Laura Craik's Trendwatch: Jane Fonda, fast fashion and social media U-turns

Our arbiter of style salutes an icon, considers forsaking fast fashion and gets fed up with social media U-turns
Hot stuff: Jane Fonda
Laura Craik11 June 2015

GROWING FONDA WITH AGE

How cheering that Jane Fonda, 77, is having a moment, when she’s already had so many moments throughout her 55-year career that you’d think there were no more left to have. Despite being fabulous in Klute, On Golden Pond, Barbarella, Fun with Dick and Jane and Tall Stories, as well as making arguably the most famous fitness video of all time, it’s her portrayal of dumped yet defiant Grace Hanson in Grace and Frankie that has touched a particular spot with viewers. Fonda acts the part beautifully, but it’s her appearance (of course) that’s got the world slack-jawed with admiration. Forget aspiring to look like Elle Macpherson when you hit 50; the newest life goal is wanting to look like Fonda when you hit 80.

‘So obsessed by Jane Fonda that I nicknamed her “my mum” at the office. So everyone knows who I’m talking about,’ posted Vanity Fair’s Virginie Mouzat on Instagram. Mouzat will no doubt be primed for the second series of Grace and Frankie, just commissioned by Netflix. Meanwhile, Jane Fonda is on the cover of fashion bible W magazine, looking hotter in a sequin sheath dress than models half her age. Hang on, make that models a quarter of her age. Bow down.

CHEAP, NOT CHEERFUL

I would love to say that I’ve been trying to buy less because I’m a pious eco warrior who eschews trends in favour of saving the planet, but it would be a lie. I’ve been trying to buy less because I have less money than I used to. So there it is. Flares have passed me by; so, too, have bucket bags, suede skirts and broderie anglaise. The weird thing is that I kind of look better for not having bought them. I don’t look fashionable, but at least I look like me and not Oldlivia (sic) Palermo.

This has everything and nothing to do with The True Cost, a new documentary that casts an unflinching eye over the fashion industry — not the shiny, happy-clappy front row part, but the grim back end. Filmed in 13 different countries including Bangladesh and Haiti, it unveils the unsavoury and unreported truth behind the making of the cheap and plentiful high-street clothes we buy. Despite 1,129 garment workers perishing in 2013’s Rana Plaza fire, the following year was the fashion industry’s most profitable ever, according to the film-makers. ‘I believe those clothes are produced with our blood,’ says one female garment worker in Bangladesh, her eyes filled with tears.

The True Cost

I didn’t know that only ten per cent of the clothes we donate to charity shops are actually sold; that many end up in Haiti, where they sit in giant bales, or overflowing from landfills, where most don’t biodegrade for several decades. Nor did I know that fashion is the second most polluting industry after the oil industry. I watched The True Cost on a Friday night, with beer and nachos, instead of watching 30 Rock for the zillionth time. Guilt pricked at the sleeves of my high-street T-shirt. It isn’t a feelgood film. There’s no good night to watch it. But things won’t change if we don’t know how bad they are in the first place. Just as Fast Food Nation changed our views on cheap eats, The True Cost deserves to change our views on cheap clothing. ‘They’re making us believe we are wealthy because we can buy a lot,’ said Livia Firth, the film’s co-executive producer. I don’t want other women to be kept poor just so that I can feel rich. Which is why I am going to carry on trying to buy less. Which means: no more tipsy shopping on Asos and no more panic-buying in Zara. Do I want it? Yes. Do I need it? No. And there’s the difference. It’s a small one. But really, it’s a huge one.

BLOG OFF

Note to famous people: stop making grand statements saying you’ll never do social media, then promptly doing social media. Hot on the heels of Joanna ‘Never, not Facebook, not anything’ Lumley joining Twitter comes Marc Jacobs, who despite stating he was ‘so appalled by the social media thing’, has taken to Instagram like Caitlyn to a corset. As well as using Instagram to reveal the faces of his new autumn campaign (Cher and Willow Smith thus far), he also enlisted his bezzie, Kate Moss, to do a parody of teen blogger Lohanthony’s ‘basic bitches’ meme. For a self-confessed Luddite, Jacobs is a natural. Which is more than I can say for some other designers, ahem.

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