Fashion’s Obsession With Newness Is Just Colonialism in a Different Outfit
A Taste for the New, No Matter the Cost
In the world of fashion, newness is everything. Micro-trends rise and fall with TikTok audios, retailers churn out weekly drops, and influencers perform unboxings with staggering frequency. But beneath the shimmer of ever-refreshing aesthetics lies a more uncomfortable truth: fashion’s obsession with novelty isn’t new at all - it’s deeply rooted in colonialism.
The mechanisms that once justified the plundering of land, labour, and culture now manifest in softened, digitised forms - seasonal collections, globalised supply chains, and trend cycles that demand constant consumption. The promise of "what’s next?" has always relied on exploiting "what’s already there."
Colonial Threads: The Industry’s Extractive Origins
Fashion’s colonial history is not just a footnote - it’s foundational. From the cotton fields of India and the American South to the forced production of indigo and the transatlantic trade in textiles, the industry as we know it was built on violent systems of extraction and control.
Take cotton, for instance. British colonisers suppressed India’s homegrown textile industry to promote British-made fabrics, while enslaved Africans were forced to cultivate cotton in the American South to feed European mills. Indigo dye, now a romanticised staple of heritage denim, was once nicknamed “blue gold” for its value - and its human toll.
As fashion historian Dr. Tansy Hoskins writes, "Every item of clothing has a history that predates its manufacture - woven into it are centuries of violence, resource theft, and erasure."
Fast Fashion as Neocolonialism
Today’s fast fashion empire operates on eerily similar lines: production is outsourced to low-wage economies, garments are made under exploitative conditions, and the cultural capital of marginalised communities is often mined for inspiration with little to no credit or compensation.
The Global North dictates the trends; the Global South manufactures them. Brands profit off cheap labour in Bangladesh, Vietnam, or Ethiopia - often in unsafe factories with limited worker protections - while the clothes are worn briefly, then discarded. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned every second, much of it exported as waste to countries least responsible for the volume and with inadequate infrastructure to handle it.
Cultural Appropriation, Rebranded
It’s not just material resources being extracted. Cultural appropriation - be it Indigenous patterns, African wax prints, or South Asian embroidery - continues to serve as a well of ‘inspiration’ for designers seeking an “exotic” edge. These elements are often stripped of context, divorced from meaning, and resold for profit - usually to a white, Western consumer base.
Aja Barber eloquently statedit in her book Consumed, “Fashion loves Blackness, Brownness, and Indigenous aesthetics. It just doesn’t love paying for them.”
The New Colonial Pipeline: From Instagram to Incineration
Today, the aesthetic of exploration and discovery persists via social media. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram can popularise a trend globally in days - often commodifying cultures in the process. Algorithms incentivise visual novelty, and brands respond by accelerating production to keep up.
But this pursuit of perpetual freshness is environmentally and socially devastating. In 2022, the UN reported that the fashion industry contributes to up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and consumes around 93 billion cubic metres of water annually. The harm is concentrated in producing countries - where environmental degradation, toxic waste, and polluted rivers are a daily reality.
So, What Does Decolonising Fashion Actually Look Like?
To genuinely move toward sustainable fashion, we must rethink what we value. Decolonising fashion means:
Shifting power: Supporting local designers, Indigenous makers, and garment workers in decision-making roles - not just tokenised campaigns.
Relearning repair and reuse: Valuing longevity over novelty, and seeing clothes as companions, not consumables.
Paying the real price: Recognising that cheap clothes come at a cost - and choosing brands that respect people and the planet.
Calling out appropriation: Not just celebrating diverse cultures, but compensating and crediting them appropriately.
It also means slowing down. Stepping off the trend treadmill. Asking not just who made your clothes, but why you feel compelled to replace them so often.
Conclusion: Fashion’s Future Must Be Restorative, Not Extractive
If the fashion industry is to transform, it must reckon with its colonial inheritance - not just in origin, but in ongoing practice. Newness has always been bought at someone else’s expense. And unless we untangle fashion from its extractive systems - of labour, land, and culture - we can’t claim to be sustainable at all.
Decolonising fashion isn’t a trend. It’s the work of reimagining the industry’s purpose entirely - not just to serve the privileged, but to honour the people and communities who’ve always borne its burden.
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