When you want something because you don't have it, how can you appreciate it when you do?
Outside of essential needs like food, water and shelter, we often have a whole slew of other "needs" to attend to. We "need" that brand name shirt, we "need" that new SUV or we "need" the latest iPhone.
We want them simply, because we don't have them, and don't want to be caught without them. Two nearly identical products can have two different brand names, yet one is "in" and the other is "out". Even more bizarre, one may be vastly inferior but its brand makes it a "must have" item.
But these things lose their value, don't they? While still usable, we quickly upgrade to keep up. The socially conscious individual must keep up or be ridiculed for having the old version of the product. Why is this?
Perhaps it's the sacrifice we make to help keep the economy going. For a moment, let's delve into a hypothetical situation-
You work in a factory that makes an item-any non-food item such as clothes, electronic devices, etc. You are a moderately productive employee, and each day you produce 2000 of this item. The item changes frequently though, and adapts to the demands of style. Suddenly, the consumer decides that he or she doesn't want the latest version. He'll use the one he has until it wears out or breaks. Perhaps he won't even buy it at all.
A few here or there won't affect your job that much. Sales may go down, but you'll probably be okay. But what if this becomes a trend-frugality? Suddenly, the people begin to question the need of upgrading every few months to the new item. Suddenly, you're making from 2000 to 500. From 500 to 100. Eventually, your factory closes down-everyone has your product!
But before this happens, the CEO has an idea-if the people will only use something as long as they can-why not make it's lifespan much shorter? Why not make it with inferior methods, parts or software? Now it wears out quickly, and they have to buy it more frequently?
This is known as Planned Obsolescence, and it may be annoyingly essential to our economy, especially as people out of necessity are getting more and more aware of how the fashion and style industry work.
But why do we think we need these things at all?
Enter Edward Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) , nephew of the famous Sigmund Freud. Believe it or not, at one time companies were worried about making too many products and not being able to keep up with demand. Yet people at that time were buying things based on quality, necessity and practicality. Henry Ford even famously quipped "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black".
The idea of using products to express themselves wasn't yet a concern for the consumer. However, using his uncle Sigmund Freud's work on Psycho Analysis, Bernays blended his own expertise in Marketing and helped create the Style Industry as we know it today. Products were no longer just about how good they were or how practical they were-now products could be used to express ourselves. The Public, hungry as they always have been and will be for showing their place in society, gobbled this up and asked for seconds.
So while frugality is an excellent attribute for the individual, it actually harms the economy, because every item you don't buy is an item that isn't sold which is made by another person like you who depends on being able to produce and sell.
So while many decry it, style and fashion is unfortunately an intricate part of our economy-the natural result of too many people having all essentials covered yet still needing jobs.
Once essentials are met, the trivial becomes essential as well for the economy to work. So that is why we've been convinced that we "need" this or that item, and the way we've been convinced wasn't with logic, it was with our need to belong and fit in.
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