Kieler now lives in minimalism

Kiel. When Adriana Szymanska enters the Primark textile discount store in Bremen for the first time, she is thrilled: so many clothes with different patterns, in all sizes. And: everything is so cheap. She buys a scarf. And the same one again in five other colors.

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“Back then I didn’t know anything about fast fashion or the climate crisis,” says the 40-year-old from Kiel today. It's been 15 years since my visit to the cheap discount store. Szymanska now buys almost nothing.

Many people want to live more sustainably. Minimalism has become a trend. Using the hashtag “Underconsumption Core,” people on social media on Instagram and Tiktok show how they refuse the constant pressure to consume. They wear the same makeup for years, drink from chipped coffee cups instead of throwing them away, use the same bag every day. Others use the keyword “de-influencing” to explain why you don’t actually need highly advertised products.

But does this change anything? Nice, says Dr. Tobias Schnell: “If we believe we will only get social recognition if we always wear the latest fashion, we feel more pressure to buy more and more things,” says the sustainability researcher at Kiel University. “If the trend is to use things for as long as possible, this pressure to adapt becomes less important.” In the long term, as a result, fewer were bought and produced.

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Adriana Szymanska organized a clothing swap party in her garden in 2012. It's a summer day, the sun is shining. Her 15 guests hung clothes they no longer wanted on racks and clotheslines. Among other things, Szymanska has her six discount scarves with her. But at the end of the party she takes home more clothes than she brought with her. Then it became clear to her: They had to change something.

Szymanska reads books about minimalism and decides to consume less. But she realizes that implementing this in everyday life is not always easy in a world in which there is constant pressure to consume.

In addition to videos about sustainability, you can also find so-called micro-trends on social media: clothing styles that are popular for a short time and then disappear again. “Coastal Grandmother” was one such example this year: beige wool cardigans, maritime patterns. Or “Tomato Girl Summer”: flowing floral dresses, red cheeks. For everything you need, of course: the right accessories.

Only those who have a lot of money – or buy cheaply – can keep up. This works at Shein, for example. On the website of the fast fashion online retailer, the offers flash and flash: three tops for ten, a knitted sweater for 14, boots for 20 euros, Black Friday, year-end sale, free shipping.

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According to Statista, the Singapore-based company had global sales of $32.5 billion in 2023 – more than twice as much as in 2021. After the USA, Global Data estimates that Shein sells the most in Germany.

An investigation by Greenpeace found quantities of dangerous chemicals in the cheap clothes that exceed EU limits. The non-governmental organization Public Eye published research in 2021 according to which a majority of Tiktok trend clothes come from sweatshops in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. The workers there often sit at the sewing machines for more than 75 hours a week – and only have one day off per month.

Researchers at CAU Kiel: Sustainable shopping is exhausting

You can't see any of this on Shein's colorful website. “If you buy sustainably, you have to have a lot of knowledge,” says researcher Tobias Schnell. A product is considered sustainable if it is economically efficient, socially acceptable and ecologically justifiable. “It is of course absolutely exhausting to take so many different aspects into account,” says the sociologist.

What could help: a color scale that shows the sustainability of a product as transparently as possible. However, when in doubt: “The best solution is to avoid buying new ones, buy second-hand and use products for as long as possible.” Because the greatest environmental damage occurs during production: it takes an average of 2,700 to produce a single T-shirt liters of water. This is how much a person drinks in two and a half years.

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Secondhand mode is popular. The auditing firm Pwc estimates that sales on the second-hand fashion market in Germany will increase from around 3.5 billion euros in 2022 to five to six billion by 2025. According to this, 56 percent of consumers in Germany said they had already bought used clothing – and even 64 percent of Gen Z.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, waste disposal companies collected 176.2 tons of textiles from private households in 2021 alone – around 70 percent more than in 2011.

Kielerin reports: This is how minimalism works in everyday life

Adriana Szymanska from Kiel tried to change something on her doorstep and regularly organized the Kieler Kreisel swap party. Strolling aimlessly through shops – she doesn’t do that anymore. When she goes to the thrift store, it's with a list. At the moment it says: a larger hose. The 40-year-old doesn't need anything more right now. So she doesn't buy anymore. Above all, this is “liberating,” she says.

Constantly buying, sorting out, throwing away: “Consumption causes stress,” says Szymanska. They took over most of the furniture in their apartment from their previous tenant and mostly left out the decorations. “Dust catcher,” she says.

But you don't have to make it harder than necessary: ​​after moving, she sat thoughtfully in her bedroom, reports the new minimalist. They didn't have any pictures hanging on the walls; she stared at the white woodchip wallpaper and thought: “It looks like a hospital here.” Szymanska has now found a medium that she feels comfortable with. Instead of knick-knacks, there are plants and beautiful everyday objects in her apartment.

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Small changes are better than an “all or nothing” principle, says Szymanska. It helps to first consider why you want to live more sustainably: for the environment, to save money, to avoid toxins. Then you could better decide why you want to pay attention when consuming. If the effort involved in looking for a second-hand product is too great, Szymanska sometimes buys something new. She has never been to Primark in Kiel.

CN

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