Sometimes, just sometimes you understand, even cynics like us are shocked at the venality of politics:
It was a pair of $0 faux fur boots that signalled a new low for the fast fashion industry last week. Spotted on an Instagram ad for US customers, it was the latest in an aggressive campaign by Chinese retailer Temu to win market share. Just when you thought fashion couldn’t get any more disposable – it just did.
But fast fashion may have hit a roadblock: last week French lawmakers unanimously approved a bill to impose increasing penalties on fast fashion products, rising to €10 (£8.56) on each item of clothing by 2030. The bill also proposes a ban on fast fashion advertising, effectively undermining the algorithmically attuned, hyper-personalised digital marketing that has become a loaded weapon in the hands of these retailers.
A free pair of boots - faux fur or not - sounds to us like an excellent idea. Some consumer, somewhere, is better off to exactly the value of one pair of boots. Good, the aim of the economy is to make the consumer better off.
Clearly we’re out of touch with modern mores:
A surcharge linked to fast fashion’s ecological footprint of €5 (£4.20) an item is planned from next year, rising to €10 by 2030.
The ecological footprint of a €1 t-shirt is not, by any calculation at all, €10.
We’ve noted before how this appalling idea that the poor might enjoy a change of clothes or two is bringing back sumptuary laws. For if even the poor can dress like a Parisienne in the know then what method left is there for a Parisienne in the know to distinguish herself from the rabble by? If all can eat cake then what value the expensive patissier?
The effect of this is obvious. The poor much pay more for their clothes. Those who currently make them - the poor in those poor, producing, countries - lose work, jobs and income. The only people who gain are the French capitalists who happen to own French clothing factories.
We do wish we were joking but the last time we saw a French taxation idea this bad was the gabelle. Which didn’t lead to a happy time for all concerned.