The fashion industry encourages people to spend far too much time and money on clothes. It’s natural for humans to use clothing as a mark of belonging to a group and to try to keep up with style trends. The fashion industry exploits this natural desire and turns it into a capricious, impractical, and expensive rush from one style to another. For example, in one recent year, fashion did an abrupt about-face. Early in the year, fashionable outfits showed a minimum amount of fabric and a maximum amount of skin. By late summer, famous fashion designers were drowning people in bulky, cumbersome outfits that looked five sizes too big. Vanity inhibits people from looking realistically at exotic clothing fads. A striking new style catches their eye, they look at the clothes they’re wearing, and they are suddenly vulnerable to the
manipulation of the fashion industry.