Greenish envy
Home » Magazine » Good, issue 1 » Good start » Greenish envyEmily Perkins reports co-trends from the fourth-to-top rung of The Ladder of Virtue
Eco-worrier
There’s nothing more irritating than the smugness of friends whose worm farms are well established. All that talk of ‘juice’ unnerves me. I’m sure I’d get confused on a hungover morning and try to drink it. Then there’s the holy glow of people who have adopted a plant-based diet with nary a longing glance at a nice bit of steak. What is this new phrase, ‘plant-based diet’? Is it just vegetarians trying to zhuzh themselves up a bit? It makes you sound like a ruminating mammal. Perhaps it is a euphemism for ‘vegan’, a word that truly scares people off, implying as it does that you are a life form from another galaxy. Yes, ‘plant-based’ is how vegans now describe themselves in a desperate bid for dinner invitations. Although their diet puts them near the top of the Socio-Ecological Ladder of Virtue, it also makes them problem guests.
One new way to climb the rungs of eco-cool is urban beekeeping. According to the Beekeepers’ Association, the important base level of bees in New Zealand gardens has been significantly reduced over the years, and managed bee colonies are much needed.
Imagine how prized jars of honey are when it comes to the neighbourly produce swap and everyone is sick to the back teeth of tomatoes. Beekeeping does seem fun, as long as you live in the inner suburbs, which give the amateur apiarist that desirable Good Life air. (Most virtuous rural activity benefits from an urban setting, because then everyone can see you doing it.)
I’d keep hives myself except for being fatally allergic to stings and having a sick-note from the doctor. Last week I bought Grey Lynn honey from a roadside stall and found it very good, not tasting in the least of patchouli or Birkenstocks. And local honey is one less thing that had to be driven or shipped here, which helps me maintain my tenuous perch somewhere near the lower end of the Ladder of Virtue.
In action, my commitment to sustainable living is resoundingly average. I walk or take the bus rather than drive. I recycle. I compost when I can stand to deal with the under-the-sink scraps bin which once got ignored so long there were maggots in it — and not the desirable worm farm type. We grow our own veggies and even eat them. And we … err, that’s about it.
One friend lives in a ninth floor apartment. She grows microgreens, runs a mini-compost and worm farm (I am going to have to throw her off the balcony), and has such a commitment to her garden that she pollinates the courgettes herself. The bees can’t get up that high.
Does she wear a lab coat for the task? Or a giant black-and-yellow stripey suit? No, she wears her normal clothes, which are not Norsewear socks and a hair shirt. She looks chic, even as she inseminates flowers with a cotton bud, because these days you can care about the environment and without dressing like a geography teacher at the same time.
Despite this, it is hard to reconcile loving fashion with living sustainably. Fashion relies on inbuilt obsolescence. We look at photos of ourselves circa 1989 and can’t believe anyone thought the Levis 501 was a must-have cut of jeans. The denim might have lasted but who in their style-conscious mind would wear them? There isn’t that much irony to go around.
Many of us have so many outfits already that, barring obesity, we’d never need to buy new clothes again. If we really want to, however, we try for organic fabric, clothes made in New Zealand or, my favourite, second-hand.
Unless you’re at the ludicrously vintage end of the market, op-shop clothes are cheaper than new and, best of all, they’re recycled.
The only danger is when your awesome bargain makes you look like a refugee from the local amateur dramatics society. You don’t want to channel Fiddler on the Roof when you’re Mum on the School Run. If I were a rich man — I wouldn’t buy these deedle eedle eedle idle dum.
But thanks to other people’s dresses, I can emanate smugness of my own, inching my way up another rung on the Ladder of Virtue with each frock purchased, or at least not slipping down too far — don’t want to be any closer to the sweat-shop owners and fur-wearers, thanks. (Hellooo down there, SUV drivers! Excuse the flying potato peelings, my compost bin is over-flowing.)
To paraphrase the late American designer Anne Klein, while glossing over the fact that her company mass-produces in China: Clothes won’t change the world. The people who wear them will.
