by machines we saved time. This means factories could make more products in the same time and families have more leisure time. There was no awareness of the finiteness of raw materials. We thought we could make everything we wanted.
Then came the Petrochemical and Genetic Engineering Revolutions. Now that we can synthesize what we need and rearrange the genetic alphabet to our liking, we have gained what we think of as autonomy. We fancy ourselves as gods, very far from home indeed. In reality, we haven’t escaped the gravity of life at all. We are still beholden to ecological laws, the same as any other life-form.[2]
But instead of living equally with nature all our products are made in a take – make – waste manner. This linear system creates a growing amount of waste and the raw materials we use are taken in such fast amounts they cannot re-grow quick enough. For an interesting movie about this linear economy take a look at storyofstuff.com
Because of the increasing choice in products the marketing world started to exist. First products were promoted because of their qualities. The Romans did this already. The latin word of frequently calling is ‘reclamare’, (reclame is Dutch for advertisement/promotion). But if you had to scream to promote your products something must be wrong, so the people criticized the products themselves.
The more products were created, the more they started to look like each other. Because most products were of good quality, marketing started to aim at differentiation. “Customer experience” was born, products had to look like they belonged to a certain social group with its own habits. The basic functionality of all these products is the same, only with a different look.
Anila Nubé gives a nice explanation why manufacturers work this way. I give a translation of her book “Domweg gelukkig in de Kalverstraat”[3]:
If we choose for a product made by A, we confirm with our wallet that this is what we have been waiting for. By massively ignoring B the maker of B starts to think. To not be swiped of the market by A he needs to take some steps. One of the solutions for B is to make his product look like that of A. Apparently that is what we want. We ask, they make. The result is that we have less to choose while there is more choice. To minimalize the risks making uniformity is the best thing a manufacturer can do, this is what everybody wears. But because we like to choose, A will wrap his uniformity differently than B.
This results in a lot of products that look like each other. For consumers it is a labyrint of choices. We do like to choose, but not from so many of the same.
A nice example is an experiment with ‘choice-stress’[4]: A retailer has put twenty-four jam jars in a display window and looked what happened. There were a lot of viewers but hardly any buyers. When the choices were brought back to six, he sold out his stock in no time. Less is more; who chooses loses, no matter what. If there are more choices then possibilities it is unavoidable that we miss the most. If we choose for option A, we are forced to let go option B to Z. If we are disappointed in option A, we missed a chance. If A is what we expected we are still afraid B might have been better. In short; we constantly disappoint ourselves.
So this raises the question; how and how quickly do you want to fulfill your needs?
[1] Manfred Maxneef and Paul Ekins, Real Life Economics, 1992, page 203
[2] Janine M. Benyus, Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, 1997 , page 5
[3] Anila Nubé, Domweg gelukkig in de Kalverstraat, 2009, page 34
[4] Anila Nubé, Domweg gelukkig in de Kalverstraat, 2009, page 36
[2] Janine M. Benyus, Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, 1997 , page 5
[3] Anila Nubé, Domweg gelukkig in de Kalverstraat, 2009, page 34
[4] Anila Nubé, Domweg gelukkig in de Kalverstraat, 2009, page 36
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